The Best Albums of 2023

Back in the mid-‘90s, the “Neo Soul” movement spawned a group of brilliant and musically organic artists like D’Angelo, Maxwell, Erykah Badu and others who were fully contemporary while being deeply informed by the past. Meet the best Neo-Neo Soul album to date, which brings that same concept into the present, with sexy grooves, soulful vocals and densely layered harmonies that recall peak Mary J. Blige, yet also has decades of hip-hop in its DNA (with both contemporary cosigning features from A$AP Rocky and Coco Jones as well as heritage ones from Missy Elliott and Timbaland). If D’Angelo and Mary’s music had a child, it would sound a lot like this.  

XX cofounder and chief songwriter Jamie XX released a solo album in 2015 that topped many critics’ polls, and while this is not an official album, the DJ set he’s been taking around the world in recent months shows how brilliantly his music has evolved in the past eight years. It’s loaded with ricocheting beats and wild samples (and, close to this writer’s heart, big looks for Rosalia and Masters at Work’s genius 1997 “Nuyorican Soul” album), but in a way similar to Fred Again, he approaches his music from a song perspective, rather than the producer angle that most DJs do. It amounts to a kaleidoscopic and far-reaching hour of music that I’ve played on YouTube as much as any actual album this year — and the set from Lollapalooza Brasil is slightly different and just as great.

Doja Cat’s career may have had an unpromising start (“I’m a Cow”) but her music has improved drastically over the years, and with “Scarlet,” the real artist — a weird, fearless, sex-positive, empowered and funny-as-hell rapper — emerges. “Scarlet” is not only hands-down her best album, it’s also her first full-on hip-hop set, with an unusual sound that combines soft and hard: hazy keyboard textures and baby-doll backing vocals with hard-hitting rapping, skittering drums and thundering bass. The pop element is still there, but is mostly channeled into sung choruses or bridges and the backing vocals. As she sings on “Fuck the Girls”: “Who dare ride my new Versace coattails?” 

This enormously gifted singer easily could have stayed in the same lane for their entire career — beautifully sung songs about heartbreak and longing (and crying, lots of crying) in a slick pop-R&B vein. But Smith’s fourth album is not that at all — it’s a wild night out that’s tinged with adventure and some danger, but still gets you home safely. More than a new chapter, it’s a musical rebirth that completely redefines Smith as an artist: there are smooth and commercial songs along with ballads, slow jams, dancefloor anthems and the roaring “Unholy” — the most unconventional and sexually loaded song to top the Billboard Hot 100 since “WAP.” Most of all, it has an adventurousness that was only hinted at before. 

Like a sprawling mansion or national park, this strangely titled album isn’t something you just casually visit: With 20 songs splayed over nearly 100 minutes, it’s an experimental-pop masterwork by Christine (aka French singer-musician Héloïse Letissier, who now uses he/him pronouns) and reveals itself slowly: gorgeous synth-pop in “True Love,” Portishead menace on the following “Let Me Touch You Once,” samples of both Pachelbel’s Canon and Emerson Lake & Palmer, several beautiful ballads, and more. Yet the secret weapon here is longtime Weeknd/Kanye West/Beyonce collaborator Mike Dean, who brings a groove that is an unlikely but perfect complement to Chris’ pristine, soaring voice. 

This Colombian-American singer’s third album finds all of the elements of her past records — R&B, dance, Latin and hip-hop — fusing into a lush, lavish, luscious hot tub of an album, conjuring visions of plush feather beds, fluffy pillows and bubble baths, although the lyrics will occasionally jolt the listener out of their chill (“One thing about karma, that bitch will find you”). Her voice might sound sweet, but Kali Uchis does not play.

After years as the frontperson of Chairlift, a songwriter for Beyonce and several experimental projects, Polachek is the rare artist who has seemingly become her true self more than 15 years into her career. In many ways it began when she started collaborating with fellow pop innovator Danny L. Harle, and here their partnership reaches a new peak. Together they create a lush backdrop for her soaring, powerful voice and innovative melodies. 

While I’ll admit that Bay Area bashers Scowl first caught my attention because they have a female singer who often dresses girlishly but emits a fearsome, demonic roar, their ability to mix hardcore with melodic rock (usually in the same song) makes them the most exciting rock band I’ve seen in ages. Concerts are their true domain, but this EP delivers the goods.  

Anyone who’s missed the music of the long-running, otherworldly-sounding Iceland group will find glorious gratification just one minute into this album, when they’re suddenly immersed in a soaring, swelling orchestra with a distant choir-like sound and a backward, sped-up voice. The set sprawls across an hour and ten songs, although it’s often hard to tell where one ends and another begins: It ebbs and flows like a time-lapse nature video of seasons changing or the sun rising and falling or the tide going in and out on a cloud-speckled beach.

