The 2023 pop music album superlatives...so far

If you need to grab your things and go, just sign the first page as we break down the albums of the year so far, regardless of genre. If you're in the realm of pop music, not enough good things can be said about the disco-tastic new Jessie Ware album "That! Feels Good!" or the surprising joys of Magdalena Bay's stellar "mini mix vol. 3". Not many people bought Kesha's moody and bitter "Gag Order", but we have a feeling it'll eventually go down as a cult favorite. On the rock side, the cathartic  Foo Fighters LP "But Here We Are" captures the sense of loss following the death of drummer Taylor Hawkins but also doesn't forget the propulsion. The long-awaited full-length from supergroup boygenius, "The Record", somehow exceeded its hyped expectations, while instrumental rockers Unwed Sailor dropped yet another-stunner with "Mute the Charm".

We're still talking about Lil' Yachty's turn towards all things psych-rap with "Let's Start Here", and after years of working with Run the Jewels cohort El-P, hearing Killer Mike confront tough themes of fatherhood and regret on "MICHAEL" ended up making for thrilling rap listening. Kali Uchis brought some mythic sensuality to "Red Moon in Venus", while Tinariwen's "Amatssou" gets pointed without ever letting politics get in the way of their distinctive blend of West African blues. There's a beautiful, hazy stoner energy that circles country artist Margo Price's "Strays", an otherworldy sense of pop wonder baked into Nakhane's "Bastārd Jargon", an instant party in the form of Kosmo Kint's "Groove Religion", and maybe the most consoling melodies we've heard all year on guitarist Hayden Pedigo's latest instrumental full-length "The Happiest Times I Ever Ignored". If the year was suddenly over and we had to pick favorites, we'd still be spoiled for choice.

While there is certainly an audience for Lewis Capaldi's overwrought brand of confessional balladry, his sophomore record, the laboriously titled "Broken By Desire to Be Heavenly Sent", has the Scottish star lean even harder into his mopiest tendencies. Ed Sheeran , meanwhile, was enamored with what his friend Taylor Swift did with her stripped-down quarantine albums, so he hired The National's Aaron Dessner, Swift's same producer, for his own stripped-down confessional record "Subtract", which tries to be serious but forgets to have any hooks on it. U2 also got high on their self-importance with re-recordings of over three dozen songs from their back catalog in the wildly overindulgent "Songs of Surrender", while Italy's Måneskin delivered yet another slab of truly boneheaded rock music in the form of their third album "Rush!". Finally, legendary country diva Shania Twain , still recoiling from 2017's hugely underperforming album "Now", managed to find a way to water down her iconic sound even further with "Queen of Me", a lowlight from a career that has surprisingly few of them.

Sue Clayton's "Rookie" . Sue Clayton doesn't exist, which in turn, gives her the freedom to say whatever she wants. A singer-songwriter album of the most thrilling kind, "Rookie", was a great way for the great Morgan Kibby to revisit the records she loved growing up while making a searing record imbued with Californian spirit. Despite the title of the Clatyon album, Kibby is no rookie, having written hits for M83 and Panic! At the Disco, composing the legendary interludes on Lady Gaga's "Chromatica", and fronting her own indie-electro act White Sea. Yet with a new persona and some muscular production by Butch Walker, "Rookie" features tales of drugged-out desert dinners and catching yourself falling in love despite telling yourself you wouldn't because of your aging heart. It's pop, it's folk, it's country, it's torch songs, it's escapism, it's endlessly replayable. No one may know who Sue Clayton is at the moment, but a decade from now, "Rookie" could be on everybody's lips.

There's a good chance that while you may not love every song off of Texas multi-instrumentalist Burt Hussell's debut album "High Desert", there is one track on here that will become your favorite of the year. The reason is that "multi-instrumentalist" feels a bit reductive in defining Hussell's sound, as his creativity leads him onto journeys to just about every genre imaginable. From glitchy video-game chic to '80s guitar funk workouts to ethereal soul explorations to the faintest whispers of pop song choruses appearing out of thin air to a drum-n-bass/techno-rock hybrid that shouldn't work as well as it does. While Hussell had been releasing EPs and singles through Bandcamp for years, "High Desert" jumps effortlessly between styles while ensuring every song sounds like it comes from the same aesthetic place. "High Desert" overwhelms with delights on its first listen but holds up remarkably well after dozens of plays. Hussell's got the hustle.

