Is a full week after New Year's Day too late to share your favorite music from the year that just wrapped up? I sure don't think so. Still, this year's top albums post is a little late, so I thought I'd spice things up a bit and bring back a format I thought I'd abandoned forever: a ranked list! While there was some legitimately great music released this year, when I was taking inventory on what my listening habits looked like in 2023, there was a clear divide between albums that I clearly loved, and the ones that had a smattering of good songs. In that way, 2023 felt like as good a year as any to rank some albums, so here we go. Each album named here comes with a glowing recommendation for you to check it out, if you haven't already, and you're always invited to let me know where we agreed or disagreed on Twitter. Enjoy the list!
Albums Receiving consideration:
15. All Time Low - Tell Me I'm Alive
14. Spanish Love Songs - No Joy 13. Citizen - Calling the Dogs
12. Hozier - Unreal Unearth 11. The Gaslight Anthem - History Books
10. The Band CAMINO - The Dark Long-removed from their (self-admitted) days of trying to sound as much like The 1975 as humanly possible The Band CAMINO have carved out their own place in the pop-rock roadmap, and The Dark finds songwriters Jeffrey Jordan and Spencer Stewart shining both alone (Jordan on "What am I Missing?", Stewart on "See You Later") and alongside one another ("Let it Happen," "It's You (It's You)," and the frenzied album closer "Last Man in the World"). The duo's dynamic allows CAMINO to boast something that many of their contemporaries cannot, which makes any of their albums a must-listen.
9. Koyo - Would You Miss It? Bands getting identified as having "potential" is one thing, but when a band like Koyo commands hype and then immediately cashes it in with a beyond-their-years debut full-length album, that's when you can tell a band is going to have a special career. Would You Miss It? carries on the time-honored tradition of bands bridging the gap between hardcore and pop-punk, featuring short-timed anthems that will have the fronts of their crowds violently pointing fingers as they recite every lyric, and the middles of those same crowds breaking out their best mosh moves in the pit. I've long commented on how nearly any band they've come in contact with Koyo seems to be a legend of the scene, and the features added by Daryl Palumbo (Glassjaw, Head Automatica), Vinnie Caruana (The Movielife, I am the Avalanche) and Anthony DiDio (vein.fm) solidifies that, as each of the three features became instant highlights of an album full of them. The band keeps a busy touring schedule, so you'll have plenty of opportunity to catch a show and hop on the bandwagon, if you haven't already.
8. Hot Mulligan - Why Would I Watch Let 2023 go down in the history as the year I learned to stop worrying and let Hot Mully into my life. You see, once you get past the grating vocals and schticky song titles, you discover that this is a band whose ability to create catchy, melodic emo is only surpassed by their ability to mask their pain in upbeat pop-punk instrumentation. Whether the band speed things up on tracks like the transcendent "Shhh! Golf is On" or plucks at your heartstrings more intricately on songs like "Smahcked My Head Awf" (yes, both real song titles), Why Would I Watch is one of those rare albums you come across where a band is clearly firing on all cylinders, an album that feels like a culmination of all the great moments they've created beforehand. It was a great year for emo's unassuming superstars, and they'll be rewarded with a full US run opening for fellow underdogs Fall Out Boy this spring. If the repeated question "Am I better now?" from "It's a Family Movie She Hates Her Dad" (yep, that's a real song title, too) wasn't rhetorical, the answer was an emphatic "YES."
7. Fall Out Boy - So Much (for) Stardust That's as professional of a segue I can offer you. future Hot Mulligan touring buddies Fall Out Boy returned from a deep slumber and returned to form in 2023, with "Love From the Other Side" ringing out early, and the rest of the tracks on Stardust ringing out often upon their release in March. While the overall reception of the record carried the consensus "Return to Form" label, let's not forget that this is Fall Out Boy we're talking about. They're still pulling influences from all over the place, trying to constantly redefine what you can expect from them. Still, it's clear that the band's vision was more aligned--or at least more clearly defined--this time around, and that's a beautiful thing to hear.
6. The Maine - The Maine
Can you beleive it? A THIRD band in a row on Fall Out Boy's spring headliner. I guess I've still got it. Actually, it's more likely that Fall Out Boy had their ears to the ground, and know which emo bands released the best music this year. The Maine seized their once-in-a-lifetime opportunity this year, releasing and album on 8/1/23, the date that shares the name of their label, festival, lifestyle, and mentality for the last decade. Starting with Lovely Little Lonely, you can make the argument that no band is on a better run of albums than The Maine in the entirety of emo over the last five years. This means that the band's self-titled album, their ninth, feel like either a culmination of the investment the band have put into themselves over the years, or yet another assertion that this band is still building towards its peak. With anthems like "how to exit a room," "dose no. 2," and "i think about you all the time" joining the band's set as staples for years to come, there's a good chance that The Maine will be a key highlight in the band's legacy when all is said and done.
