The Best Albums of 2023: Charles' Version
Charles Hughes picks his favorite albums of the year
Every year is a good year for music - in fact, every year is a great year. 2023 was no exception. Whether in the wide-open world of country music, its affiliates in genres from rock to hip-hop, or music rooted elsewhere, many albums from this year earned a place in my regular listening that they will occupy for a long time. Here are a few of them, listed alphabetically and unranked, along with some favorite reissues and some honorable mentions at the bottom. I didn’t separate these by genre, although I echo David’s frustration with the lack of country representation in many all-genre lists. Each of these enriched my life and made me think and feel differently this year. I’ve turned them up a lot, and I hope you will too.
Tanner Adell – BUCKLE BUNNY
Don’t fence her in. Every song on Tanner Adell’s remarkable debut album is built around a great idea both lyrically and sonically: the strutting title track, the growling “FU-150,” the joyous “Throw It Back,” the brooding “Trailer Park Barbie,” et cetera. And “I Hate Texas,” firmly in the linked artistic traditions of the Chicks and Destiny’s Child, pulls off that old nifty trick of making you fall in love with the Lone Star State while deeply resenting the person who cost Ms. Adell’s protagonist to lose her connection. Like so many of my favorite country records (David’s too), this isn’t so much pop-country or trad-country or alt-country or new-country or whatever as it is big country, encompassing the sounds and spirits of voracious listeners and ambitious artists like Adell. She’s here to stay, scanning the horizon and staking her claim to it. To the whole damn thing.
boygenius – The Record
It’s the year of boygenius. Part of what makes this supergroup so wonderfully subversive is how traditionalist they are; they’re all ringing guitars, interlocking harmonies, earworm hooks, and songcraft that feeds pop-rock traditions through their spirit of loving defiance. Baker, Bridgers, and Dacus are trying to break your heart – on the shimmering “Emily, I’m Sorry” or the icy fingerpicking of “Cool About It” - but they’re trying to rebuild it too, with the crunchy throb of “$20” or ‘90s-radio swoon of “Not Strong Enough.” This is an instant greatest-hits and a no-skips rewriting of the canon. They rule. Long may they run.
Iris DeMent – Workin’ on a World
In its sincerity, call to community, and piano-driven arrangements, I hear Iris DeMent’s Working on a World as a response to the sounds and energies of the Civil Rights Movement and the “gospel impulse” energies that underpinned so much of it. The tribute to John Lewis is the most direct evidence, but I’m more affected by the radical hope of the title track, or the fierce urgency of “The Sacred Now,” or the way that “Goin’ Down to Play in Texas” adopts the circling repetitions of a semi-improvised folk or freedom-song rallying cry. DeMent’s still got room for the other modes that make her such a great artist – the slices of life, the subtle sensuality – but it’s her central vision here that feels like just what I need right now. Maybe what we all need.
Jessye DeSilva – Renovations
DeSilva’s roots as both country/folk musician and musical-theatre performer are on display in these compelling songs that blend sparse intimacy with epic dynamic shifts. Their work as a teacher is obvious, too, especially on songs like “Clouds,” “Dysphoria,” and the title track where they most directly tackle the album’s theme of finding one’s place and oneself. (I wrote about “Clouds” here, and I’m ever struck by how powerfully it captures the feeling of difference.) But make no mistake: this isn’t audio homework. It’s a gorgeous listen that makes space for the soaring country of “Proud and Lonely,” the anthemic folk-rock of “Let It Burn,” power-pop of “Fall from Grace” and more. I’ve recommended this album as much as any this year – both because of what it says and how DeSilva says it. (Extra credit for their stunning stand-alone cover of Don Henley’s “The Boys of Summer,” which I wrote about here.)
