At the end of each year I make a list of the twenty albums I enjoyed the most. To be eligible, a record has to be of album length (at least ~30 mins), and contain entirely (or almost entirely) new material; live albums, cover records, and compilations are ineligible.
Intro.
I’ve been making these lists for more than two decades now, but each time November rolls around and it’s time to start chiseling down the mountain of a year’s releases into a set of twenty, I find myself falling into the same mental trap. I’ve become better at it over time, but I still find that I have to make the conscious effort to remind myself: I’m not trying to make a list of the objectively ‘best’ albums of 2023 — there are plenty of magazines and websites out there pretending that’s possible. My task is to produce a run-down of the twenty records that have brought me the most joy.
When I remember to think about things that way, the task of constructing the list becomes a little easier. It’s not a question of whether I think album Y is better than album Z: it’s about which made me smile more, hum more, sing more, dance more. So, here they are, the twenty album-length records, released in 2023, which moved me the most.
20. Jadu Heart — Derealised
There’s a lot going on in Jadu Heart’s sound. So much so, that early in my time with it, I had Derealised pigeonholed first as a post-shoegaze record, then as a dream-pop record, before (de)realising that it didn’t really matter which of their influences are strongest on any given track — their sound is their own. What the record has throughout, is a strong sense of core melodies, and a production style that layers hazy tones into the mix to arresting effect. ‘Cocoon’ is a straight-ahead, low-key pop song, where ‘I Shimmer’ is messier (and more clearly in debt to mbv). Never rushed — even at their most attention-demanding (eg. the Strokes-on-benzos push and pull of the aptly-titled ‘Sway’) these are songs that wash over the listener easily, casting their spell subtly. Album highlight ‘Freedom’ is perhaps the sound at its tightest, but even here it’s fuzzy at the edges, and loose in the weave. After the briefest of tours through some of their previous work, it seems this is an outfit still evolving, not content to settle into one sound. However, the songwriting (and mood-setting) here is of a quality that will keep me tuned in to see what’s next.
I vividly recall the giddy feeling induced by the arrival of Death Magnetic in 2008: Metallica had finally released another album I truly liked, from start-to-finish, a full 17 years on from having last done so with their 1991 self-titled masterpiece. Subsequently, a less-than-impressive Lou Reed collaboration in 2011 left me cold, as did (the fairly well-received) Hardwired… to Self-Destruct (2016). Which meant, upon the arrival of 72 Seasons in April, there was a heavy measure of relief in the mix for me, when the first listen confirmed what I’d dared not count on after three strong pre-released tracks: it was good! Like, really, properly good.
Eight months on, the bigger surprise is how relatively low the album has placed. There were a few weeks when I was playing the heck out of it, thrilled by its energy (highlight, and career top 30 contender ‘Lux Æterna’) and ambition (11-minute final track ‘Inamorata’). Over time the fire dimmed a little, and I’ve only made the trip through the full 77 minutes a few times in the latter half of the year. When I have, however, there’s still not a weak track to be found, and even if the front half feels stronger, latter highlights ‘Too For Gone?’ and the aforementioned epic closer, are not to be missed.
72 Seasons is, by some measure, the ‘heaviest’ record on this list, and I’m not blind to the fact that nostalgia is playing its part here. I’m confident there were any number of ‘better’ metal records released in 2023, but I’m happy just to have the company of Lars and the boys once more. Even if you can only count on one great Metallica album every decade-and-a-half, it was a joy to have this one.
18. Sebastian Rochford & Kit Downes — A Short Diary
This is a set of delicate compositions for piano and drums, from previous Mercury nominee Kit Downes, and Sons of Kemet member / Polar Bear band-leader Seb Rochford (whom I’ve kept an eye on since Peepers (2010)). On reflection, it feels as though I listened to less jazz in 2023 than has been the case in recent years — the reason, if there is one, eludes me — but there were a small number of records I really enjoyed. This relatively brief collection of sparse, reflective pieces has not only lasted since I first played it in January, it has grown in my mind as I’ve found myself returning to it. Over that time I’ve found my enjoyment increasing alongside my ability to anticipate the melodies’ next step and turn. I’ve read comparisons to Bach and Mahler, the aptness of which lies beyond my ken. I do know that the interplay between the two instruments creates a kind of magic for me, as they find new and surprising ways to complement one another.
