Best of 2023 — Music
Given my tastes, this year ended up being one of the all time greats. Since I first got a Spotify account in 2013 I’ve created a running playlist throughout the year of albums I enjoy. 2023 has double the number of albums as the next closest since I started tracking. There’s no way I could limit myself to ten this year; there’s just too much to share.
Don’t have time to read this all? Grab the playlist (which also has extra singles from albums that didn’t quite make the list).
The Menzingers - Some of It Was True
The older I get the less I know
And I knew nothing then.
This band has the uncanny ability to release an album that perfectly fits where my life is at the moment it’s released. They captured the turbulent transition from carefree 20s to 401k-managing 30s on After The Party and the stasis and stress of pandemic living in Hello Exile. Now my growing acceptance with my lack of understanding is reflected back at me in Some of It Was True. Through it all, they manage to stay hopeful that their increasing age doesn’t preclude their youthful energy—another reality that I try to remind myself of every day.
Petey - USA
Hell, what do I need? I need the freedom to smell bad
'Cause this ain't relaxin'
thinkin' 'bout way to much in a warm bath
This album came out the weekend Portland flipped the switch from Summer to Fall. Overnight we went from 80º and sunny to 55º and rainy. This was a perfect soundtrack for throwing on sweaters and watching rain overflow the gutters, washing away a season that feels shorter every year.
Crime in Stereo - House & Trance
Oh, Superuser
The lights are always out
You do it to yourself
When you put your money down
The cynical take is that every mildly successful 00’s punk and hardcore band is coming out of retirement with reheated servings of scene kids’ favorite comfort foods. But Crime In Stereo’s first album in 13 years is the ideal version of this narrative. Reuniting without fanfare—or an overlong reunion tour—they set to work writing an album that tackles many of the societal ills that have popped up in the past decade. Tech addiction, gun violence, book bans, and an overly influential billionaire class are all covered with righteous angst and fury. Uplifting? Certainly not. But this album hits hard.
Fiddlehead - Death is Nothing to Us
Yeah I’ve got fire and I’ve got light
They’re three feet tall and they smile bright
Between the Richness wasn’t just my favorite album of 2021, it is on the shortlist of my favorite albums of all time. Death is Nothing to Us is a trilogy-capping album that, at its heart, is about wrestling with the loss of singer Pat Flynn’s father.
Where Between the Richness balanced that grief with the joy of welcoming a child into the world, this album finds that one cannot replace the other. Grief does not fade. It becomes a part of you, and you have to learn to be the person others need you to be while carrying that burden. It is an incredibly powerful album and it contains my favorite lyric of the year (the one above this write up), one that I’m sure will end up as a tattoo on my body at some point.
Trophy Eyes - Suicides and Sunshine
Ask you from the tile on the bathroom floor
If you had time to come save my life
If you're busy, I'll be fine
This is a tough record to listen to. Written in the wake of the singer’s best friend’s suicide, it’s a pretty unsparing portrayal of the guilt he’s living with. When the last thing you say to someone before they take their life is “you only do this for attention,” you’re bound to have some demons to work through.
Stress Fractures - Stress Fractures
I'm getting better no matter how it seems
I'm moving forward, following my heart strings
I won't be consumed by the fear that's in me
I swear I'm okay, though looks are deceiving
The first single off this album hooked me immediately. In three minutes the song lands a flawless 180 from depressed and anxious to optimistic and empowered. It’s probably the song I most connected with this year and one of my favorites to sing-shout along to.
Heart Attack Man - Freak of Nature
Top down and scattered on Elm Street
Takе me out like a Kennеdy
This band captures the same bratty, anti-social vibes Sum 41 nailed in the early 00's. No lyric will ever make parents clutch their pearls quite like “the dentist says my mom should have had an abortion,” but songs about killing the vibe at an orgy and getting taken out “like a Kennedy” come close. Though I doubt this album will age well in my mind, and by all accounts the band members themselves are kind of brats, right now I’m happy to enjoy some simple, juvenile fun.
Militarie Gun - Life Under The Gun
A life of pursuit ends up pursuing you
I once worked with a guy that listened exclusively to ear piercing, blood curdling metal. Outside of his music tastes, he was as dad-like as a dad can be. I always wondered how his two young children reacted when he would put music on around the house. I figured they hated it. Yet, when I put on hardcore punk like this album, my own three year old starts stomping around the house like she’s breaking in a new set of Doc Martens. Kids are surprising. And this album rules.
Origami Angel - The Brightest Days
They tell you tell yourself that you're important
They tell you tell yourself the honest truth
That feels so paradoxical and stupid
My very own Kobayashi Maru
Instead of writing about this album, I’ll just share these memes instead. It’s what the band would want.
The Gaslight Anthem - History Books
There’s too much traffic in my head, babe
I wish that I was on a freeway, just flying along
But all my feelings, they kinda seemed so out to get me
I always felt like it’s a strange thing just being alive
The Gaslight Anthem is one of the few bands I can put on at any hour, in the company of anyone. They remind my dad enough of Springsteen that we’d listen to The ‘59 Sound while working together the summers I was home from college. They are punk enough for days when I’m furiously writing towards a deadline. And they’re catchy enough that my kids try and sing along, even if they’re nowhere near singing the right words. They are a perfect American band.
Bully - Lucky For You
And I'm stuck somewhere in between
Your death and my lucid dream
I'm no help, lately I know
By now, some of you may be thinking, “Boy, Ryan sure does listen to a lot of music written by angry white guys who’d literally tour the country in a stinky van than go to therapy.” Very astute! I rarely connect with female-fronted bands. It’s not for a lack of trying, but I’m aware of my blind spots. So I get extra excited when something does click, and this album did. It reminds me of the late 90s band Garbage, but with a more grunge sprinkled in.
Bearings - The Best Part About Being Human
And I know I don't seem emotional
When I talk to you some nights
But just know that I try hard
Must be hard to keep it all inside
Should I feel weird bopping along to breezy pop-punk songs about breakups written by literal children? (at least, that’s what 20 year olds feel like to me now) Probably! And yet.