Elisapie - Inuktitut
What a great concept: an Inuk artist and activist reinventing pop-rock classics in her own language (which gives the album its title). But Inuktikut isn’t here only because it’s a noble, necessary exercise in what the artist calls “cultural reappropriation.” Detached (decolonized?) from their familiar settings, these songs are made newly stunning by Elisapie. Metallica’s “The Unforgiven” creepy-crawls, Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time” aches anew, Queen’s “I Want to Break Free” gains restless power, Blondie’s “Heart of Glass” blooms, and on and on. My favorite is what she does to the Rolling Stones’ “Wild Horses,” and I wrote about that here. But each track is sure to become somebody’s favorite – and everybody’s right.
Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit – Weathervanes
Isbell’s most rocking record in years, and also maybe his best. Guitars slash and sweep through anthems of desperation anchored in soaring melodies, from the crunching “King of Oklahoma” to the hard grief of “When We Were Close” to “Save the World” and its glistening dread. Isbell’s writing and performances are always sharp, but – perhaps given the autonomy of self-production and the power of a road-tested 400 Unit – he seems particularly assured here, stretching out and cutting loose. Even in its quieter moments, like the sitting-in-limbo meditation “Middle of the Morning” or the quietly devastating “Cast Iron Skillet,” Weathervanes pulses with a restless energy that befits the artist and the moment.
Roberta Lea – Too Much of a Woman
I wrote a bunch about this one already, and I still love it. I love its range of sounds, post-Lemonade framing, and sophistication of feeling. I love how well it worked when I used it as the text for a class on Black country that I taught last month. And I love how “Small Town Boy,” in particular, feels like an instant addition to the big-country canon.
Meshell Ndegeocello – The Omnichord Real Book
Ndegeocello’s latest masterpiece is an intoxicating, jazz-heavy collection that welcomes the artist to Blue Note Records in conversation with its tradition but never bound to it. It seems pointless to recount the many ways that this artist has reshaped sonic worlds around herself over the course of her recording career, which turns 30 this year. Suffice to say that Omnichord Real Book, its title a handy metaphor for its re-imagination of jazz legacies, is a stunning addition to that esteemed run. On the early “Call the Tune,” she assures us that “everything is under control,” a promise she affirms on tracks like the swirling “Good Good,” funky “Clear Water,” and folk remix “Hole In The Bucket.” She rocks with all-star collaborators from Jeff Parker to Brandee Younger and beyond, but Ndegeocello stays at the center, whether on spare ballads like “Gatsby” or the space-is-the-place symphony “Virgo.” Naming individual tracks feels useless, both because they’re all great and because the album is such a unified experience: trust that everything is in control and let yourself be carried for 72 minutes by one of our most important modern composers and record-makers. (And don’t miss the bubbling additional track, “The Atlantiques,” that she dropped later in the year.)
New Pornographers – Continue as a Guest
The Canadian trickster maximalists are back again, with another collection of strange and meticulous pop-rock filled with great hooks and unexpected turns. I’m not sure why this album, among their reliably enjoyable catalog, worked so well for me. There’s nothing different going on here, minus the regrettable absence of longtime member Dan Bejar. But I think this might end up being my favorite of theirs. Maybe it’s the sense of foreboding that permeates tracks like “Pontius Pilate’s Home Movies” or “Angelcover.” Or maybe it’s the saxophone winding around in “Marie and the Undersea” and elsewhere. Or maybe, probably, it’s just that these songs hit the bullseye of my particular pleasure centers: “Cat and Mouse with the Light” or “Bottle Episodes” capture my favorite version of the group’s technicolor mosaic, with moments that punch through with an unexpected resonance. (Like Neko Case singing “I can’t stand that you love me, you love me, you love me!”) It paired quite well with this year’s cut-and-paste syntheses from 100 Gecs or Shamir, and it’s going to be in my mix for a long time.