A hat tip is owed to Tyshawn Sorey, whose Continuing narrowly misses out on a place here. That record was eagerly anticipated by me, following his appearance in the top 10 of my 2021 list. It dropped mid-year, and I’ve spent far too little time with it up to this point.
17. Screaming Females — Desire Pathway
As I write this, the news of Screaming Females breaking up is less than a week old. I’d arrived late to the band, thrilled by 2018’s All At Once, which placed 14th for me that year. Five years on, its no surprise that I was eager to receive another set of super-melodic, fuzzed up, alt rock treats, all carried along by Marissa Paternoster’s sidewinding guitar and singular vocals.
More than capable of operating across a few different gears — from the call to arms of opener ‘Brass Bell’ to the poppy jaunt of ‘Mourning Dove’, via arms-around-shoulders sing-along ‘Beyond the Void’ — the unifying element here is a well-honed ear for hooks, and a mastery of classic guitar / drums / bass dynamics. Each element enjoys its time to shine, but the delight is in how seamlessly it all fits together to make a sound that feels both familiar, and always welcome.
In their disbandment announcement, they are rightly proud of the approach they’ve taken over the last 18 years:
We funded and made the records we wanted to make. We did our own art. We printed a lot of our own merch. We managed ourselves. Probably most importantly we loaded up our van with our gear and traveled around the world to play shows wherever you would have us.
Everything about Screaming Females speaks of people who have music in their blood. I, for one, hope and expect to hear Paternoster’s voice again.
16. Unknown Mortal Orchestra — V
By the time I started paying attention to Spoon, with 2014’s They Want My Soul, they’d put out eight records over the course of almost two full decades. When I fell head-over-heels for Low’s Double Negative in 2018, they’d already put in a shift of 24 years and a dozen LPs. All of which is to say that, discovering Unknown Mortal Orchestra on their fifth (arguably sixth?) album, may be illustrative of profound ignorance on my part, but it’s not my worst offence.
V proved to be a lot to digest at once. Whilst by no means overly long, the mood it conjures is such that the record plays for me like a 40 minute orchestral movement. It’s alternative music in a different, perhaps truer, sense: pop that has been shifted somehow into a weirder, more cerebral mode. For me V echoed some of the work of previous list grandee Toro y Moi. The production here is similarly gauzy, and the vocal delivery is akin to Chaz Bear’s languid style. This is easy-sounding music, which I fall easily into letting wash over me, though I’ve learned that closer attention pays dividends. I’m still not sure I’ve entirely grasped everything that’s going on here, but it’s a record that keeps compelling me back to dive deeper.
15. K-Lone — Swells
K-Lone’s debut, Cape Cira, didn’t quite make my list in 2020, but it was in close contention right up until the end. (If I could put myself back into that mental space, I’d perhaps discover that its power had been diluted by the presence of work that year by Caribou, Georgia, and Four Tet, but who knows?) Here on album number two, the Brighton-based producer has really captured something special: unequal parts dub, synth-pop, and the ‘minimal’ end of house to which I’m so partial.
The opening of ‘Saws’ is misleading, its discordant vocal sample suggesting we might be in for something more disjointed and more difficult. It’s quickly subsumed in a warm bath of synth chords, with playful notes dancing atop. Perhaps this is intended to accustom the listener to keep their wits about them. The instrumentation remains fairly consistent throughout, with a particularly distinct percussion palette that underpins the whole ride, but that’s not to say the record doesn’t go places. These ten tracks seem to grow and bloom in front of the listener, each moment-to-moment twist a delight to behold. Playing with mournful reversed (?) string samples on ‘Strings’; adding a more prominent vocal on ‘With U’; reaching a dubby zenith on ‘Love Is’… the 46 minutes embrace a lot of different dynamics, and meld them into something captivating.