This young South Africa-based (female) artist learned to DJ during the pandemic and has released three albums and rocked many festivals in less than two years. Her ampiano-leaning albums are propulsive but undemanding, settling into mid-tempo grooves that ebb and flow, build and retreat, with vocals that veer between chanted African melodies and sumptuous R&B.  

Honorable mention: King Krule, “Space Heavy”; Victoria Monet, “Jaguar II,”; Cleo Sol, “Heaven” / “Gold”; James Blake, “Playing Robots Into Heaven”; Holly Humberstone, “Paint My Bedroom Black.” 

The album that gave Karol G her breakthrough year, “Mañana Será Bonito” – which translates to “Tomorrow Will Be Beautiful” – is an ode to female empowerment, making it a fitting feat that it is the first all-Spanish set by a woman to top the Billboard 200. The collection flaunts radio hits, including “Provenza” and the much-buzzed-about “TQG,” Karol’s long-awaited collaboration with Shakira. Its commercial success led to Karol’s first U.S. stadium tour, the “Mañana Será Bonito Festival” in her home country of Colombia and its equally buzzed-about deluxe edition dubbed “Bichota Season,” which sounds like “MSB’s” edgier older sister. The record is brimming with hard-hitting reggaeton cuts including the climactic “Oki Doki” and “Qlona” featuring Peso Pluma, but leaves room for thrills like the plummy “Me Tengo Que Ir” with Kali Uchis and “Mi Ex Tenía Razon,” a Selena-style cumbia. 

There are some truly unforgettable one-liners on Amaarae’s sophomore set, “Fountain Baby”: “Them Libra bitches horrible” “Me and my bitch got matching titties” and the list goes on. Combining her background as a DJ in Atlanta and her Ghanaian roots, Amaarae brings forth a sharp synergy – incorporating Clipse samples, thrashy punk moments and Afrobeats – bound together by her high-pitched, hallmark vocals. “Fountain Baby” redefines pop, bending and stretching it in unparalleled directions. 

Brent Faiyaz’s first mixtape arrived this fall after the R&B singer’s critically acclaimed debut album and equally successful follow-up. But instead of recruiting a mountain of hotlist features (opting to pair heavyweights like Missy Elliot with rising stars like Maryland rapper Lil Gray) and ruminating on his ascent to fame, Faiyaz delivers what feels like an interlude in a flurried late night. Starting with a distinctive sample of TLC’s “No Scrubs,” Faiyaz hits every nostalgic bone one can, making nods to the seductive and often brutally honest East Coast hip-hop (in the style of Cam’ron) he grew up on. 

Peso Pluma went from underground artist to the most-streamed Latin artist on Spotify in 2023 following the release of “Genesis.” His imaginative, trap-leaning take on traditional Mexican folk songs has bolstered the presence of the evolving música Mexicana landscape around the world and in the 14-song “Génesis,” the 24-year-old introduces himself to this newfound audience. He’s equal parts tender and flexed on the set, lowering his distinctly phlegmy vocals to relay lovelorn narratives on tracks like “Luna” and “Lagunas.” Still, he keeps his swagger on “Lady Gaga,” which references the American popstar’s Dom Pérignon champagne, and also proves he’s here to stay on solo cuts like “Zapata.”

Whether it be the pastel aesthetics of “Por Vida,” or the sticky sweetness of her first Spanish-language record “Sin Miedo,” Kali Uchis is a master at pulling listeners into her fantastical dreamworld where femininity and luxury go hand in hand. The same applies to “Red Moon in Venus,” a luscious fusion of Latin beats, hip-hop and R&B, sweet and mesmeric in sound but sharp in its lyricism. See the declaration at the end of the poppy “Hasta Cuando” (“Until When”): “Paint me as the villain if that makes you feel better / Make everyone hate me if that makes you feel better.” 

You wouldn’t know it based on a first listen but PinkPantheress’ long-awaited full-length debut has some pretty dark subject matter. Thematically, the record is saturated with metaphors of death and the overwhelming feeling of mortality, as best explicated in songs where Pink is completely solo, like the Shakespeare-referencing “Ophelia.” With an upgraded production, “Heaven Knows” marks a shift from the 22-year-old singer-songwriter producer’s earlier drum-driven genre.

Spanish singer-songwriter and producer Ralphie Choo shows off his dexterity on his debut “Supernova,” a gratifying mishmash of woodwinds, blistering drum patterns and new-age flamenco. Choo stands out from almost everything coming out of Spanish-language pop in 2023: he adds a glitch to his vocals and pushes his featured guests — ranging from EDM producer Mura Masa to Brooklyn-based pop group Wet and hip-hop duo Paris Texas — to venture far outside their usual musical territories. 