noname – Sundial
It’s fitting that noname’s new album dropped right around the (supposed) fiftieth anniversary of hip-hop’s birth. The Chicago-based MC and community-builder represents the continued possibilities of beats-rhymes-and-reality as a cultural form, with a clarity of vision and verbal dexterity that buttress – but never overwhelm – her deep musicality. Tracks like “hold me down,” “afro futurism” or “gospel?” work even if you don’t catch what she’s saying, as she bounces around the arrangements with the precise flights of fantasy of a great jazzwoman. But her words are very much worth catching. She calls out everything from Cop City repression to Wakanda mythologizing, but she saves her best and most affecting move for the track “namesake.” Here, over furious drum and bass, she pairs a critique of Rihanna, Jay-Z, Beyonce, and Kendrick joining forces with the NFL with a self-reflexive reminder that she’s participated in problematic institutions like Coachella. She’s calling out, but also calling in, a fitting accompaniment to the circles of sound.
Joy Oladukon – Proof of Life
Every song on this astonishing record feels like a statement of purpose and a hit waiting to happen. Like so many artists in the intersecting (and intersectional) communities of BIPOC and LGBTQ+ artists in country/Americana/folk/whatever, Oladukon seems less interested in showing her mastery of different genres – although she does that, from Chris Stapleton-assisted country-soul in “Sweet Symphony” to the folk-pop of “Changes” – than in asking listeners to imagine new categories or even a world beyond them. Tracks like “Keeping the Light On,” “Taking Things for Granted,” or “The Hard Way” recombine and reinvent the last thirty years of pop music. When guests like Stapleton, Maxo Kream, and Noah Kahan drop by, their presence feels less like high-powered cameos than affirmations of Oladukon’s wide-ranging expertise. We all talked a lot about Tracy Chapman this year – as we fucking well should every year – and I hear the best evidence of her importance to country/Americana/folk/whatever in the work of young artists like Oladukon who nod back at her iconoclastic example while adding their own chapters to the story. Proof of Life is a significant such chapter. Oh, and did I mention that every song sounds like a million bucks and has a hook that won’t quit?
William Prince – Stand in the Joy
William Prince is quickly emerging as one of our best, and this is his most fully realized album yet. On Stand in the Joy, his gentle honey-bear voice animates songs about love, loss, and life that don’t avoid conventions so much as they make up new ones. There’s unsurprising depth to knockouts like “When You Miss Someone” or “Broken Heart of Mine.” But Prince always uses a light touch, caressing the track with a soft generosity that makes the warm glow of “Only Thing We Need” or “Peace of Mind” almost unbearably lovely. David compared him to Don Williams, and he’s right – I hear Bill Withers, John Prine, and even “Quiet Storm”-era Smokey Robinson here too. Only a true craftsperson could make music that sounds so effortlessly gorgeous.
Allison Russell – The Returner
After a 2021 album that (brilliantly, astonishingly) excavated the trauma of her youth, Russell returns with a celebration of survival and joy – “the springtime of my present tense,” as she puts it on the sparkling opener. There are moments of deep personal and historical pain here, as Russell exorcises “Demons” and reckons with history in “Eve Was Black,” but the overriding impulse is one of celebration. The Returner reflects on the joys of being alive in the moment, a tone that makes the increased presence of pop and dance textures feel even more appropriate. “All Without Within” hurtles with a post-disco groove, while the anthemic “Stay Right Here” rides a Pointer Sisters-recalling track through a blues-impulse anthem of perseverance. She says it best in the spellbinding echoes of “Rag Child”: “The voice in my head said, ‘Someday you'll be buried/You'll return to the stars, but today's not the one.’” Today’s not the one indeed, so it’s time to remember, to reflect, and – of course – to dance.
