My 30 Favorite Albums Of 2023, pt. 2: #6-30

As promised in my first 30 Favorite Albums Of 2023 post...the other 25 albums I found worthy of purchase by the end of the year.

6. Mountain Goats, Jenny From Thebes

Having known their bandleader web-socially before I’d even heard - let alone enjoyed - The Mountain Goats, I cling to any evidence that I’m not in the tank for them. Sure, I think they’ve got about a dozen albums I’ve found worthy of purchase, one of five or so acts I can say that about. But their Wikipedia says they’ve put out at least 22 full-lengths, so do the math. Four MG LPs make my 300 Favorite Albums Of All Time list, but they chronologically bracket a pair released in 2002 - All Hail West Texas and Tallahassee -  that I remain apathetic about, despite their critical and cultural renown. “No Children” is a favorite to most, but it’s never meant shit to me. Clearly, I ain’t some rubber stamp. I’m special, and you need to know that.

When I learned Jenny From Thebes was a semi-sequel to Texas, famous for an acoustic opener about young death metal enthusiasts not meant as an ironic novelty (though I wouldn’t swear it isn’t one for fans), I wondered - maybe even hoped - that this was another disc I’d put in the bottom half of their oeuvre. But, nope: it’s a keeper. Where Texas was the last of John Darnielle’s “singing into a boombox” albums, Thebes is produced by veteran engineer Trina Shoemaker (Sheryl Crow, Indigo Girls), incorporating the brass-boosted musical palette of 2020’s Getting Into Knives into the radio-rock confidence of 2022’s Bleed Out. More than 30 years into the game, John Darnielle is unquestionably the kind of singer-songwriter too proud of his craft and artistically hungry to just punch it in, somehow combining the restless creative pace of Neil Young with the editorial discipline of Randy Newman.

I can’t speak to the lyrical narrative and how it does or doesn’t live up to whatever made Texas so special for, y’know, basic MG fans. As on all the band’s releases, I initially appreciate the emotional observations and concrete details about vulnerable, vital characters that catch my ear. It’s less about a novelistic experience for me than the confidence that, if and when I do lock in lyrically, I’ll be rewarded, and rarely turned off. Well, except that hook about the shadow of the clover leaf. That one annoys me. And the Rhodes piano. It’s too busy. Not my timbre. See? Criticism. I’m ruthless.

7. MC Yallah, Yallah Beibe

While I respect and share most defenses of rap’s artistic merit, there’s no denying you have to be wiling to tolerate some toxic tropes to explore the annual output of the genre. Yes, rock can be just as sexist, materialistic, violent, what have you, but there’s fewer words, and they generally ask for less attention in the mix. Aerosmith has profane, egotistical double entendres about sexual prowess, but critics rarely quote them as masterstrokes, and Steven Tyler usually spends half the song scatting or letting Joe Perry’s guitar (not voice, guitar - can you imagine?) take center stage. Both genres have been around for decades, so neither needs to be acknowledged as the cultural cutting edge. Rap is totally Nickelback years old now, and you were allowed to write off rock circa Nickelback.

While I do some due diligence with hip-hop each year, I also tend to bid adieu by the third brand name or self-impressed blowjob metaphor, especially if the artist in question lacks the joie de vivre of a Pitbull, an LL Cool J, or a Bon Scott. More than twenty years after Jay-Z was crowned king of rap for getting blumpkins in mansions with unprecedented stoicism, the relish with which I prefer my macho bullshit is pretty rare. It’s been even longer since Lil Kim proved you can kill motherfuckers and sell Microsoft shares at 396 in a bikini or whatever, so that doesn’t provide much novelty either.

I didn’t think foreign language hip-hop would be the answer, but this album by East Africa’s MC Yallah (brought to my attention by Pitchfork, God bless) really does the trick. You know how it’s hard to pretend the latest Missy Elliott comeback single is remotely as gripping as her old work, let alone as commanding as she claims it is in the lyrics? Well, Yallah Beibe brings post-crunk, horrorcore intensity at “Gossip Folks” pace, the energy and authority transparent even with the language barriers (plural, as she’s reportedly hopping between at least four). If Yallah is expressing problematic politics or if the self-aggrandizement gets repetitive, it hasn’t been flagged online, and it all sounds righteously vibrant from this distance.