14. Puma Blue — Holy Waters
The overall sonic profile of Puma Blue is unlike anything else I encountered this year. Jacob Allen’s other release of 2023 is a sparse, delicate rendition of Nina Simone’s ‘Twelfth of Never’, which is indicative of a fundamental element of his sound. It’s augmented on Holy Waters by a blend of trip hop-adjacent percussion, haunting synths, and other precisely arranged additions. Allen’s sultry, rich vocal always remains central, and whether he’s pining for an absent love (‘Hounds’) or ruminating on attachment (title track ‘Holy Waters’), it feels as though the instrumentation has been constructed — and given a spacious, dusky mix — so as best to support his poetic lyricism, and his delicate delivery. No small part of my enjoyment is owed to the fact that listening to Holy Waters feels as close as we can get to new material from the late Jeff Buckley.
There are also frequent jazz touches (eg. when the drums and bass get a little Hail to the Thief, on ‘Too Much, Too Much’), which only contribute further to a singular-sounding record that I found myself returning to repeatedly, ideally on headphones, after the sun had set.
13. Bully — Lucky For You
When writing last year’s list, I noted the frequency with which artists were incorporating some flavour of shoegaze / dream-pop tone into their work. It’s a trend that I’ve noticed continuing this year, and nowhere more clearly than on Lucky for You. In the mix here are grungy guitar effects, fuzzed-up bass, and a vocal delivery that calls to my mind Sheryl / Alanis at their most forthright.
A few records this year fit roughly into this same category. I really enjoyed work by Claud (dreamier?), Blondshell, PONY (poppier?), and Sir Chloe – all were in shortlist contention; the latter could easily have been on the final list. What sets Bully apart for me is the consistently excellent songwriting, and the variety of ways Alicia Bognanno finds to play with the colours on her palate. The driving, bouncing ‘Days Move Slow’, followed by the more contemplative ‘A Wonderful Life’ is but one of several mode shifts that land like marvellous one-two punches. To my mind, the record’s strongest song (amongst many contenders) is the earnest ‘How Will I Know’, with its heartfelt plea of a chorus. It’s unlikely to have been at all intentional, but it quickly became entangled in my mind with Olivier Assayas’s movie Personal Shopper (2016), which I love beyond reason.
12. Illiterate Light — Sunburned
Here’s a record I discovered quite early on in the year, and which was one of the first 2023 releases to make an impression. Illiterate Light’s sound reminded me a little of the likes of Screaming Trees: attuned perfectly to a particular wavelength of alt-rock, cut with Americana. The production on Sunburned also employs some tricks (such as applying the faintest echo to Jeff Gorman’s vocal) that result in the record sounding expansive and encompassing. It was only after a fair few listens that I discovered that Illiterate Light is only a two-piece! Shortly thereafter, I watched some live performance videos, bewitched by Jake Cochran’s use of a standing drum kit; stunned by Gorman playing synth with his feet, whilst also handling vocal and guitar duties.
It’s tempting to attribute the album’s tight execution, and very definite sense of a sound, to it being the product of only two people working in harmony. Whether or not that’s true, the result is a set of richly melodic compositions, shot through with an emotional weariness that occasionally gives way to moments of cathartic brightness. ‘Wake Up Now’ is a bombastic start, uncharacteristic in its general positivity; it presages stories of loss, relationship struggle, and paranoia, all expertly rendered, if a little gloomy. For my money, things go a little too far on the album’s only weak moment: penultimate track ‘Fuck LA’, which feels too slight and half-hearted, particularly compared to the colossal ‘Light Me Up’, or the personal-feeling ‘Hellraiser’.
NB. later in the year, the band released a four-track EP which is also great, but which plays with some much brighter moods on the tracks not titled ‘Cheap Divorce’.
