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Matt Rogers, Have You Heard of Christmas?

I’m enough of a rockist snob to turn my nose up at Christmas music, so imagine my surprise at seeing a fucking Christmas album as a year-end pick. But Matt Rogers takes a piss out of the genre, offering a set of songs sung as earnestly as any pop star with Broadway pipes, but throwing equal measures of irreverence toward religion, gay culture and whatever else the zeitgeist deems important. But if these songs were just straight-up pop extracted from the seasonal theme? Fire. Absolute fire.

Right Said Fred, Up

Yes, Right Said Fred is a one-hit wonder, but this album is pretty solid. No, seriously.

The American Analog Set, For Forever

AmAnSet returns after 18 years with an album that doesn’t sound like the AmAnSet I remember from the 2000s. For Forever is uncharacteristically extroverted if your perception of the band is as frozen in time as mine.

Helmet, LEFT

I read a number of reviews that pointed out the last track on the album was jazzy without mentioning it was a cover of John Coltrane’s “Resolution.” These reviews were on metal-themed sites, so … OK? The rest of the album is a lot more tuneful than the Helmet I remember, a perception admittedly stuck in the early-1990s.

These fourth quarter picks can be found in the Favorite Edition 2023 Year Final:

• Soundtrack, BLEACH: THE BLOOD WARFARE I
• Troye Sivan, Something to Give Each Other
• The Drums, Jonny
• Jamila Woods, Water Made Us
• Olivia Rodrigo, Guts

These fourth quarter picks can be found in the Favorite Edition Catalog 2023:

• Slint, Tweez

Tags: helmet, jamila woods, matt rogers, picks, purchase log, right said fred, slint, soundtrack, the american analog set, the drums, troye sivan