Rhino released the full concert on YouTube, so do yourself a fever and watch it whlie it’s still available. Ronstadt filmed this concert for HBO around the time she released Mad Love.
Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, Live from the Ryman, Vol. 2
Many of the tracks on this second edition of live recordings from the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville come from Weathervanes, probably Isbell’s best album since Southeastern. So I’m inclined to rank it favorably over the first volume.
Various Artists, Club Epic
This compilation of remixes has some top notch hits from the ’80s: “Fantastic Voyage” by Lakeside, “Saturday Love” by Cherrelle and Alexander O’Neal, “Lover Girl” by Teena Marie, to name a few. I didn’t realize how much I missed hearing these songs.
Painkiller, Samsara
Mick Harris has traded live drums for electronics on this album reuniting the former Napalm Death drummer with bassist Bill Laswell and saxophonist John Zorn. It’s no less frenetic and still mixes well with the wild abandon for which Painkiller is known.
Ray Chen, Player One
I can’t confess to being any sort of video game soundtrack listener, so those tracks which bookend this album are pretty much adornment for the Erich Korngold Violin Concerto, the crunchiest piece of repertoire I’ve heard Chen tackle so far.
Tim McGraw, Standing Room Only
I don’t mind that Tim McGraw engages in a bit of gay-baiting, and he doesn’t move in the same creative circles of Jason Isbell or Sturgill Simpson. But I have to admit Standing Room Only sounds like an album that could imagine a Venn diagram where McGraw, Isbell and Simpson intersect.
Marshall Crenshaw, Field Day
I hadn’t explored much of Crenshaw’s early albums till a number of them showed up at the thrift store. Now I understand how the press was flummoxed that Crenshaw just never stormed the charts.
Women have so thoroughly dominated 2024 that I almost wanted to ban men entirely from this year-end list. But then sungazer and Johnny Blue Skies had to go and record some year-end worthy stuff, so it’s not a shut out.
Beyoncé, Act II: Cowboy Carter
Is Cowboy Carter a country album? No, it’s the sound of country music paying for its lack of vision.
Shiina Ringo, Hojoya
Collaborating with other women artists has really rejuvenated Shiina Ringo. The last few albums have felt like formalities. This album feels truly new.
Charli XCX, brat
I first criticized brat for drawing upon too little material for the entire length of an album. Over time, I would discover that criticism was actually its strength.
Tiffany Poon, Diaries: Schumann
Tifanny Poon is not like most YouTubers. Her vlogs often feel like miniature art films, with scenic shots underpinned by her performances. And you see her contend with the music on her recital programs, the piano given a voice (through subtitles) in how the performance turns out. The care with which she champions Schumann’s music comes through on her first album as an adult concert performer.
Perfume, Nebula Romance: Zenpen
Perfume albums are often just compilations of the last half dozen singles, and Nebula Romance: Zenpen isn’t too different in that regard. But as the trio approaches 25 years of performing, this album feels much more organic. Producer Nakata Yasutaka lightens his touch, letting the voices of Kashiyuka, A-chan and Nocchi to come through. It’s also part one of two albums, with the second expected in 2025.
Sleater-Kinney, Little Rope
After a successful return on 2015’s No Cities to Love, Sleater-Kinney wandered a bit on the subsequent albums. Little Rope course corrects just enough to remind listeners why they loved this band in the first place.
Kim Gordon, The Collective
Give Kim Gordon the damn Grammy.
Cocco, Beatrice
Similar to Onitsuka Chihiro, Cocco’s first albums cast a long shadow over everything that came after. She’s occasionally met the expectations set by that body work, and sometimes she hasn’t. Beatrice definitely does. Cocco’s most recent work is far sunnier than her early albums, but Beatrice shows some of storm and stress piping below the surface.
sungazer, Against the Fall of Night
The songs on this album are all in a 4/4 time signature, but how those four beats are divided up is the real question.
Johnny Blue Skies, PASSAGE DU DESIR
Sturgill Simpson the brand is dead. But I have no doubt Johnny Blue Skies will be no less chameleonic, starting with this album steeped in a 1970s Gram Parsons vibe.
More favorites:
Ray Chen, Player One
Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, Live from the Ryman, Vol. 2
Two things prevented me from really exploring new releases of 2023: working on my own music and discovering the work of Brian Fennell, id est SYML.
My iPod Touch has a playlist of unreleased Observant Records tracks that at one point lasted 2 hours. I have an EP, a reissue and a number of singles ready to unleash over the next two years. So I’ve been working in my own monkey house for a while, which means I’m probably losing perspective on how good this work may be.