11. Chris Farren — Doom Singer
The loudest, sweatiest, most raucous gig I attended in 2023 was to watch Chris Farren (and, new addition to the touring outfit, drummer Frankie) tear apart a tiny room upstairs in an Oxford pub. The tour was in support of his fifth solo album, but he’s also a veteran of other outfits: Fake Problems, and Antarctigo Vespucci. I’m somewhat ashamed to say that I had no familiarity with any of those earlier records when I hit play on Doom Singer back in August. Since then it’s been in consistent rotation, its mix of poppy hooks, grungy riffs, and tongue-in-cheek lyrics an absolute delight from explosive start (‘Bluish’) to melancholy finish (‘Statue Song’). Farren’s sound captures all the melodicism I love in bands like Jimmy Eat World, and transmutes their earnestness with a playful sense of humour, without undercutting the emotional weight. Each three-minute dose of wit and verve is a delight to sing along to, with a wry smile on your face. Album highlight ‘Cosmic Leash’ stretches both the emotive and sonic range a little further, to wonderful effect.
I’ve dipped into more of Farren’s output since Doom Singer grabbed my attention, and it’s clear there’s a lot more where this came from. I’ll certainly be paying attention from now on.
10. Olivia Dean — Messy
I think I first encountered Olivia Dean’s name amongst the nominees for this year’s Mercury Prize. By the time the award show itself rolled around, I would have given the statuette to her (even over Jockstrap’s I Love You Jennifer B, which I still rue leaving off last year’s list). Messy — inaptly titled by a perfectionist — is a record that feels so well put together, and of such consistent quality, that a few months into my relationship with it, I started to find it difficult to believe I hadn’t known some of these songs (the playful big band flirtation ‘Dive’; the sultry ‘The Ladies Room’) for years. And, the list continues: the immaculately polished R&B of ‘The Hardest Part’; the sweet, coy poetry of ‘I Could Be a Florist’; the delightful family history of closer ‘Carmen’ – each showcases a talent for affecting lyricism, and a singer fully in command of their instrument: a little Lauren Hill, and a little Amy Winehouse.
Last year this same niche was filled for me by Amber Mark’s excellent Three Dimensions Deep, and whilst I don’t find that I chime with a great deal of modern, mainstream R&B / soul, I deeply appreciate having had these records over the last couple of years, as a refuge of uncomplicated comfort. Messy has a warm and inviting aura that I reached for on several occasions, out of a desire simply to be close to that quality.
9. Andrea — Due in Color
Mononymous Italian producer Andrea has been putting out work on the Zenker brothers’ label Ilian Tape for a decade, and whilst the name has crossed my awareness over the years, debut album Ritorno (2020) isn’t one that I remember playing. My first encounter with Due In Colour, however, came with a strong recommendation, and it does not disappoint. A melange of muted club beats, jazz-adjacent percussion, and washed out production, makes every minute of this record’s hour-plus runtime a mesmerising journey. Each composition flows one into the next, as the hazy instrumentation is carried through a range of tempos, from lounge chair to dance floor.
I feel like I go looking for an album roughly in this space each year, and since I was tipped to Due in Color back in March, it has remained a go-to record for me whenever I’ve been in the mood. Only time will tell whether it wears as well for me as the very best examples of its kind, such as Shigeto’s No Better Time Than Now (17th in 2013), which I still play regularly.
8. Buck 65 — Super Dope
I almost don’t need to write this entry. The one and only Legendary Buck 65 took second place on last year’s list, with his first album in seven years. As though surprising himself that he still had all this in him, he’s followed up in 2023 with not one, or two, but three records. One, a collaborative effort with Doseone and Jel, 25 years in the making. The other two, essentially straight-up sequels to last year’s King of Drums. Both May’s Super Dope and November’s Punk Rock B-Boy are cut from the same cloth as 2022’s glorious reemergence: immaculately constructed beats, and rhymes as clever and convoluted as they are goofily self-aware. Add in frequent, increasingly niche baseball shout outs, and it sometimes feels like these records are being made especially for me.
