Top 100 Music Albums of 2023
by Arthurknight

I initially wasn’t super impressed with this year but there’s a few key standouts. The problem was you really have to dig for them this year as the major publications have found all new lows to reach for (demonstrated all the more by their abysmal EOY lists). Rock made a bit of a comeback this year and despite its turbulence independent artists continue to breakthrough on bandcamp, enough so that I even saw spotify recommending me fringe (and actually good) artists and labels who’re mainly releasing via the platform.

It was also a year of otherwise great artists and bands releasing some true duds (see below). Nobody asked for that redux Roger…

Top 100 Songs:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0pRznf1CunPZaCqGYb5Sue?si=e00ed77a3f7b45de

Top 10 EPs:
1. Building a New Town – Warrington Runcorn New Town Development Plan
2. Conditions – Chalk
3. Knocknarea - Maruja
4. If I Don’t See You in the Future, I’ll See You in the Pasture - Cole Pulice
5. Give me a moment - Dean Blunt
6. Blackbox Life Recorder 21f / in a room7 F760 - Aphex Twin
7. Personal Protocol - 8485
8. Today I Laid Down – bl4ck m4rket c4rt
9. Everything Perfect – James Ivy
10 INSAINT - Haru Nemuri 春ねむり

Other Reviewed Albums:
(Julius Eastman Vol 3 If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You Rich?) Wild Up - 6.5/10
OZmotic (Fennesz) – 6.5/10
The Music That I Make (Leah Senior) – 6.5/10
Calm Ya Farm (The Murlocs) – 6.5/10
Voir Dire (Earl Sweatshirt & The Alchemist) – 6.5/10
Prize (Rozi Plain) – 6.5/10
Weathervanes (Jason Isbell And The 400 Unit – 6.5/10
3D Country (Geese) – 6.5/10
I Am Not There Anymore (The Clientele) – 6.5/10
New Blue Sun (Andre 3000) – 6.5/10
Census Designated (Jane Remover) – 6.5/10
Heaven Knows (PinkPantheress) – 6/10
Destiny (DJ Sabrina The Teenage DJ) – 6/10
Heavy Heavy (Young Fathers) – 6/10
Desire, I Want To Turn Into You (Caroline Polachek) – 6/10
Sadness || Abriction (Sadness & Abriction) – 6/10
Cousin (Wilco) – 6/10
This Is Why (Paramore) – 6/10
Did You Know That There's A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd (Lana Del Rey) – 6/10
Everything is Alive (Slowdive) – 6/10
PetroDragonic Apocalypse; Or Dawn Of Eternal Night An Annihilation Of Planet Earth And The Beginning Of Merciless Damnation (King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard) – 6/10
12 (Ryuichi Sakamoto) – 6/10
Sundial (Noname) – 6/10
Memento Mori (Depeche Mode) – 6/10
Isn't It Now? (Animal Collective) – 6/10
If We Stayed Alive (12 Rods) – 6/10
All Of This Will End (Indigo De Souza) – 6/10
In Times New Roman (Queens Of The Stone Age) – 6/10
Paranoia, Angels, True Love (Christine And The Queens) – 6/10
Get Up Sequences Part Two (The Go! Team) – 6/10
Unbecoming (Vyva Melinkoyla) – 6/10
Lahai (Sampha) – 6/10
Hellmode (Jeff Rosenstock) – 6/10
Ugly (Slowthai) – 6/10 (See my full review)
I've Seen A Way (Mandy, Indiana) – 6/10
Raven (Kelela) – 6/10
The Ballad Of Darren (Blur) – 6/10
Let's Start Here (Lil Yachty) – 6/10
The Land Is Inhospitable And So Are We (Mitski) – 6/10
The Candle And The Flame (Robert Forster) – 6/10
How To Replace It (dEUS) – 6/10
Rat Saw God (Wednesday) – 6/10
Space Heavy (King Krule) – 6/10
Late Developers (Belle and Sebastian) – 6/10
Fuse (Everything But The Girl) – 6/10
Struggler (Genesis Owusu) – 6/10
Softscars (Yeule) – 6/10
Hackney Diamonds (The Rolling Stones) – 5.5/10
But Here We Are (Foo Fighters) – 5.5/10
I Don't Know (bdrmm) – 5.5/10
Bless This Mess (U.S. Girls) – 5.5/10
WON'T HE DO IT (Conway the Machine) – 5/10
10,000 Gecs (100 Gecs) – 5/10
Love + Pop (Current Joys) – 5/10
The Record (Boygenius) – 4.5/10
Red Moon In Venus (Kali Uchis) – 4.5/10
The Age of Pleasure (Janelle Monáe) – 4.5/10
Mercy (John Cale) – 4/10
Mirror to the Sky (Yes) – 4/10
A Reckoning (Kimbra) – 4/10
72 Seasons (Metallica) – 4/10
Guts (Olivia Rodrigo) – 4/10
Secret Life (Fred again.. & Brian Eno) – 4/10
Bless This Mess (U.S. Girls) – 4/10
Chris Black Changed My Life (Portugal. The Man) - 4/10
End of World (Public Image Ltd.) - 4/10
Disposable Everything (AJJ) – 4/10 [This album is aptly named]
Utopia (Travis Scott) – 3.5/10
Nothing Lasts Forever (Teenage Fanclub) – 3.5/10
One More Time (Blink-182) – 3.5/10
Every Loser (Iggy Pop) – 3.5/10
Fantasy (M83) – 3/10
First Two Pages Of Frankenstein United States (The National) – 3/10
Grapes Upon the Vine (TV Girl) – 3/10
Cracker Island (Gorrilaz) – 3/10
The Darker the Shadow the Brighter the Light (The Streets) – 2.5/10
Blanket (Kevin Abstract) – 2/10
Songs of Surrender (U2) – 2/10
Quest For Fire (Skrillex) – 2/10
ATUM (The Smashing Pumpkins) – 1/10
Rush! (Måneskin) – 1/10
The Dark Side of the Moon Redux (Roger Waters) - 1/10
Robed in Rareness (Shabazz Palaces) – 0.5/10
For All The Dogs (Drake) 0/10