Back in 2019, SYML released his debut album and showed up on a number of my social media feeds. My reaction: Oh, he’s cute. When he showed up again in 2023, I decided to listen to The Day My Father Died. I’ve since gone back and listened to his back catalog and also the albums he recorded with the band Barcelona.
So it’s just been me and Brian Fennell for most of 2023.
SYML, The Day My Father Died
When I first put The Day My Father Died on the half-year list, I hadn’t yet explored SYML’s self-titled debut. Now that I have, I actually like that album a bit more, but it didn’t stop The Day My Father Died from consistently getting multiple plays on my media players. Fennell has a great voice, and he’s a great songwriter. But his songs are so well-suited for his voice, it’s hard to imagine someone else covering his work. Still, it makes for some engrossing listening.
Kelela, Raven
My first play of the album was underwhelming, but I gave it another few spins, and before I knew it, the album had seeped into my consciousness. Nothing on this album stands out as a chart-topper, but in its entirety, Raven has a seductive quietude.
Eluvium, (whirring Marvels in) Consensus Reality
Eluvium albums tend to be more meditative, but this one goes for epic gestures. And it’s a welcome change.
Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, Weathervanes
Jason Isbell is similar to Emmylou Harris in how they both don’t really make bad albums. But Weathervanes made me rethink just how much I liked the albums preceding it. Both The Nashville Sound and Reunions had reached the year-end favorite list, but Weathervanes has an emotional core about as raw and vulnerable as Southeastern, his breakthrough album that turned 10 in 2023. It’s probably his best album since Southeastern.
Everything But the Girl, Fuse
Do I like this album more than Walking Wounded, Amplified Heart or Temperamental? No. But Ben and Tracey reuniting is just the balm we need for the start of the 2020s.
Kesha, Gag Order
I love it when pop stars have genuine axes to grind, and Kesha comes out swinging.
Soundtrack, BLEACH: THE BLOOD WARFARE I
BLEACH: Thousand Year Blood War is the only scripted television show I watch, and I have been enjoying the conclusion of the BLEACH storyline immensely. A lot of the music on the soundtrack is familiar to anyone who’s watched the show for any length of time, but the stakes raised in the story means the score has to rise to the occasion. So real orchestra players come in where synthesizers held court, and Sagisu Shiro’s score gets more intense as a result.
Danish String Quartet, Prism V
Over the course of five albums, Danish String Quartet explored the connections between Beethoven and Bach on composers that came centuries in their wake. In this final edition, the quartet pairs Beethoven’s Op. 135 quartet with a quartet by Anton Webern written before Arnold Schoenberg’s influence would take a strong hold. As such, the Webern link to Beethoven and Bach is clearer than the ones the Danish drew with Bela Bartok, Dmitri Shostakovich or Alfred Schnittke.
Vagaon, Sorry I Haven’t Called
If you liked Vagabon’s self-titled album , this album doesn’t disappoint. Lætitia Tamko occupies that nebulous space between pop and indie rock navigated by the likes of Solange, Jamila Woods and Sampha (the latter who also released albums in 2023.)
The Drums, Jonny
The singles preceding this album’s release were some of Jonathan Pierce’s catchiest, and the rest of the album is no slouch. Plus, the album cover is quite … honest. I like it.
More favorites:
Olivia Rodrigo, GUTS: I’m not the target audience for Rodrigo’s lyrics, but man she sure gives us olds that big rock sound.
NUMBER GIRL, Mujo no Hi: Yes, “Toumei Shoujou” shows up four times on this live set, and yes, each iteration sounds as vital as the one before it.
Troye Sivan, Something to Give Each Other: I like the cover of this album too.
Jamila Woods, Water Made Us: Did you like Legacy! Legacy!? This one is good too.
Queens of the Stone Age, In Times New Roman …: Recommended if you like … Like Clockwork.
For reasons explained in the year-end overview for new releases, Brian Fennell dominated my media players in 2023. In addition to his work as SYML, he fronted the indie band Barcelona from the late 2000s to the mid-2010s. In the interest of diversity, I limited how much of his catalog appears on this list. Otherwise, it would have been SYML and Barcelona all the way down.
Slint, Tweez
Spiderland looms large in indie rock circles, which makes it easy to overlook the charms of its predecessor, Tweez. This album just hints at the post rock gestures Slint would pioneer, but its blistering, lo-fi sound deserves its own spot in the underground rock pantheon.