“With a Hammer” finds New York producer Yaeji contemplating life as we know it over matchless instrumentation: drum ’n’ bass, Korean pop and electronica coalesce to create the zestful sonic palette consisting of 13 tracks. A master at manipulating and distorting stratified vocals, Yaeji sings about feeling suffocated and questions her surroundings — readily switching from Korean to English — on synth-heavy standout tracks “Submerge FM” and “Fever.” 

Lil Yachty set out to test the waters with “Let’s Start Here,” his modern-day take on soulful ’70s rock music. After assembling the indie Avengers — that’s co-writers like Mac DeMarco and members of MGMT, Unknown Mortal Orchestra and Chairlift — Yachty gave in to his most obvious instincts, drawing inspiration from Pink Floyd’s mind-melting instrumentals and psychedelic daydreams, to produce a record that proved his genre adaptability. 

Now a Grammy-nominated album, Tainy’s “Data” was the first complete offering from the Puerto Rican producer behind the new wave of reggaeton pioneers – many of whom make an appearance on this record. With everyone from J Balvin to Arca, Bad Bunny and the Marias on the lineup, “Data” takes its listeners on an evocative listening journey that pays homage to old-school reggaeton tempos with the novelty of an EDM, hip-hop and trap hybrid. 

Honorable mention: Travis Scott, “Utopia”; Various Artists, “Barbie the Album”; Model/Actriz, “Dogsbody”; Eslabon Armado, “Desvelado”; Bebe Rexha, “Bebe”; Jordan Ward, “Forward”; MJ Nebrada, “Arepa Mixtape.” 

Orderly chaos was essentially the ethos for 100 Gecs’ 2019 debut “1000 Gecs,” a flytrap of nightcore, ska and seemingly whatever came to mind. Laura Les and Dylan Brady upped the ante with their follow-up “10000 Gecs” without losing the freneticism of what made them pop’s most devious outliers (who exactly is the joke on, if there’s one at all?). Only this time it was maximal, from Josh Freese’s punishing drums on “Hollywood Baby” to the interlaced guitar harmonics on “Doritos & Fritos.” Frog ribbits and “Scary Movie” samples abound — a standard pop album this isn’t, which is exactly the point.

This was the year that listeners started taking notice of Victoria Monét. Not that she hadn’t been steadily supplying artists like Ariana Grande and Chloe x Halle with Grammy-nominated material, but on the back of numerous solo EPs dating back to 2014, “Jaguar II” felt like an entry statement. The velvet-lined project is couched in the comfort of ’70s R&B touchstones: there’s the dewy woodwinds of “How Does It Make You Feel” and the mink coat strut of “Cadillac (A Pimp’s Anthem).” But then there’s “On My Mama,” her first solo hit that slinks as much as it bites. Stepping into the spotlight on your own terms has rarely felt this rewarding.

With his third album “Calico,” Ryan Beatty was born anew as a songwriter with a poetic—and melodic—point of view. The California native codes a visceral intimacy into its nine songs with gentle ease, providing fragments of relationship experiences as if he’s grasping at memories before they slip away. He mostly sings in an introverted hush over spare acoustic guitars, but opens up at just the right time for blasts of harmonic jubilance on the chorus of “Andromeda” and the unhurried “Bruises Off the Peach.” Beatty is adept at zooming in on tiny moments that carry greater meaning, and “Calico” is an enveloping glimmer into the parts that make the sum.

‘”How can I lose if I’m already chose… like?” raps Ice Spice on “Bikini Bottom,” a cut off her debut “Like..?” EP. And she’s got a point. The Bronx native seemed predestined for stardom after “Munch (Feelin’ U)” grabbed TikTok by the throat last year, and the wins kept on stacking in the lead-up to the EP and its deluxe edition. Beyond the quotables — and there are many — Spice cornered a style that sounds effortless while remaining skillfully focused. It allows for versatility: her sharpshooter flow works just as well on the tender “Butterfly Ku” as it does on “Deli,” a punishing headspin that leaves no room for error.

Fans were expecting strobe-light pop bangers, given Troye Sivan’s singles “Rush” and “Got Me Started,” but instead got an album that captures the breadth of the gay experience in a succinct 10 tracks. Sure, “Something to Give Each Other” has its moments of frivolity (see: “One of Your Girls”), but it’s when Sivan turns the coin over that we experience the comedown, not just after a long night of clubbing but also the hangover of a past relationship. He mourns the love that once was on “Can’t Go Back, Baby” and “Still Got It” and how he emerged from the wreckage, showing that sometimes, it’s what’s broken us that can help piece us back together.

