The Kuhronic Top 50 Albums of 2023
I have always been of the opinion that album of the year lists should only include records that were released that year… I know, call me crazy! But I get it, “year end” deadlines must be met by early December so that articles can be approved, edited, reapproved, published and stretched out to maintain “content” over the holiday shutdown. This is why albums released in December are a real problem and can throw a monkey wrench into the gears of a good best album list. Looking at you Beyoncé, D’Angelo and Run the Jewels….
Many of those other 2023 lists include SZA’s superb 2022 album ‘SOS’ which was released on December 9th. I covered it on my 2022 list but that came with its own set of problems, most notably the danger of recency bias which is a cognitive bias whereby recent events are favoured over historic ones. As it turned out, my list actually ended up suffering from the opposite problem. SOS landed at number 16 on my 2022 list, but as Apple Music’s ‘Spotify Wrapped’ ripoff ‘Replay’ has informed me, SOS was my most played album of 2023. Rereading last year’s list now, it’s obvious to me that SZA most certainly should have been top 10, if not top 5.
So the question then is, would it have been better to ignore my OCD and pushed SZA to the 2023 list where it would have received a more “authentic” ranking and a guaranteed spot in the top 10? But of course, nothing is capitol T true when it comes to these types of opinion polls, all of my previous lists have rankings that I would change if I were creating them today, and in fact I did make changes to some of them when they were reformatted for upload to this site. For fucks sake, SZA’s previous album ‘Ctrl’ didn’t even make my 2017 list, should I go back and change that too?
But we’ve strayed out too far into the weeds of this digression, let’s reel it back in and land this carp of a list. The point is, fundamentally, these lists are a snapshot of a time and place, a Jackson Pollock style musical splattering of where my head was at in that particular year.
And 2023 was definitely a year, not as strong as 2022 IMO but still lots of great and almost great albums were released. So let’s get into ‘er!
After taking a year off, the stupid categories have returned in full force
Best Live Album
Billy Talent — Live at Festhalle Frankfurt
Raise your voice like a weapon til they fall to the ground
Runners Up
The Jesus and Mary Chain — Sunset 666
Parannoul — After The Night
The Weeknd — After Hours (Live at Sofi Stadium)
Best Posthumous Album: Tie
Sparklehorse — Bird Machine
Gord Downie & Bob Rock — Lustre Parfait
Best Reggae Version of a Classic Album
Easy Star All-Stars — Ziggy Stardub
Best Middle Eastern Album featuring a Member of Radiohead
Johnny Greenwood & Dudu Tassa — Jarak
Best Rolling Stones Album in __ Years
The Rolling Stones — Hackney Diamonds
Longest Swans Album
Swans — The Beggar
Best Swans Album Not Recorded By Swans
Sprain — The Lamb as Effigy
Best Instrumental Album By One the Greatest Rappers Alive
André 3000 — New Blue Sun
Best Album With My Old Drummer’s Name in the Title
Portugal. The Man — Chris Black Changed My Life
And now, here are the Kuhronic top 50 albums that almost made it onto the Kuhronic top 50 albums list
All Hands_Make Light – Darling the Dawn
Emma Anderson – Pearlies
Animal Collective – Isn’t It Now?
B.A. Johnston – Argos Suck
Corinne Bailey Rae – Black Rainbows
Baroness – Stone
Grian Chatten – Chaos For the Fly
The Chemical Brothers – For That Beautiful Feeling
Clark – Sus Dog
Cleo Sol – Gold / Heaven
Gaz Coombes – Turn the Car Around
Cowboy Junkies – Such Ferocious Beauty
Depeche Mode – Memento Mori
The Dirty Nil – Free Rein to Passions
DJ Shadow – Action Adventure
Everything But The Girl – Fuse
Fake Names – Expendables
Foo Fighters – But Here We Are
Fucked Up – One Day
Genesis Owusu – Struggler
HMLTD – The Worm
Home Front – Games of Power
Hotline TNT– Cartwheel
Ben Howard – Is It?
Iggy Pop – Every Loser
JOHN (TIMESTWO) – A Life Diagrammatic
Kid Koala – Creatures of the Late Afternoon
Killer Mike – Michael
L’Rain – I Killed Your Dog
Lil Yachty – Let’s Start Here
Lol Tolhurst x Budgie x Jackknife Lee – Los Angeles
Lowest of the Low – Welcome to the Plunderdome
Mammoth WVH – Mammoth II
Metallica – 72 Seasons
Militarie Gun – Life Under the Gun
Janelle Monáe – The Age of Pleasure
MSPaint – Post-American
The Murder Capital – Gigi’s Recovery
Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds – Council Skies
Róisin Murphy – Hit Parade
Orbital – Optical Delusion
Parannoul – After the Magic
PinkPantheress – Heaven Knows
PJ Harvey – I Inside the Old Year Dying
Rancid – Tomorrow Never Comes
Royal Blood – Back to the Water Below
Shame – Food for Worms
Sparks – The Girl is Crying in her Latte
Temples – Exotico
Woods – Perennial
And without any further fuckeries, ladies and gentlemen, here are the top 50 Kuhronic approved albums of (calendar year) 2023. As I see it.
Today.
50. Crown Lands — Fearless
49. Shakey Graves — Movie of the Week
48. Noname — Sundial
47. Wilco — Cousin
46. Gogo Penguin — Everything Is Going to be OK
45. Little Dragon — Slugs of Love
44. Ace of Wands — Desiring
43. Wednesday — Rat Saw God
42. Yukon Blonde — Shuggie
41. The Men — New York City
40. Peter Gabriel — I/ O
39. The New Pornographers — Continue As A Guest
38. The Go! Team — Get Up Sequences Pt.2
37. Young Fathers — Heavy Heavy
36. HEALTH — Rat Wars
35. The Lemon Twigs — Everything Harmony
34. Billy Woods and Kenny Segal — Maps
33. Steel Panther — On the Prowl
32. Geese — 3D Country
31. The Armed — Perfect Saviours
30. Model/Actriz — Dogsbody
29. 100 gecs — 10,000 gecs
28. Danny Brown — Quaranta / Scaring the Hoes w/ JPEGMAFIA
27. Thee Oh Sees — Intercepted Message
26. Buck 65 – Super Dope / Punk Rock B-Boy
25. Boygenius — The Record
24. Czarface — Czartificial Intelligence
23. U.S. Girls — Bless This Mess
22. The Hives — The Death of Randy Fitzsimmons
21. Aesop Rock — Integrated Tech Solutions
20. Squid — O Monolith
19. Metric — Formentera II
18. ANOHNI & the Johnsons — My Back Was a Bridge For You To Cross
17. Bar Italia — Tracey Denim / The Twits
16. Caroline Polachek — Desire, I Want to Turn Into You
15. Obey Robots — One in a Thousand
14. Sleaford Mods — UK Grim
13. Kelela — Raven
12. House of All — House of All
11. Nas — Magic 2 / Magic 3
10. Gorillaz — Cracker Island
09. Yves Tumor — Praise a Lord Who Chews But Which Does Not Consume
08. Jessie Ware — That! Feels Good!
07. (Crosses) — God Bless, I Love U, Delete.
06. Queens of the Stone Age — In Times New Roman
05. Inhaler — Cuts & Bruises
04. Blur — The Ballad of Darren
03. City and Colour — The Love Still Held Me Near
02. Slowdive — Everything Is Alive
01. Blonde Redhead — Sit Down For Dinner
Game over for another year, see you in ‘24!
Much love,
Dave E. Kuhronic
