2023: Riveting
Jason's Top Picks
by Jason Warburg
Around these parts, 2023 felt like a year that started busy, finished busier, and was full of surprises in between. While pop continued to do its thing almost entirely out of my earshot, the artists and genres I tend to pay attention to engaged in a wide range of experiments and comebacks, archival releases and reimaginings, not to mention some amazing brand-new music. While only time will tell where 2023 ranks among my list of favorite years for music, a remarkable volume of really good material made its way out into the world this year, resulting in a longer-than-usual list full of albums worthy of your attention. With that, here’s my usual smorgasbord of mostly made-up awards:
Honorable Mention (alpha by artist)
Fastball – Smashed Hits
Nothing fancy, just 14 live tracks of toe-tapping, finger-snapping, head-bobbing power-pop excellence from Austin, TX’s own Fastball. Pairs nicely with almost anything you can think of.
Ben Folds – What Matters Most
This is the sound of Folds getting back to being Folds: insightful, goofy, sincere, cheesy, melodic and chaotic, sometimes all at once. And that is a very good thing.
Joe Goodkin – Consolations and Desolations
“What shines through is… the belief [Goodkin] invests in the power of his art to heal both audience and performer… the journey serves to underscore what truly matters and what can be left behind.”
Jason Isbell – Southeastern (10th Anniversary Deluxe Edition)
The deluxe edition treatment, with a second disc of demos and a third disc of live renditions, only serves to reinforce Southeastern’s status as one of the great albums of this still-young century.
Josh Joplin and Among The Oak & Ash – Figure Drawing
Iconoclastic singer-songwriter Joplin returned this year with a fresh set of songs that’s organic, earnest and heartfelt, grounded in a folk-rock vibe but ranging wherever the song needs to go.
David Longdon – Wild River (2023 reissue)
The late Big Big Train frontman’s 2004 debut solo album receives a well-deserved fresh shine on this remixed re-release of a chiming and charming set of progressive folk-pop.
Pete Mancini – The Commonwealth Sessions Vol. 1
This solo EP finds “Americana power-pop” songsmith Mancini leaning into the Americana side of his musical personality, favoring chiming acoustics and penetrating story-songs.
Pete Mancini & Rich Lanahan – Silent Troubadour – The Songs Of Gene Clark
Mancini and fellow Long Island troubadour Lanahan team up to deliver enthusiastic, often compelling covers drawn from Byrds co-founder Clark’s underappreciated songbook.
Lukas Nelson & Promise Of The Real – Sticks and Stones
Wille’s son delivers one of his rowdier collections of genial, playful country-rock designed to produce dancing and laughter in equal measures.
Kowtow Popof – A Punk’s Garden Of Versus
“[P]ostmodern art-pop savant (and incorrigible punster)” Popof returns, delivering a fresh set of tunes that manage to be both enigmatic and engaging.
Pretenders – Relentless
Chrissie Hynde is amazing. That is all.
Aaron Skiles – Whistle Past The Grave
Another guitar-heavy solo set that “manages to tackle serious themes without ever appearing to take itself too seriously. Like all the best parties, it leaves you thinking long afterwards about what was said.”
So Long, Sailor
Jimmy Buffett – Equal Strain On All Parts
Perpetual beachcomber and consummate entertainer Buffett’s farewell album is exactly as easygoing, amiable, and relentlessly sunny as you expected. Bubbles up.
Now Why’d You Have To Go And Do That?
Jon Batiste – World Music Radio
New Orleans musical prodigy Jon Batiste’s We Are was a revelation, my pick for 2021 Album of the Year. His follow-up World Music Radio casts aside just about everything I loved about the earthy, authentic, inspirational mind-meld of jazz, funk, and blues on that album for a muddled, heavily filtered-and-auto-tuned grasp at the pop charts.
Yes – Mirror To The Sky
When the only thing that sticks in a five-decade fan’s head a day later is a single bass line from a single track, you may have a problem. Slumbering, tedious, and nearly hook-free.