Lil Yachty's "Let's Start Here". Without question one of 2023's landmark releases, Yachty builds off of the success of his fluke viral hit "Poland" to pivot his sound into something that feels slightly removed from the verses that brought him fame. Finding a strong musical co-conspirator in former Chairlift member Patrick Wimberly, Yachty succeeds where other artists like Kid Cudi fell in trying to do alt-rock pivots by backing up his musical moods with solid songs. The vibes change from track to track, but Yachty never skips out on exciting detours like lite-disco ("drive ME crazy!") and almost shoegaze-adjacent synth-psych ("paint THE sky"). It's an album that speaks on race, heartbreak, and so much more. By repurposing so many indie subgenres in a modern context, we can't think of an album that sounds better equipped for 2023 than this.

Frost Children's "SPEED RUN". Imagine your favorite emo band but with a love of hard electro beats and a desire to be signed to Fueled By Ramen Records. That band is now Frost Children, and "SPEED RUN" walks the line between nostalgic throwback and contemporary cool effortlessly. Even if the over-passionate vocals aren't your thing, opening track "Coup" will be stuck in your head for weeks, and the rest of this full-length follows suit, lacing dramatic lyrics with digital blips and bloops that form into solid, memorable hooks. They may cater to a very specific demographic, but if you're even remotely traveling in the same direction as Frost Children, you're in for a new lifelong obsession.

Narrow Head's "Moments of Clarity". This Dallas, Texas quartet has deep-rooted memories of when sludgy guitar bands absolutely dominated rock radio and are more than happy to summon grunge rock's finest ghosts. Their sound doesn't evoke bands hard-rock era like Creed so much as smaller groups like Chevelle, Summercamp, and Dovetail Joint, which sounds niche but doesn't matter when the songs are this good. While the production makes the album sound over two decades old, the spirit imbued in tracks like "Breakup Song" and the pulverizing "Gearhead" feels fresh and modern. They are true scholars of the era, and if you've ever attended a single date of any Warped Tour, Narrow Head may just be your new favorite band.

Miley Cyrus "Endless Summer Vacation" . While 2020's retro-leaning "Plastic Hearts" found Miley Cyrus making the most compelling music of her career, that album underperformed, causing her to switch record labels and upend all expectations with her mega-smash single "Flowers". While new album "Endless Summer Vacation" hasn't received the same levels of kudos as her last record did, that album cover is perfection. Perfectly posed, expertly styled, and athletic but not making a big deal out of it, Cyrus is playing into the record's meta-narrative about one-upping her ex by showing off what a particular someone could've had. It's a striking image that will stick with us long after this album's promotional cycle ends.

Runner-Up: Soundtrack "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse". Sometimes an expertly-rendered logo is all you need to evoke images of a great film.

The best part about our modern pop era is that a hit song can truly come from anywhere—any bedroom, any country, and sung in any language. While there have been hits from expected places, we first need to note how beautifully strange PinkPantheress & Ice Spice's "Boy's a Liar, Pt. 2" is, giving us a giddy pop-rap sugar rush on next to no budget. Similarly, Regional Mexican music is having a gigantic moment in 2023, led by Eslabon Armado and Peso Pluma's incredible smash "Ella Baila Sola" (more on Pluma later). Bad Bunny's dark dance thump of "Where She Goes" shows that the hottest singer in the globe is branching out in new directions, and on January 2nd of this year, the best new K-pop group NewJeans cemented their legacy with "OMG", an indelible slice of lo-fi dance that has bucked nearly every trend to show that with less than ten songs out in the world, NewJeans have crafted their own lane that has so far proved inimitable.