5. The Aces - I've Loved You for so Long The Aces cemented their place in my Spotify algorithm when their 2018 debut full-length When My Heart Felt Volcanic was my Album of the Year. The band's propensity for pop hooks within their groovy blend of indie rock was eye-opening and teeming with talent. While Under My Influence had its moments, it's I've Loved You for so Long that will prove that The Aces are going to be a force to be reckoned with for the next decade. Teeming with heart-on-sleeve emotion on tracks like "Suburban Blues" and "Solo" while also showing the band's expanding instrumental talent on "I Always Get this Way" or the moody title track, there's a little something for everyone on this album that will challenge for the best of the band's young career.
4. Movements - RUCKUS!
I'm not sure there was a band who went deeper into their bag than Movements did in 2023. After singles like "Barbed Wire Body" and "Cherry Thrill" indicated the band would be experimenting far more than they had on Feel Something or No Good Left to Give, the band have unleashed their most expansive and complete record to date. From the gang vocals that kick-start "You're One of Us Now" to the pummeling bass in "Lead Pipe," you can hear an urgency to the band's songwriting that's never been this intense. Still, Movements finds ways to mix things up throughout, whether on the slow build of "Killing Time" or the keyboard-driven "Tightrope." Still, RUCKUS! is at its best when it bring the noise, and "Fail You" and "I Hope You Choke!" drive that point home impeccably. Movements have leveled up their sound in a big way, and the emo scene has found another band destined for superstardom.
3. The Menzingers - Some of it was True While Some of it was True may not feature the punk sing-alongs many first admired The Menzingers for, it's chock-full of the heartland storytelling that made After the Party and Hello Exile such unforgettable experiences. While the band mentioned that they made a concentrated effort to focus on where they are now, rather than looking back to the past, there's always going to be a sense of nostalgia that's associated with their songs, and that's because no band puts heartache to music as effectively as the Menzos. As they're about to complete their second decade as a band, there's a certain quality level that you can count on when the Menzingers release new music, and with tracks like "Nobody Stays," "Come On Heartache" and "Ultraviolet" adding new wrinkles to bolster instant anthems like "Try" and "There's No Place in this World for Me," we should feel blessed to live in the same time that Some of it was True was released.
2. boygenius - the record
It feels fitting that in a year where the power of young women was never more on display in pop culture--be it though Barbie's box office dominance or The Eras Tour's dominance of whatever city it traveled too--it feels fitting that the best rock record was released by an all-female supergroup. Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus have propelled themselves to the forefront of the world's best songwriters on their own merits, and together, they've created a supernova whose temperatures may never be reached again. While the band gives each member their own places to shine, the culmination of all their talents reaches its crescendo within "Not Strong Enough," the anthem of the year whose rallying cry "Always an angel; never a God" will echo in the alternative music history books forever. The boys are truly back in town, and we should all hope they never leave us again.
Album of the Year: Sleep Token - Take Me Back to Eden Whether you've gathered to Worship at the altar of Sleep or not, listening to Take Me Back to Eden should evoke the same conclusion from anyone who listens to it: this is a record made by a band without fear. Whether that cavalier approach to songwriting can be attributed to the choices made by Vessel and their bandmates to remain anonymous is unclear, and probably irrelevant. What matters is that this collective has found a way to align all of its massive talent and vision to a nearly hour-long odyssey into desperation. Whether the tracks evoke feelings of desperate love ("The Summoning"), desperate sadness ("DYWTYLM"), the desperate longing for more than what you have ("Ascensionism"), or the desperate need to move forward with your life (the haunting, supposed saga-ending "Euclid"), Sleep Token aimed to leave it all out there on Eden, and the result is an album that defies a one-genre description. Hell, I'm not even sure the paragraph I'm writing about it right now is going to be enough. What's certain, though, is that the influence of this album is going to be felt within the metalcore/emo scenes for a very, very long time, and that's the sign of a truly great album.
Let us all hope that 2024's music will live up to the great moments we all got to listen to this year. I hope to see you this time next year, at the bottom of another recap to a great year of music.
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