Barcelona, Absolutes SYML, SYML
Fennell’s most recent work is much more introspective, but with Barcelona, he started out very much a rocker. Over time, electronics crept into the band’s sound, practically taking over the band’s third album, Basic Man. The self-titled SYML album sits at a midpoint where Fennell still wrote some rockers, but the quieter music started to make itself known. As beautiful as Fennell’s voice is on that quieter music, these louder albums demonstrate his versatility. He’s no slouch in front of lots of guitars.
Thomas Frank featuring Airport Mode, “Burn the Sails”
Thomas Frank is known primarily for his YouTube channels, but he also has musical ambitions. “Burn the Sails” is his first single as a singer, having released instrumental guitar pieces up till now. He admits to using pitch correction software, but the underlying vocals are indeed quite good.
Sudan Archives, Natural Brown Prom Queen
I didn’t get around to listening to this album till the start of 2023. Otherwise, it would have ended up on the 2022 list.
Nena, ? (Fragezeihen)
The bilingual international album 99 Luftbalons takes most of its material from this second German-language album. So if you liked the English side of 99 Luftballons, then this album is a must-have.
Queens of the Stone Age, … Like Clockwork
Songs for the Deaf casts a pretty long shadow over the Queens’ discography such that I was hesitant to believe all the good reviews … Like Clockwork garnered at the time of its release. So yeah, this one is definitely a keeper.
King Geedorah, Take Me to Your Leader
Do I listen to MF Doom for the rhymes and the beats or for the cartoon mythology? Why not both?
Luscious Jackson, Electric Honey
I let this album go when cash got tight in the early 2000s, and it shows up with enough regularity at the thrift shop that I brought it back into the collection. It should have never left.
Daryll Hall and John Oates, Private Eyes
I would have liked Daryll Hall and John Oates more if their music hadn’t been so thoroughly saturated at the time of release. Now removed from that onslaught, I have to say Private Eyes is pretty darn catchy.
Notable reissues:
Robert Palmer, The Island Records Years: I haven’t compared this boxed set with previous reissues to determine if these albums have been remastered, but Palmer’s early albums are some of the most underrated. He starts off with the Meters as his backing band and eventually becomes the dapper singer fronting a band of models.
Jason Isbell, Southeastern: 10th Anniversary: Isbell’s breakout album gets supplemented with demos and a full live performance.
The Replacements, Tim: Let It Bleed Edition: This four-disc edition of the Mats’ major label debut album includes a new mix by Ed Stasium, the producer behind Living Colour’s Vivid. And it sounds pretty good.
OK, I confess: I started listening to Brian Fennell because he showed up in my social media feed, and thought, “Oh, he’s really cute.” So yes, there may be a halo effect to my becoming a stan. But Fennell has had a diverse career so far. As part of the trio Barcelona, he sang powerfully in front of a driving guitars. By the time he released the self-titled debut album as SYML, that rock vocabulary expanded to include electronics. SYML and Absolutes are the best of Fennell’s early works.
Soundtrack, Star Trek Voyager: The Caretaker
I’m ambivalent about Star Trek as a whole, but do not doubt my devotion to Star Trak: Voyager. Most of that fandom was driven by a crush on Garrett Wang, but I really liked how Voyager felt grittier than other series in the franchise. Jay Chattaway’s scores for the series did their job girding what was happening onscreen, so subconsciously, I perceived there were some avant-grade gestures going on. I didn’t realize the extent till this soundtrack laid it all bare. So much so, Jerry Goldsmith’s theme song feels anachronistic next to it.
Vagabon, Sorry I Haven’t Called
This album is the first of three I’m anticipating in 2023. The others are Water Made Us by Jamila Woods and LAHAI by Sampha. I don’t get the impression Vagabon strayed too far from what made her previous album appealing, and that’s fine with me.
Explosions in the Sky, End
Seven years have passed since the previous Explosions in the Sky album, and they too have made made drastic renovations to their sound, similar to labelmate Eluvium. End actually has some conventional song structures — shocker! — and electronics figure much more heavily this time around. The album starts of strong, but it does flag in the second half.
Jason Isbell, Southeastern (10th Anniversary Edition)
I could go on about how the the live and demo versions of this breakout album provides context and whatever else reviewers prattle on about, but I am a gay man who is not above listening to music performed by an attractive guy. And Isbell is a smoke show on the updated cover of Southeastern.
The Replacements, Tim: Let It Bleed Edition
Hey, you know the guy who produced Living Colour’s debut album Vivid? He updated the mix of the Replacements’ major label debut, and it sounds pretty damn good.
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