I’m listing Super Dope here because, at this point, I know it better. My suspicion is that, when I find more time to spend with the newer record, I’ll enjoy it just as much. These are albums with a lot to unpack, and it’s been my experience that they only grow on me over time. The same is true of my favourite of Buck’s 90s & 00s output, but — if asked to choose — I might say we’re currently in his best era. I’ll take as many of these as he wants to put out.
7. Cut Worms — Cut Worms
This self-titled release is Max Clarke’s third album as Cut Worms, and was a revelation to me when I happened upon it this summer. Despite sounding like a blend of Bright Eyes-esque folk, classic 60s rock n’ roll, and a strong dose of Americana, everything about this felt fresh and vital to me the first time I heard it, and 34 minutes later I found myself playing it again. The record’s balance of easygoing melody, simple constructions, and personal lyrics shot through with melancholy, feels earnest and honest, despite the sound’s affectations. It’s an album that invites you to share in the warmth of its lo-fi production, and to tap your foot to its relaxed pace. Each three minute track has the feel of having been discovered on some long-lost 7-inch, and polished to glowing life.
There’s something enormously endearing about both the world that Clarke’s songs conjure, and the way in which he’s delivering it. Though musically very different, it’s a spell that has similar effect to those early White Stripes records that I fell for two decades ago.
• • •
When it comes to sequencing this list each year, there’s usually a clear demarcating line between the very tip top, cream of the cream records, and a larger group that are all great, and deserving of a place, but which don’t shine quite so scorchingly bright. I loved my time with all fourteen records listed thus far, but the margins are thin between them, and between a dozen more records just over the horizon of a top 20. For me, there were half a dozen albums this year that were truly a cut above, and which I anticipate playing for years to come. Welcome to the top six.
• • •
6. boygenius — the record
Phoebe Bridgers' Punisher placed 17th on my 2020 list, and has had more staying power than at least five of the records that ranked above it. Lucy Dacus’s Historian was in contention for a spot in 2018, and I’ve enjoyed her solo output since. I also enjoyed Julien Baker’s 2021 LP Little Oblivions, but of the trio that comprise boygenius, she was perhaps the least well known to me. It quickly became clear on a couple of listens, however, that boygenius is a true gestalt: the sum greater than the parts.
Opening a capella number ‘Without You Without Them’ might not be to everyone’s taste, but it’s certainly an effective showcase of how well the three voices harmonise. And such is the joy of the record: the lyrics (hip, knowing, sometimes resigned, often open-hearted), and the simple, spacious compositions, are certainly full of charm, but its the melding of three different voices and sensibilities into a magical whole, which truly magnetises. Fragility and strength ebb and flow throughout the album, both in terms of message and delivery. The (post-a capella) introductory trilogy of ‘$20’, ‘Emily I’m Sorry’, & ‘True Blue’ (complete with interlinked videos (directed by Kristen Stewart)) is a microcosm of the set as a whole. As the three voices take it in turns supporting one another in telling personal stories in verse, you get the distinct feeling that this is a folk record in disguise. Even at its rockiest (‘Satanist’) its defining characteristic is raw emotionality. As heart-swollen and touching as anything from the era of peak Saddle Creek, these were songs I returned to countless times since the LP’s arrival in March, basking in increased familiarity.
5. Priya Ragu — Santhosam
Priya was one of the most welcome surprises of 2021, taking third place on my list that year with her debut LP damnshestamil. There are cuts on there so well-honed and perfectly polished (‘Leaf High’, ‘Good Love 2.0’, & ‘Chicken Lemon Rice’ amongst them) that I’ll admit to a soupçon of doubt that another record would yield comparable results. There have been plenty of artists over the years, who have thrilled with their first offering, and then proven incapable of following up. Perhaps unfairly, the first to mind is La Roux: an exemplary debut in 2009, the quality of which hasn’t been close to matched by anything on the subsequent two albums in the 14 years since.