While K-pop girl groups come and go with astounding regularity, we have yet to see if certain acts have staying power beyond a few early mega-smashes (look at Itzy, a group that blew up big and has been churning out forgettable material since). Hot new group Le Sserafim came back this year with a big Nile Rodgers collab called "Unforgiven", but their fan-favorite follow-up "Eve, Psyche, and the Bluebeard's Wife" feels like the hit that should've been. Meanwhile, great electro outfit Everything But the Girl returned from a two-decade hiatus with perhaps their most haunting song to date, the formidable "Nothing Left to Lose". Finally, the legendary diva Kylie Minogue  certainly doesn't need to make new era-defining hits, but she chooses to anyways, and "Padam Padam" feels like an earworm for the ages. Already a Top Ten in the U.K., it feels like it could spread out of queer dance clubs in the U.S. and into our own Top 40, but as of this writing, it reads as a "cult hit" instead of a radio smash. Yet that could change with a single "padam" of your heart.

Taylor Swift & Ice Spice "Karma (Remix)". Despite Taylor Swift being in her "Eras era" while burgeoning blog-rap queen Ice Spice is riding an incredibly fast track to superstardom, fans of both artists said that neither was to blame for the acrid remix of Swift's "Karma" that appeared on yet another one of her own album re-releases. Despite a flashy music video and a huge promotional push, "Karma (Remix)" had to settle for a #2 peak on the Hot 100, as while each camp has devout fans, the finished product might be the cringiest track we've heard all year. Or, to quote Ice Spice on the song: "Facts."

Fire-Toolz "I am upset because I see something that is not there." We've talked about Angel Marcloid's truly indescribable albums under her Fire-Toolz moniker before, but her new full-length "I am upset..." might be her most accessible full-length to date. Of course, "accessible" and "Fire-Toolz" are terms that seem at odds with each other, given that the opening track "It Is Happening Again" mixes jazz-fusion keypads with fiery rock guitar solos, screamed vocals, and hyper synth breakdowns, but therein lies the appeal. Marcloid follows her muses to the very limits of what we know about genre, and her music can be ambient at one moment, headbanging the next, and then turn full psychedelic on a hairpin turn. The joy of any Fire-Toolz record is the sense of discovery one feels as your ears get sling-shotted around between so many different styles while trying to depict Marcloid's beyond-her-years lyrics, but with "I am upset..." she's given her fans the kind of album that might be the perfect entry point for enticing newcomers to her sonic world. If you've never heard a Fire-Toolz album before, then strap in because your life isn't going to be the same afterward.

While Malian singer Fatoumata Diawara has made some moves in the West due to her collaborative relationship with Gorillaz frontman Damian Albarn, her new full-length "London Ko" feels like an album that could break her to a whole new audience. While Albarn shows up to help co-produce half of the songs here, Diawara's voice and sense of melody are immaculate. On another side of the world, Korean boy band Seventeen has once again one-upped themselves with "FML", a mini-album that relies heavily on vocal samples and traditional Korean instrumentation to give a fresh spin on contemporary K-pop. Written and produced almost entirely in-house (which is a rarity for a group of their size), "FML" give us both ballads and bangers, proving that after nearly a decade into the game, they're only just now hitting their prime.

Despite their full-length dropping the first week of July, we'd be remiss if we didn't spend a moment talking about one of the most surprising indie-rock revival stories of the year. Ryan Olcott's band 12 Rods gained indie rock notoriety for receiving one of the first-ever perfect scores doled out by snarky tastemaking website Pitchfork back in the day, even if true commercial success evaded the band. Two decades since their last studio album, "If We Stayed Alive", showed that Olcott's musical vision remains fully intact, and this album is one of the year's most surprising listens. We're always delighted when all three Nickel Creek members take a break from their solo activities to give us a new full-length, even one as overstuffed as this year's "Celebrants". Finally, the more ears that discover Everything But the Girl's "Fuse", another new record that arrived after two decades of inactivity, the better.