Reissues
De La Soul – 3 Feet High & Rising, De La Soul is Dead, Buhloone Mindstate, Stakes Is High, Art Official Intelligence: Mosaic Thump, AOI: Bionix, The Grind Date
I am overjoyed that the catalog of one of hip-hop’s greatest groups (and thus one of the greatest groups period) is more accessible now. Not only does this mean that I can more easily introduce these records to new listeners, but it also means that I can cue them up for myself whenever I damn well please. And that’s something for which I’m deeply grateful. I wrote about Buhloone Mindstate in celebration of its thirtieth anniversary, and I’ve been spinning all these classics since they re-emerged. And I know I won’t stop. Because I can’t stop. RIP Dave. God bless De La Soul.
Bob Dylan – Fragments: Time out of Mind Sessions (1996-1997): Bootleg Series
I thought for sure that whatever gems lay in the vault from this brief period had already been mined in 2008’s Tell Tale Signs, the best of the Bootleg Series sets and the only one that feels like a great album in its own right. But I was wrong: this new journey is very nearly as entertaining and revealing as that one. The alternate versions offer new glimpses into the songs’ flexibility, as Dylan and the musicians try out different voicings, tempos, and arrangements. And the Time-less tracks – “Dreamin’ of You,” “Red River Shore,” a majestic take on “The Water Is Wide” – fit in perfectly alongside the smoky mysteries of the more well-known material. Given how good this is, how much it adds to the magisterial Tell Tale Signs, and – lest we forget – the original Time Out of Mind, it’s starting to seem like these might’ve been the most fruitful sessions in Dylan’s recording career.
Howdy Glenn – I Can Almost See Houston: The Complete Howdy Glenn
This is a revelation. Documenting the career of a hit artist who’s largely been lost even in the wondrous recent Black Country renaissance, I Can Almost See Houston isn’t just a miraculous find from producer Scott B. Bomar, who also wrote the fantastic liner notes. It’s also a very entertaining set of late-1970s country, merging countrypolitan sheen and post-Haggard balladry (appropriate for a fellow Californian). Listening to this set – the longing title track, the resolute hit version of Willie Nelson’s “Touch Me,” a knowing take on Tom T. Hall’s “Old Dogs, Children, and Watermelon Wine” – calls to mind a corollary of the standard reaction to these kinds of (re)discoveries. Instead of the usual story – how come this guy was never a star? – we’re left with an even more fascinating and frustrating conundrum: how come this star faded so quickly and wasn’t remembered? Well, Howdy Glenn will be remembered now and we’re all better because of it.
Nanci Griffith – Working in Corners
I wrote about Nanci Griffith earlier this year, inspired by this lovely re-release of her first four studio albums. These albums reveal Griffith’s early emergence as a songwriter and performer of unique poise and nuance, blending her involvement in Texas’ vibrant folk scene with her work corralling listeners in Houston honky-tonks. Paired with great liner notes by Griffith collaborator Jim Rooney and music journalist Holly Gleason, this is a treasure for anybody who loves this artist (and there are lots of us), and a welcome introduction for anyone who might be discovering her.
Jason Isbell – Southeastern: 10th Anniversary Edition
Okay, I’m biased – I wrote the liner notes. But this is a great collection regardless, showing Isbell’s breakthrough solo album as it existed earliest (the poignant set of solo demos) and most recently (the blistering live set from 2022), as well as reminding what made Southeastern so successful in the first place. Beautifully packed with photos and original handwritten lyrics, this is somehow both a look back and look forward, and it pairs perfectly with the new album that he released this year. Oh, and the liner notes aren’t bad either.
Various Artists – Written In Their Soul: The Stax Songwriter Demos
I wrote about this remarkable box when it came out, and I meant every word. This is a transformative look at one of the most important record companies of its era, as well as a startling tribute to the songwriters and musicians who made it happen. It shows both the range of the Stax Records crew and the skill with which they developed their signature sound as it emerged from Memphis and changed the whole wide world.