Well, no such problem for Priya Ragu, who has filled Santhosam with fine examples of her unique blend of soul / hip-hop / R&B and influences from her Sri Lankan-Tamil / Swiss upbringing. I still hear a little Janet (Miss Jackson if you’re nasty) in the ease with which Priya does it, but truly this sound is entirely its own thing. Its infectious warmth and colour characterises track-after-track of immaculately danceable, smile-along pop. Even when tackling more difficult subject matter — such as racist policing on ‘Black Goose’ — there’s an undertone of communal understanding and unity. If proof were needed that Ragu is the real thing, it’s in no short supply here. I’m still listening to the debut with some regularity, and I also anticipate playing this for years to come.
4. Paramore — This Is Why
Of Paramore’s previous output, Brand New Eyes is the previous high-water mark: 8th in 2009. Their self-titled record reached 12th in 2013, and After Laughter hit 10th in 2017. Obviously all of that is contextual, which perhaps explains why — ranked against one another — they would fall in an order other than that suggested by their relative competitiveness in their respective end-of-year running. We should also note front woman Hayley Williams’s solo work: Petals for Armour broke the top five on my 2020 list, before follow-up Flowers for Vases / Descansos failed to place the following year. All of this makes a kind of sense, if you can hold it all in your head at the same time. The folkier, sparser arrangements of the latter solo record didn’t work for me in the same way that the combination of Williams’s voice, artful lyric, and ear for a pop-rock hook have across other contexts. What’s more, at the close of 2023, I count myself as probably more of a Paramore fan than I have been at any point in the past. Looping This Is Why for weeks after its February release predictably led to some level of burnout. That led, in turn, to a revisiting of their previous work, which — despite the fact that I already knew it well — deepened my admiration for their dynamic, ambitious brand of pop-punk-dance-rock.
This Is Why stands as perhaps the apotheosis of their style. It’s Paramore’s best record, and a showcase to the most mature version of their sound. The opener and title track is all groovy bass and slinky vocal, at least until its chant of a chorus; ‘The News’ is more jagged and motivated; ‘Running Out of Time’ is more narrowly focussed, but no less enthused. My personal favourite, since my early days with the album, has been ‘You First’, a synth-infused run up and down the gears that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Metric release.
The six years between releases — and Williams’ solo output — had me questioning whether Paramore were in fact on some kind of unannounced / unofficial hiatus. It’s been a pleasure to revel not only in their return, but in their having reached new heights.
3. Romy — Mid Air
When, at the very beginning of opener ‘Loveher’, Romy Madley Croft softly intones a request to “turn it up a bit more”, I almost invariably comply. Mid Air is an album I want to be surrounded by and enveloped in, and a little additional volume helps cast the spell. Another vital ingredient is Croft’s soft, sweet vocal, of which I’ve always been a fan: The xx’s Coexist placed 20th in 2012; I See You, 16th in 2017. Add in lyrics that tell personal and true-feeling stories about queer love and mental health, all suffused with a pleasing optimism. And on top of that, there’s the production, which takes Fred Again..’s (sic) intimate, soft-touch style and (for this listener) elevates it into a poppier mode.
From ‘Loveher’ through to closer ‘She’s On My Mind’, Mid Air quickly felt very much as though it had been conceived as an album, as opposed to discrete songs. Both the mood, and the unfolding romantic narrative feel like a single journey, though one with identifiable landmarks. ‘The Sea’ is coy and meandering; ‘Strong’ is the big beat peak; ‘Did I’ dims the lights; late album highlight ‘Enjoy Your Life’ is an unimpeachable dance anthem.
With this release, Romy eclipses her xx band mate Jamie xx’s 8th place on my 2015 list, for his solo debut In Colour. At this point, I’m impatiently awaiting another xx LP, and also more solo work from – with apologies to Oliver Sim, whose own solo record, Hideous Bastard, didn’t entirely work for me last year – two of its members. If I could only have one though, at this point I’d choose Romy in a heartbeat. No record felt more like an embrace this year than Mid Air.
When it comes to record releases, it’s not often you get a true sequel. It’s more common in hip-hop (see eg. Jay-Z’s In My Lifetime vols. 1-3 & The Blueprint 1-3), but if a rock band is going to release multiple albums’ worth of material under one title, it usually comes in the form of a double-album: classics of the genre include The Beatles’ The Beatles (1968), Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk (1979), and Nine Inch Nails’ The Fragile (1999).