You can almost picture New York rappers Mike and Wiki sitting in a darkly lit detective office, rain streaking the windows, as they wrote their collaborative album. Produced by Alchemist, the pair use the city as their backdrop as they look both outward and inward, pontificating on the issues at large (“Mayor’s a Cop”) while parsing through depravity (“Odd Ways”). Over Alchemist’s oft-drumless beats and rich samples, the two deftly stake territory as rap anthropologists.

Kelela functions as the nucleus of an orbit that modulates in pace, mood and texture on “Raven,” her second full-length album. At once, she’s lost in a fog of synthesizers on opener “Washed Away” and swishing her hips in the club on “Contact.” It’s intended to appeal specifically to queer Black audiences, no matter the intensity of the more electronic-leaning tracks or the ambient stillness of its quieter moments.

The oft-described toxic king of R&B struck a nostalgic chord with his third album, “Larger Than Life.” To great effect, he nimbly mines the aesthetic of Swing Mob, the 1990s collective consisting of Missy Elliott, Timbaland and Ginuwine. It sounds like an album lost to time, with beats that Timbaland himself could have produced around the turn of the century, with modern accouterments that create a woozy, intoxicating atmosphere where Faiyaz thrives.

Chappell Roan ripped a few pages out of the pop playbook and threw out the rest on her debut album. The lines sting as much as they do stick — “I heard you like magic / I’ve got a wand and a rabbit,” she sings on “Red Wine Supernova” — and as she explores queerness with alacrity, the songwriting maintains its stronghold throughout with its ringing hooks and keen storytelling.

Spilling your heart out in the club is the driving motivator behind Canadian artist Jayda G’s “Guy,” which is threaded with audio clips from her father, who died when she was 10. Grieving can take on many forms, which is perhaps why Jayda G frames her contemplation through aural joy. “Death wants me to lay, and it makes no sense at all,” she sings on “Scars,” but she finds a way to come to terms with it on the dance floor.

Honorable mention: Jessie Ware, “That! Feels Good”; Various artists, “Barbie: The Soundtrack”; Amaarae, “Fountain Baby”; Caroline Polachek, “Desire, I Want to Turn Into You”; Killer Mike, “Michael”; Olivia Dean, “Messy”; NewJeans, “Get Up.”

Maybe it’s an unfair advantage, in coming up with the album of the year: Three of our highest-rank singer-songwriters team up and each bring their A-game, as if the term “side project” never crossed their minds. If forming a supergroup is gaming the artistic system, maybe we could encourage all our other favorite solo artists to also team up and cheat their way to the top? Some of the songs on “The Record” feel like deeply personal reports from the individual mouths and minds of Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker or Lucy Dacus, and some are more true group efforts. But they have a common thread: Always, there are the harmonies that Joan Baez — in her polite, elder-stateswoman way — described just the other day at a Variety event as “fucking angelic.” You wind up feeling like they’ve given you wing, too.

There’s dynamite in that tunnel. No one should have gotten too lulled by Del Rey’s mostly languid rhythms into thinking there’s anything particularly easy-listening about it, given that it includes some of her most quietly explosive writing ever. It might be her confessional masterpiece to date, once you come up from under the density of 16 detail-filled songs that require nearly a full internet’s worth of Cliffnotes to fully unpack. She’s always dealing with the biggest stuff of life as well as sweating the small stuff: Death. Mental illness. God. Family — good and awful. Sexual shame and liberation. The possibilities of real intimacy. And pottery. For going so deep, “Tunnel” isn’t pretentious: Ironically, Del Rey, so often accused of striking a pose, might turn out to be the least affected pop superstar in town.

Hearing Russell’s second solo album was like experiencing the phrase “we shall overcome” expanded and distilled into 44 solid minutes of hard-fought joy. Her previous record, 2021’s “Outside Child,” achieved the unlikely accomplishment of being unflinchingly about trauma and a certified star-maker. This follow-up is like that album’s after-party… a celebration of survival, and more than that, actual thriving, in the second act of a life begun in chaos. It’s not a weightless party, not with sobering songs that still deal with tough topics like racism (“Eve Was Black”) and the veil between this life and the next (“Requiem”). But for all that rootedness in the real, “The Returner” is the most spirit-lifting album of 2023, powered by a folk-funk style that feels like the antidote for anything that could possibly ail you.

