The albums that soundtracked my cursed year.

It was wild, wonky, wayward and a bit weird. Here are the albums that helped me survive 2023.

Dec 30, 2023

Every year, I make a playlist. It’s full of songs from all over the place. Whenever I hear a good one, I chuck it into the mix. Then, every week or so, I give it a bit of a cull.

I keep the good ones and discard the duds. If a song sticks around for a few months, that song is probably a keeper. It might even earn itself a permanent spot.

There are rules for this playlist.

It can only include 100 songs.
Those songs need to have been released during the same year.
I need to love every single song on that playlist.

I’ve done this for several years now and I love the results. I end up with a perfect soundtrack, a snapshot of music that I’ve played across the previous 12 months, something that sums up whatever that year was.

I keep those playlists and I go back to listen to those songs all of the time. They connect me to where I was and what I was doing when I heard them the first time, when I decided they were worthy of being added to one of these playlists.

But this year was different.

This year was stressful.

This year was broken.

I’m still working out how the pieces fit back together.

So I neglected my playlist.

I wasn’t going to do this. I didn’t think I wanted to, or needed to, or could. I hadn’t listened to enough songs, connected to enough music, played my playlist enough times to work out what my favourite songs and albums of the year were.

Did I even want to go back and remember this year anyway?

But then I had another thought.

It might be even more important to do this than ever before.

To mark this year, to remember it, and pay tribute to the music that got me through it.

Wiser people than I tell me the bad times in life are just as important as the good times. It’s how we learn, and grow.

I may not have listened to as much music as I usually would, but it still played an incredibly important role in helping me survive the past 12 months.

When I was feeling happy, I listened to 100 Gecs.

When I wanted to be transported, I listened to Wiki.

When I was feeling chill, I played Erny Belle.

When I was feeling angry, I played Skrillex.

When I was sad, I played Young Fathers.

So here we are, on the last day of 2023.

If ever I’m going to do it, this is my last chance.

May I present to you, my 12 favourite albums of 2023.

100 Gecs – 10,000 Gecs

Dylan Brady and Laura Les put the past 30 years of popular culture into a blender, pipe it out through distorted mics and broken speakers, and arrive in a place no one has been before. As 100 Gecs, they make music that is chaotic and playful in equal measure. “I’ve got Anthony Kiedis / Sucking on my penis,” coos Les on ‘The Most Wanted Person in the United States,’ my favourite song on 100 Gecs’ second album that combines ska, mumbled lyrics, a punk-rock chorus and cartoon boinks. Incredible.

Wednesday – Rat Saw God

Give me a female-fronted, southern-tinged, grunge-indebted throwback band and I will happily sit there and listen to them for hours. That’s exactly what I did with Rat Saw God, Wednesday’s fifth (!) record that layers spiky guitar riffs over and over each other until the hair on my neck stands up. Hot tip prediction: Wednesday play Auckland’s Whammy Bar on February 22; it will be among the best live shows of 2024.

Young Fathers – Heavy Heavy

My biggest New Year’s resolution is to find a way to see Young Fathers perform live in 2024. Heavy Heavy is the Scottish trio’s fourth album and they’re only getting better at sounding like no other band on the planet. That’s because of the layers: a near-perfect mix of TV on the Radio’s guitar-fired spirit and the kapow creativity of early Kanye. If I could only keep one album from this year, it would probably be this.

Wiki – 14K figaro

Another New Year’s resolution: to go to New York and wander its streets with 14k Figaro playing through my AirPods. Wiki’s street reports are so dense, and so specific, you can almost see the rats scattering into gutters as he walks through the city spitting his nasal snarls. This makes me ache for bagels and pizza by the slice.

Olivia Rodrigo – Guts

Second-album syndrome? “Fuck that,” says this former Disney teen queen. Guts is bigger and louder than Sour, Olivia Rodrigo’s breakthrough, so it’s a mystery to me why this hasn’t hit as big. Anyone who can make an album that our entire family – including a 13-year-old who listens exclusively to Skrillex – can enjoy makes my list.

Skrillex – Quest for Fire

Speaking of Skrillex, this is my most played album of the year. I love this record, I loved his live show in Auckland, and I’ve said all I will ever say on this matter.

Danny Brown & JPEGMAFIA – Scaring the Hoes

I liked Quaranta, Danny Brown’s late-year deep dive into his soul, but I didn’t love it. Scaring the Hoes, on the other hand, is an album I cannot get enough of. This is Brown’s Run The Jewels-style team-up with JPEGMAFIA that oozes chaotic punk-rap spirit. It’s a jarring listen: Brown and Peggy fight for attention over bruising, layered beats, a combination that happily scrambles my synapses with every listen.

H31R – Headspace

I honestly don’t know much about this record, and I’d like to keep it that way. (Go read Pitchfork’s review if you have to.) It’s glitchy and woozy, a moody masterpiece of bite-sized rap snapshots that sounds so current, so now, it makes PinkPantheress feel positively ancient. Get Headspace on your headphones now before everyone else does. You probably have about a week before Barack Obama’s raving about this one.

Erny Belle – Not Your Cupid

I’ve banged on enough about how good Not Your Cupid is this year, so I’m not going to do it again. If you know, you just know.

Earl Sweatshirt & The Alchemist – Voir Dire

Earl Sweatshirt’s mumbles can disappear into the ether. Often, he makes stoner music for those walking the streets at 2am with headphones on their ears and hoodies over their heads. Voir Dire was something different. His lyrics are clear, and the beats, provided by The Alchemist, are crisp and soulful. We had to wait for this, thanks to a weird release held back by an exclusive deal and internet riddles, but it was worth it.

Caroline Polachek – Desire, I Want to Turn Into You

She’s mesmerising, often brilliant, and certainly individual: there’s no one else in pop doing what Caroline Polachek does. What is that thing exactly? “Her haunted wail goes to places only Mariah Carey has been before,” is how I described it when I named her debut, Desire, I Want to Turn Into You among the best things of the year.

Home Brew – Run It Back

If there’s a single album that sums up 2023, it’s this, Home Brew’s glorious return after 11 years away. Run It Back is rife with trauma. It reckons with the past. And it’s hopeful too, trying to use its history lesson to find a new path forward. Crucially, it never takes itself too seriously, with Tom Scott cutting himself down whenever he thinks he’s gone too far. In ‘80 Down Scenic’ Scott delivers some of the best lines he’s ever written, then deadpans an ending that kills me every time.

So that’s it for 2023.

Wherever you find yourself this morning, I hope you can find a moment to take in the previous 12 months, to appreciate everything you’ve been through, to pat yourself on the back, and say to yourself: “Good job”.

Congratulations.

You made it through 2023.

Holy fuck.

That’s something worth savouring, even if just for a moment.

As a special treat, here’s Channel Tres making a song in 10 minutes with the hip-hop producer Kenny Beats. It’s everything I love about music: silky summery 70s beats, funky lyrics full of quotables, and two people loving the shit out of each other’s company.

Good people and great music.

Sometimes, that’s all you need.