There are confusing outliers, such as Smashing Pumpkins’ insistence on giving certain releases a subtitle or volume number, which series potentially never to be added to. Guns n Roses’ threw a curveball in 1991 with the tandem releases of Use Your Illusion volumes I & II — essentially a double album, though you had to purchase both halves separately. All of which gave rise to conflicted feelings for me, when Metric announced that their 2022 masterpiece Formentera would get a direct continuation.
One cause for concern was the extent to which the situation seemed to echo Biffy Clyro having released A Celebration of Endings (14th for me in 2020), and then finding they had another album’s worth of material almost immediately. The Myth of the Happily Ever After (2021) was enjoyable enough, but did not place for me. Perhaps a more optimistic allegory would be Radiohead’s unfairly maligned Amnesiac (2001), certainly lesser than its immediate precursor, Kid A (2000), but a wonderful record in its own right. Was that a reasonable expectation?
You will recall, of course, that Formentera was my favourite album of last year, and at twelve months’ remove, I remain happy with that assessment. My end-of-2023 Apple Music rundown informs me that I have played no artist more frequently in this year than Metric, and it’s not exactly what might be considered close. The band also performed my favourite live show of the year: a couple of hours of synth-rock bliss at Camden’s Roundhouse, back in February.
Formentera II itself very much continues the pandemic angst and desire for escapism that characterised the original record. Highlights include the ultra-catchy ‘Days of Oblivion’, the semi-autobiographical ‘Who Would You Be For Me’, and the teasing ‘Suckers’, which threatens to break out of itself at any moment. ‘Descendants’ feels like a closer, echoing some of the sentiments of epic Formentera opener ‘Doomscroller’, before actual closer ‘Go Ahead and Cry’ heralds the (false?) dawn of a new day, as we collectively awake from the fugue that Metric have so masterfully chronicled.
Happily, I needn’t have worried when Metric stood back from the near flawless Formentera, and asked “want to see us do it again?” Lesson learned: the answer to that question, from this band, should always be yes.
1. Olivia Rodrigo — GUTS
When it comes to record releases, it’s not often you get a true sequel. When last we heard from Olivia, she was heartbroken and frustrated in the aftermath of a relationship gone — pun intended — SOUR (2021). Two years later, Rodrigo’s latest dispatch is another hymn book full of remarkable pop-rock gems, this time squarely aimed at the trials and tribulations of young adulthood. The heat and glare of the spotlight on someone in her position is almost unfathomably oppressive to the average person, and yet Rodrigo not only handles it with grace, she finds the words to elucidate her situation in a manner that renders it relatable. Too quickly pigeonholed as a pop phenomenon, Olivia is a wildly underrated lyricist. Opener ‘all-american bitch’ is (like many of her songs) a bombastic, ultra-self-aware jam — in this case on the precarity and impossibility of modern womanhood. Taken alongside tracks like ‘making the bed’ and closer ‘teenage dream’, the listener bears witness to a supremely talented songwriter wrestling with expectation, fame, and the ephemerality of youth.
All of that sounds quite heavy, which is misleading, because GUTS is also home to the same infectious, effervescent joie de vivre that characterised SOUR. There was no more self-effacingly goofy song this year than ‘ballad of a homeschooled girl’, unless it was ‘love is embarrassing’. And then there’s lead single (and my favourite song of 2023), ‘vampire’: a masterclass in song construction that fits the highs and lows of a riveting emotional journey into little more than three minutes.
I hit GUTS so hard when it released in September, that I had to force myself into taking a break. As a substitute, I found myself regularly playing Cyndi Lauper’s She’s So Unusual (1983), a now 40 year old pop landmark that carries its message across four decades as clearly as a bell. That’s the company in which I place Olivia Rodrigo, even at this early point in her career. I hope she’s around for decades to come, explaining the world and the heart through the medium of perfect pop music.
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