In the latest round of Grammy nominations, Rodrigo’s second album fared particularly well, expectedly and deservingly. There was a little bit of rancor, though, around the track “Ballad of a Homeschooled Girl,” which sounds like her tribute to Nirvana, getting a nod for best rock song — a slot that some thought should have gone to one of the hundreds of real rock masterpieces this year from the actual greats of the genre. (Like, for instance… um… well, they just knew it felt wrong.) Deal with it, lads. “Guts” is half a great rock album, half an assemblage of superior ballads, and the only thing that would have been wrong is having to go through 2023 without all of it. There were steps toward a greater maturity here, but here’s to the Rodrigo who remained impudent enough at 20 to work F-bombs into nearly every other song, and who isn’t bashful about painting herself as a confused, pissed, self-effacing nerd, graced with a wicked sense of humor to go with the melodrama.

If we weren’t caught up in waxing on about how Clark is one of America’s best pure songwriters, we’d spend more time going on about her as one of our best pure singers. Someday we’ll get around to it all, if she keeps making albums as crafty and affecting as this fourth release. It contains two of the unquestionable masterpieces of 2023. One is “Buried,” a ballad that will tear up just about anybody who still harbors a one-that-got-away in the back corners of their heart. The other is “Dear Insecurity,” a duet with producer Brandi Carlile, focused on a love triangle between two romantic partners and an anthropomorphized, crippling self-doubt affecting one of them. But, listen, the other nine cuts are modestly spectacular, too.

No one else around today is as good as Isbell at making you feel like you’ve heard a whole life story in a few short, sparsely populated verses and a chorus. He’s the closest thing we’ve got to a modern-day Randy Newman (except for, you know, Randy Newman) — but with one big difference, in the twists they employ; while Randy has specialized in zapping you with a darker turn, for Isbell the twist often turns out to be radical empathy. If you have moments of feeling like you’re turning into an isolationist, putting the needle down on “Weathervanes” could restore your sense of humanism in seconds, or in stanzas. And turning up the 400 Unit a little this time didn’t hurt a thing.

Still our poet laureate, after all these years. The quietly stunning “Seven Psalms” is unlike any other Simon album, starting with how the singer-songwriter so wants you to experience it as a full concept album that he has digitally released its seven distinct songs only in the form of a single long track. With Simon now in his 80s, the running theme could be described as “for whom the bell tolls,” but he finds a lot to address within that framework. It’s a song cycle that’s in turn mysterious, sobering, funny, God-haunted, agnostic, lovestruck, pragmatic about mortality, and still caught up in miracle and wonder.

After being signed to a major label since 2014 without ever putting out a full-length record, Raye, a 25-year-old talent out of London, made up for lost time with an official freshman LP that has the combined power of about five outstanding debut albums. After all that hurry-up-and-wait buildup, she has some fiery words about record execs (surprise!), but plenty more to say about gaslighting suitors, body dysmorphia and little things like the future of mankind. This is stellar stuff, not just for its real talk but Raye’s deft way with a mixture of R&B, hip-hop and even jazz leanings.

If you haven’t taken the time to actually listen to Bryan — or sampled him earlier but haven’t checked out this self-titled album — you probably have an image, and a not totally misinformed one, of him as a country/Americana upstart who made a near-instant leap to stadium headliner by being a crowdpleaser. But what should strike you if you actually do a needle-drop or stream-drop on “Zach Bryan” is just how daringly idiosyncratic it is, without doing anything to alienate that mass audience he recently ensnared. He’s a razor-sharp self-observationalist with an against-the-grain knack for low-fi production touches and defining features from the likes of Kacey Musgraves, Sierra Ferrell and the War and Treaty.

Honorable mention: Wednesday, “Rat Saw God”; Sparks, “The Girl Is Crying in Her Latte”; Megan Moroney, “Lucky”; Karol G, “Mañana Será Bonito”; Peter Gabriel, “i/o”; 100 Gecs, “10,000 Gecs”; Robbie Fulks, “Bluegrass Vacation”; Margo Price, “Strays”; Gracie Abrams, “Good Riddance”; Joy Oladokun, “Proof of Life”; Bobbie Nelson and Amanda Shires, “Loving You”; Hozier, “Unreal Unearth”; Sunny War, “Anarchist Gospel.”

Consider us bewitched — but definitely not bothered or bewildered — by Laufey, whose rise to stardom in 2023 was one of the year’s least predictable and most delightful pop phenomena. Her original songs not only evoke the Great American Songbook but are often worthy of placement in its epilogue, even as she cultivates a Gen Z audience that has definitely not had its head buried in that particular tome. These are songs that comfortably sit alongside both Taylor Swift and Ella Fitzgerald in a playlist of truly eras-spanning bedroom (or ballroom) pop.