The National "First Two Pages of Frankenstein". In the years since The National's 2019 LP, "I Am Easy to Find", the easiest member to find was multi-instrumentalist and producer Aaron Dessner, who catapulted to fame by producing Taylor Swift's acoustic quarantine albums. While Swift expressed a great fondness for the group, even duetting with them on her "Evermore" track "Coney Island", she returns the favor on their ninth studio album, "First Two Pages of Frankenstein". While the band was anointed indie rock royalty during their mid-2000s peak, this new album continues their recent trajectory of making the sleepiest music of their career, delivering a monochromatic album whose vibe appears to be "ornate blandness." It's a whimper of an album from a once mighty band, one who previously could deliver affecting ballads at a rapid clip, but in this era, despite the assists from Sufjan Stevens, Phoebe Bridgers, and Swift, they've never sounded so anonymous.

Morgan Wallen "One Thing at a Time". We're only at the halfway point of 2023, but it's a good bet that country mega-star Morgan Wallen will end up with the year's best-selling record with "One Thing at a Time". Much like his 2021 smash "Dangerous: The Double Album", Wallen's new 36-track opus feels less like a new album and more like a playlist, one that's just repeated over and over to set a mood. While Wallen's career appeared to be in jeopardy following the 2021 reveal of him using a racial slur, his "Dangerous" record kept on streaming and selling, making him a hot property despite his controversy. "One Thing at a Time" delivers more of the same, frustrating critics even as he keeps topping both the album and singles charts with his dirt-road pablum. There's clearly an audience for Wallen's sound, but while so many other country singers innovate and challenge the form, Wallen keeps it safe and reaps the rewards.

Peso Pluma. At only 24 years old, Peso Pluma has already rewritten the rules for what Regional Mexican music can do. A student of both trap music and corridos, Pluma has transitioned from songs about life under cartel rule into some of the biggest radio smashes of the year. While his work with Eslabon Armado has already shot him into the Top Five of the Billboard Hot 100, he's also netted collaborations with Becky G and Bizarrap, quickly establishing him as a household name. While Bad Bunny helped turn reggaetón into a cultural force, Pluma is mixing traditional Mexican sounds with contemporary aesthetics to invite a whole new audience into the genre. He's already very famous and is facing the kind of controversies only pop icons run into, so we fully expect his star to rise even further before the year is out.

England's premier jazz-prog hybrid outfit Soft Machine are no strangers to archival live recordings, but the newly-unearthed "The Dutch Lesson" feels like a game-changer. Recorded with remarkable fidelity by a record store owner in Rotterdam, this 1973 show features the group running through tracks from their just-released record "Six" and playing with remarkable creativity and dexterity. Meanwhile, London-based dance outfit Swayzak saw their debut album get released in a special "Snowboarding in Argentina [25th Anniversary Edition]". What's remarkable is that their groovy debut had 12 tracks, nine of which were published on CD and seven on vinyl, with the two format releases only sharing four songs between them. This anniversary edition fixes it but putting all the "Snowboarding" songs in a single place, and our ears are better for hearing this record's full scope for the first time. Finally, much credit to John Armstrong for taking some of South Africa's finest (and most rebellious) pop and disco music and wrapping it together in the vital new compilation "Yebo! Rare Mzansi Party Beats from Apartheid's Dying Years". A must-have.

Metro Boomin Presents "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" . For the release of 2014's much-derided "The Amazing Spider-Man 2", composer Hans Zimmer stated he wanted to create the sound of the radio that Peter Parker would be listening to, and needless to say, he didn't meet his goal. With the first "Spider-Verse" film from 2018, the soundtrack and the massive Post Malone/Swae Lee single "Sunshine" were expertly woven into Miles Morales' world, so with the sequel, the reigns of the soundtrack are handed over to unquestioned hitmaker Metro Boomin. He pulls it off with expert precision, giving listeners a huge variety of unashamedly contemporary moods. While big names like Lil Wayne, A$AP Rocky, 21 Savage, and Future all show up, it's the surprising pop move of James Blake and the single best-recorded performance of Coi Leray that make us want to keep listening to all the sounds across this "Spider-Verse". (However, we'd still love for someone to explain how the great Dominic Fike track "Mona Lisa" was pulled from the album post-release.)

