The Top 25 Albums of 2023: 5 - 1

2023 was a bizarre year, especially when it came to albums. Perhaps that came down to me exploring new musical avenues, and the lack of any music from some of my favorites, but 2023's album list is a mix of some 2022 discoveries and some new favorites. I also appreciated the album as a united art form quite a lot this year. Thus, let us look into the rules for this list.

• The albums must have been released between January 1 to December 31, 2023.
• It must contain at least four new or unique songs or at least twenty minutes.
• It can be from anywhere in the world.

Well, with that said, let the list begin!

5. So!YoON! - Episode1: Love

Episode1:Love should by all means have been Soyoon (stylized as So!YoON!)'s mainstream breakthrough. An album released after slow growth in the indie scene for years, after heading one of the most successful Korean indie rock bands, featuring a BTS collaboration and a shoegaze sound should have been a hit with critics and fans across the world. However, Episode1:Love somehow went under the radar. It shouldn't have, as Soyoon's songwriting here is top-notch, with some beautiful melodies on Bad and Canada, even if the opening punch of Smoke Sprite and Till The Sun Goes Up is where the album peaks. As a whole, Episode1: Love tackles intimacy in a swirling way. Soyoon's vocals mixed in the surrounding shoegaze instrumental showcase the closeness, and nonetheless, distance remains through the frigid soundscape of the album.

4. Ali Sethi, Nicolas Jaar - Intiha

In 2022, Ali Sethi scored a global hit with Pasoori, and all he had to do was to release an album of similarly melodic and easy Hindustani pop. Instead, he decided to make a hard left turn, collaborating with electronic DJ Nicolas Jaar for the bizarre Intiha. If there ever was an electro-ghazal album before, it certainly was blown away by Intiha. Sethi's passionate, pleading vocals reciting classical Hindustani poetry over the cold and isolated beats drone and ambient beats from Jaar create a sonic landscape that is surreal, alien, yet uniquely endearing. Sethi's pleading love drowned out in a wave of electronics should not work, but it is what makes the best of the album, such as in Nazar Se, Intiha, or even the more upbeat Muddat.

3. George Clanton - Ooh Rap I Ya

Despite what the title might suggest, Ooh Rap I Ya is not a funky little rap album, and that is quite disappointing. Oh, but it does have some of the best writing for an album in a while.

Nostalgia is an obsession for young Millennials and Gen Z-ers, remembering glory days that they were never alive to experience, and that never really existed in the first place. While some artists might choose to take the past and attack it with a sledgehammer, electronica artist George Clanton takes a different approach on Ooh Rap I Ya. The entire album is about experiencing and enjoying the past, but not getting trapped in it, as Clanton warns, "Can't you see how life is blinding you?"

Growing up is indeed never easy, and Clanton tackles it in this album. From regrets of mistakes made in his youth, to specifically reliving memories of people who he has hurt, Clanton is stuck in a reflective cycle, before pulling himself up by the end of the record and getting ready to move forward. None of this would be as impressive, however, if not for the nostalgia-laced production. From soaring Tears For Fears vocal harmonies to the shoegaze-meets-vaporwave instrumental loops that bring the synths truly to life, Ooh Rap I Ya is the best-produced album of the year. 

From Everything I Want to For You, I Will, every call to arms by Clanton is drowned in some of the best '90s reverb ever. It all culminates in the fantastic title track, I Been Young, which takes every element that makes this record so fantastic into roughly four minutes of pop nirvana. (Full Review)

2. Manaka Kataoka, Maasa Miyoshi, Masato Ohashi, Tsukasa Usui - The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Note: Nintendo has a habit of not officially releasing their soundtracks for at least a year or so, so I am using a YouTube link for now. If you are reading this roughly in April-May 2024 on onwards, check the WebArchive for Nintendo to publish their album, such as Breath of the Wild

I wouldn't call the soundtrack to Nintendo's 2017 masterpiece, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, my favorite album of all time. It is, however, one of my favorite albums of all time, and a highlight of what gaming music can be, a 10/10 for all time. Its sequel, Tears of the Kingdom, would indeed have a lot to live up to, and it mostly succeeded in this task.

Gone are the slow, natural ambient builds of the original Breath of the Wild, now replaced by thundering orchestral flourishes combatting glitched electronic samples, doubling the intensity of the original. From beautiful callbacks to the original to stunning orchestral new tracks, Tears of the Kingdom packs one of the strongest punches in its lengthy, roughly two hundred song long, tracklist.

And the intensity is high in Tears of the Kingdom, from the final Demon Dragon fight, the Main Theme, the Ending Credits, the Moragia and Colgera Battles, the drama provided by Tears of the Kingdom is no small feat. The highlights of the album, however, are the slower moments. From the fantastic new village tracks, the eery Lost Woods remixes, to the entire Rito segment of the game, there is a beauty to Tears of the Kingdom that can only be seen in the more melodic moments, such as the wonderful Wind Temple song.

1. Sufjan Stevens - Javelin

Death is a constant for every human, a finish line that every human ever born has crossed at one point or another. Those left have no idea where those who have died have gone, and we must be left, left alone on this planet with nothing but our memories and sorrows to sulk in. Sufjan Stevens is an artist who has tackled death before, famously in 2015's Carrie and Lowell, dedicated to his late mother, and 2023's Javelin sees him stare death once again, this time dedicated to his late spouse.

Javelin, however, is less a lamentation on death and more a celebration of life. Sufjan's penchant for the Shakespearean tragedy is hardly lost, but paired with an immense emotional load of catharsis, and an almost floating feeling of survival after disaster. On So You Are Tired, exhaustion is a constant theme, but paired with the jazzy instrumental and gliding choir, survival seems likely, all the more so due to the therapy Sufjan provides with his beautiful wordplay and lyricism, and the reflectiveness of the track as a whole.

Therapeutic is a good way to describe Javelin, it looks death directly in the eye, takes its time to show us the devastating trauma of death, but somehow makes us come out feeling stronger. Nowhere is this more evident than in the penultimate track Shit Talk, an eight-and-a-half microcosm of what makes Sufjan as an artist so appealing. From the heartbreaking lyrics to the soaring choir, the rising melody, the unique key signature, and of course, the maturity that the song is written with, it truly feels like a momentous experience that leaves you in a better place by the end. That might be how to describe Javelin as a whole, a momentous experience that leaves you in a better place by the end.