Geraint Watkins – Aide-Memoire
Geraint Watkins hasn’t had a blockbuster career, but he’s had a delightful one. This set chronicles that career, starting with his smoking-hot band the Dominators (whose full-speed-ahead rock fits in perfectly with the longtime Watkins collaborators in Rockpile) and extending through his recent reinvention as a kindly pop-jazz crooner. Fluid piano and sweetly worn voice anchor songs both charming and devastating, or – in the case of his most famous track, “Only a Rose” – both at the same time. Country and R&B inflections, an abiding love for Louisiana, and a sly sense of humor unite the phases, dispersed and often hard to find until now. I’ve told so many people about Watkins over the years, and I’m glad that I now have a single, official, comprehensive volume towards which I can point them.
The Who – Who’s Next: Life House
The Who’s best album is famously a reduced and reconstituted version of Pete Townshend’s rock opera Life House, and Townshend has returned multiple times to his white whale over the years. Some of that work has been striking – I’m a fan of the big Life House Chronicles set that he sold on his website back in the day – but this feels like the most effective merging of the original project and the finished album. By the same token, Who’s Next has been reissued and repackaged multiple times, but this keeps the best odds-and-sods that pop up throughout them: the stand-alone single “I Don’t Even Know Myself” and “Too Much of Anything,” the live cuts, and the early versions that mark the transition between the hoped-for masterpiece and the actual one.
Other things I loved
Mya Byrne – Rhinestone Tomboy - “It Don’t Fade,” “I’m Gonna Stop,” “Sweetheart Like Mine”
Bethany Cosentino – Bethany Cosentino – “Outta Time,” “Calling On Angels,” “Real Life”
Rodney Crowell – The Chicago Sessions - “Lucky,” “Loving You Is The Only Way To Fly,” “You’re Supposed To Be Feeling Good”
Darlingside – Everything Is Alive - “All The Lights In The City,” “Eliza I See,” “Darkening Hour”
Jeremy Dutcher - Motewolonuwok - “Take My Hand,” “Sakom,” “Ancestors Too Young”
Foo Fighters – But Here We Are – “But Here We Are,” “The Glass,” “Beyond Me”
Robbie Fulks - Bluegrass Vacation - “Molly And The Old Man,” “Angels Carry Me,” “Old Time Music Is Here To Stay”
Rhiannon Giddens – You’re The One - “You’re The One,” “If You Don’t Know How Sweet It Is,” “Way Over Yonder”
Jason Hawk Harris – Thin Places – “The Abyss,” “I’m Getting By,” “Keep Me In Your Heart”
PJ Harvey – I Inside the Old Year Dying - “Lwonesome Tonight,” “A Child’s Question, August,” “I Inside The Old I Dying”
Durand Jones - Wait ‘Til I Get Over - “Lord Have Mercy,” “Wait Til I Get Over,” “See It Through”
Lori McKenna – 1988 – “The Old Woman In Me,” “Happy Children,” “The Tunnel”
Janelle Monae – The Age of Pleasure – “Champagne Shit,” “Lipstick Lover,” “Paid In Pleasure”
Rosanne Reid - Lowside - “Daisy Chain,” “Call It Love,” “Couldn’t Wish More For You”
Reyna Roberts - Bad Girl Bible, Vol. 1 - “Country Club,” “Louisiana,” “Hell and Back”
Rolling Stones – Hackney Diamonds - “Get Close,” “Bite My Head Off,” “Tell Me Straight”
Shamir – Homo Anxietatem – “Oversized Sweater,” “The Obsession,” “The Devil Said The Blues Is All I’ll Know”
Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway – City of Gold – “Yosemite,” “Next Rodeo,” “Evergreen, OK”
Billy Valentine & The Universal Truth - Billy Valentine & The Universal Truth - “We People Who Are Darker Than Blue,” “My People…Hold On,” “The Creator Has A Master Plan”
Don’t miss the rest of our Best of 2023!
Monday 12/4: Turn It Up: Country Music, 2023
Friday 12/8: David Cantwell’s favorite albums of the year
Monday 12/11: Turn It Up: Everything But Country, 2023
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