8. Yo La Tengo, This Stupid World

Earlier this year, in a career overview of Yo La Tengo celebrating the release of This Stupid World, I revealed that I not only consider 2020’s one-take one-mic improvised instrumental collection We Have Amnesia Sometimes an album rather than an EP (it’s longer than In A Silent Way and has more tracks!), but that it’s their best release since the mid-90s. World is less striking a reaffirmation of the trio’s core sound, but it’s a similarly notable and enjoyable one, adding vocals, melodies, arrangements and multi-tracking to the mix without adding any more collaborators (James McNew is now in charge of recording Georgia Hubley & Ira Kaplan, as well as filling out the duo’s sound on keyboard and bass).

There’s an atypically unapologetic familiarity to the album. Opener “Sinatra Drive Breakdown” is the spitting image of 1995’s “Flying Lesson” during the extended guitar spazzouts, and the McNew spotlight “Tonight’s Episode” would earn a lawsuit if Saul Zaentz owned the copyright on “Evanescent Psychic Pez Drop,” an obscurity of the same vintage as “Lesson.” But true heads reading this might note “Flying Lesson” didn’t have those sweet harmonies, and “Tonight’s Episode” would be worth it for the call-and-response list of yo-yo tricks alone. And what’s wrong about these guys skipping the bossa nova exercises and rekindling their love of fuzz? Besides, any worries about stagnation are shattered by “Miles Away,” a nearly 8 minute audition for Twin Peaks season 3 that reveals the band is aware of what happened to shoegaze this century. Almost 40 years after they decided to make as well as buy cool records, I’m ecstatic YLT both know their old tricks and can still find new ones. 

9. Robert Forster, The Candle And The Flame

And now another example of a veteran post-punk/art-rocker showing inspiration can strike well after your 30s (gee, you’d think I have skin in that game). But where Everything But The Girl and Yo La Tengo suggest enduring marriages as a respite from a cruel world, Robert Forster - already mourning fellow Go-Between Grant McLennan - is paying tribute to one mortality’s creeping up on: Karin Braumler, his wife of almost three decades, has been fighting stage 4 ovarian cancer since mid-2021. 

While Braumler harmonizes throughout the spartan, sketchy Candle And The Flame, the point of view is consistently Forster’s. It’s a risky assertion of male prerogative on female experience, just asking for people to say his take isn’t the one they’re curious about (SNL got hate mail in 1979 for even ironically indulging a man’s concern about his wife’s body). This might be why the album opens with “She’s A Fighter,” setting aside his wry Apollonian sensibility for the first time since…“The Clarke Sisters”? Ever? But “Fighter” feels like thin fanfare compared to songs like the terrified “Tender Years” and bitterly ironic “It’s Only Poison” that follow. Where Lou Reed’s Magic & Loss found him haunted by his own eventual end, reflective tracks like “I Don’t Do Drugs I Do Time” and “When I Was A Young Man” (“I was never lonely/ I was never sad”) show Forster’s fear isn’t death, but the solitude that comes with age & survival. If you can forgive a guy talking about himself, Forster’s thoughts might be more relatable than you’d expect.

10. Nathan Fake, Crystal Vision

While all these albums were honestly enjoyed and thoroughly assessed during 2023, I’ll admit I spent the tail end of December looking for something to push this album out of the top ten. As genuine as my enjoyment of this jittery, meditative electronica is, I have no idea how Crystal Vision resembles its creator's previous five albums, and only a little about how it compares to the iconic ‘90s acts that techno-sherpa Philip Sherbune says the DJ openly celebrates (once again, I’m mostly taking Pitchfork’s word on the “who-what-when-where” after discovering my personal “why”). Knowing my tastes, I wouldn’t be surprised if Fake is a bit like Eagles Of Death Metal or The Ramones, creating an invigorating stew out of familiar ingredients, unafraid of people writing off its unique flavor as mere casserole. I’ll laugh if someone brings up MTV’s Amp just as I fondly recall the record store guru going “is this Canned Heat?” about EoDM twenty years ago. But I could write a couple paragraphs about the virtues of the latter act, and if my drift towards the technosphere becomes more educated and informed, I bet I could explain why Crystal Vision got to me and Selected Ambient Works 85-92 didn’t (Vol. II’s nice, though). It might just be that it kicks a notch harder.

And now, as I did for albums 11 and below last year, I present some honorable mentions in the abbreviated if not inscrutable style of Robert Christgau, complete with two track titles of note.