100 Gecs' "Frog on the Floor". The new album from alt/hyper-pop royalty 100 Gecs, properly named "10,000 Gecs", features numerous nods to the wild times of '90s radio, skewering everything from annoying rap-metal to third-wave ska. Yet "Frog on the Floor", their absurd skank-bop of a track about a frog that just so happened to find its way onto the dance floor, is a must-hear event of cartoonish proportions. It feels like the perfect amalgam of what their wild new record is all about and truly must be heard to be believed. The band has always been quirky, but it's refreshing to see that after all their success, they remain committed to following their muse no matter which wacky new place it takes them to.

While we are happy to file this with our unexpected comebacks listing, garage rock outfit The Hives' comeback single is so good it deserves its own notice. "Bogus Operandi" is a slamming, thundering rock track that feels like it was designed to be shouted back at sports events, stadium concerts, and virtually any other context you could imagine. The group continues to roll out for a new album slated for release in August 2023, but after years of being lost in the wilderness dropping a series of stray singles, they sound back, fully charged, and, should the radio gods deem it so, ready to take over your speakers this summer.

In the rumble and hiss of the modern streaming era, where hit albums can come from anywhere, it's not your fault that certain albums may have dropped without you knowing. What's most surprising, however, is the caliber of artists who had new records fly under the radar. Paul Simon's quiet meditation on mortality? "Seven Psalms" bombed. Swae Lee has a hit from the new "Spider-Verse" soundtrack, but his Rae Sremmurd outfit hasn't had a charting song since 2018, which new album "Sremm 4 Life" failed to fix. Indie rock staples like Yo La Tengo and Belle and Sebastian dropped new records that failed to make an impact on the U.S. charts, and great alt-rock holdouts The Smashing Pumpkins have been releasing new music to diminishing returns for years now, and their 33-song rock opera "ATUM" unfortunately failed to restore their commercial fortunes.

Sometimes turning on the news can be a traumatic event, which is why sometimes we may need to escape to our own calming mind palaces. Thankfully, a bevy of new albums can help you achieve meditative bliss. Unlearn & MP Shaw's "Secret Listener" has a few mid-tempo cuts that prevent it from going full ambient. Nico Georis' piano-driven instrumentals on the new album "Cloud Suites" are quietly stunning; we still don't know how to categorize Balmorhea's "Pendant World", but it remains a truly sparkling record that mixes live strings and curious song structures to great effect. Although we already named Hayden Pedigo's "The Happiest Times I Ever Ignored" as one of the best of the year, our runner-up in the ambient/instrumental space has to be Ohr's "Luma/Chroma", a stunning piece of ambient-glitch music that evokes the ghost of Markus Pupp's legendary Oval project but gives a fresh perspective that makes the most of its lovely 35-minute runtime. If you need a break from the stresses of daily life, there is, thankfully, an overabundance of great instrumental records for everyone's taste and tone.

Rock: KANAAN "Downpour" / Paramore "This is Why"
Pop: U.S. Girls "Bless This Mess" / Jake Shears "Last Man Dancing"
Dance: Omar Ahmad "Inheritance"
Ambient: Tim Hecker "No High"
Rap: JPEGMAFIA & Danny Brown "Scaring The Hoes" / billy woods & Kenny Segal "Maps"
Bluegrass: Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit "Weathervanes"
Country: Dougie Poole "The Rainbow Wheel of Death" / Deer Tick "Emotional Contracts"
Jazz: Matthew Halsall "An Ever Changing View"
Indie Rock: King Krule "Space Heavy"
Soul: Kelela "Raven" / Branee Younger "Brand New Life"
Experimental: Mosaya Gora "Kosogor" / Matt O'Hare "Shiloh"

on4word "In Rainbow Roads". Internet musician on4word has been lovingly recreating his favorite alternative rock songs and albums using nothing but the synths and sounds available on the old Nintendo 64 gaming console, but with his take on Radiohead's seminal classic "In Rainbows", cheekily titled "In Rainbow Roads", he may have created his masterpiece. Hearing the moody swirls of "Nudē" reduced to 16-bit beeps and boops makes for a surprising spiritual interpretation, while the Mario Kart-ified take on amped-up rocker "Bodysnatchers" gives the song some comedy but, because on4word gets every sonic detail right, there's a beautiful authenticity to his take. It's assuredly a niche find, but one that's so good it feels like a jigsaw falling into place.