Fever Ray, Radical Romantics

Two decades after “Heartbeats,” Karin Dreijer is less a modern Kate Bush than a one-non-binary-person Depeche Mode, seeking and selling transcendent passion through spooky sex and synth-pop. (“Shiver,” “Even It Out”)

Queens Of The Stone Age, In Times New Roman…

Between his ugly divorce and some of the most embarrassing portmanteaus and puns in history, I almost didn’t bother discovering this contains Josh Homme’s grungiest grooves since Era Vulgaris. (“Paper Machete,” “I Don’t Care What The Peephole Say”)

Zoon, Beak Mai’’gan

If you’re rankled by my reckless use of the word shoegaze, consider this recommendation an apology. An album guaranteed to overwhelm you with drowsy, hallucinatory echoes of early ‘90s epics without quite mirroring any. (“Dodem,” “Awesiinh (a-Way-See)”)

Rozi Plain, Prize

Do people refer to “folktronica” anymore, or have we all accepted that Nick Drake would be into apps like Ableton now? (“Prove Your Good,” “Painted The Room”)

New Pornographers, Continue As A Guest

I couldn’t resent their name more, as Imperial Teen doesn’t record much, and I’d love to introduce more witty, catchy, harmony-heavy drone-strum rock to my kid. (“Cat And Mouse With The Light,” “Angelcover”)

Model/Actriz, Dogsbody

Conor Oberst singing “A Little Bit Alexis” is the primary image this album evokes for me, which made it all the funnier to learn most guys refuse to compare them to anything freakier or livelier than Liars. But they’re both. (“Crossing Guard,” “Slate”)

MSPAINT, Post-American

If you knew me twenty years ago, you might wonder where my interest in garish rap-metal fart-pop has gone. Well, these guys sound like an unholy cross of Linkin Park and Girls Against Boys: overwrought cheer squad barking over distorted keyboards and merciless percussion. It scratches the itch. (“Think It Through,” “Free From The Sun”)

Deathprod, Compositions

Tiny slices of my favorite spooky minimalist making dark feedback and whale noises. (“Composition 1,” “Composition 9”)

Caroline Rose, The Art Of Forgetting

Mutters and hollers of shameless romantic anxiety over panoramic, hook-heavy bombast. I’d call her the Y to Boygenius’ CSN if I wasn’t reserving the right to get into them later. (“The Kiss,” “Tell Me What You Want”)

Sparklehorse, Bird Machine

Mark Linkous’ survivors kept this vault clearing to the point, not wanting to overthink the arrangements because he didn’t get to. Which might be why this atypically brisk affirmation of his sweet, sad, static-heavy psych-pop sensibility is a career best. (“It Will Never Stop,” Evening Star Superchanger”)

Kate NV, WOW

Russian avant-goofball at her most goofily avant. (“oni (they),” “nochoi zvonok (night call)”)

Baby Rose, Through And Through

R&B supper club-gaze, produced like the band isn’t about to pass out, but you are. (“Paranoid,” “Love Bomb”)

Skrillex, Quest For Fire

More often than not an album worthy of the credit “with Missy Elliott & Mr. Oizo.” (“RATATA,” “XENA”)

James Holden, Imagine This Is A High Dimensional Space Of All Possibilities 

Another psychedelic echo-laden smorgasbord of synth swells (and saxophone!) that may or may not resemble electronic albums I ignored twenty years ago. (“Common Land,” “Continuous Revolution”)

Tzusing, Green Hat 

Speaking of sounds I didn’t spend much money on in the 20th century, this Asian DJ’s scrapes, shrieks and pummels remind me I need to check out more Wax Trax. (“Take Advantage,” “Balkanize”)

Slowthai, Ugly

I won’t claim “authenticity,” but this is the only recent rap-rock scuzzball I’ve heard who actually seems to have a lot on his mind. And wouldn’t cover Hootie. (“Feel Good,” “HAPPY”)*

The Stools, R U Saved?

It’s been a while since I checked out if the Grumpies or the Coachwhips hold up, but this is the rare tinny recording of punk power trio shenanigans (from Detroit, no less!) that at least grabbed me the year it came out. (“Bum Luck,” “Bad Eye Bob”)

Desire Marea, On The Romance Of Being

Androgynous South African operatic bombast that may have rendered the Anohni album too modest in comparison. (“Ezulwini,” “Be Free”) 

Beta Librae, Daystar

Nagging, chirpy techno for hacking the encryption systems of my soul. I really gotta find a copy of MTV’s Amp. (“Megafauna,” “Bodhicitta”)

Martyna Basta, Slowly Forgetting, Barely Remembering

Ominous wind chimes, A24-ready anxiety and ASMR unease straight outta Poland. (“Presentiment,” “Podszepnik II”)

*I somehow missed before editing this piece that Slowthai is facing rape charges filed last May. I’m including what I wrote because I already claimed to have found thirty albums from 2023 I felt were worth owning. But, out of respect to people brave enough to come forward with allegations of assault, I have zero desire to buy his album now.