• Chart updated: 11/08/2024 08:45
• (Created: 01/30/2023 04:03).
• Chart size: 100 albums.

There are 5 comments for this chart from BestEverAlbums.com members and Top 100 Music Albums of 2023 has an average rating of 90 out of 100 (from 6 votes). Please log in or register to leave a comment or assign a rating.

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34. (33) 1

Welshpool Frillies 

 Guided By Voices

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7.5/10

_ [First added to this chart: 09/14/2023]

Year of Release:

2023

Appears in:

6 charts

Rank Score:

12

Rank in 2023:

877

Rank in 2020s:

5,055

Overall Rank:

50,726

Average Rating:

 70 (9 votes)

Comments:

0

93. (92) 1

La La Land 

 Guided By Voices

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7/10

So Pollard claims La La Land is a companion piece to 2022's Tremblers and Goggles by Rank in that it continues a purported experimentation in GBV's sound and in new song structures. However, I think to any GBV fan there's literally nothing new to be found in either album except for twenty-one new Pollard songs almost all of which are good, some great even. La La Land is the better project of the two.

I wonder whether anyone seriously listens to these newer GBV albums because they're released with such frequency that you can't help but pre-emptively judge them as just throwaway projects. In the 90s this kind of sketchbook immediacy was in vogue, and Pollard & co. understood marketing hype enough to wrap up the better work as a GBV album and call the rest side-projects, but nowadays there's too much to keep up with in terms of new music that only hardcore fans are honestly listening to this.

There is an irony here though: Pollard's musical fecundity is the result of 35+ years of almost treating writing as a 9-5; a mark of festitidious professionalism. However, from the perspective of a listener, compared to everyone else's release schedules it feels like no perfectionistic tinkering could have ever go into his work... that it might not be worth your 40 minutes... that it's just a hobby. Meanwhile, as one of the 50 thousand or so big fans, I'm not complaining.

For those of you who like Bee Thousand because someone on the internet told you it was good I'll help you out: Listen to Another Day to Heal, Released into Dementia, Queen of Spaces, Face Eraser and Pockets.

_ [First added to this chart: 01/30/2023]

Year of Release:

2023

Appears in:

19 charts

Rank Score:

33

Rank in 2023:

372

Rank in 2020s:

2,260

Overall Rank:

26,863

Average Rating:

 71 (23 votes)

Comments:

2

Total albums: 2. Page 1 of 1

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Top 100 Music Albums of 2023 composition

Artist	Albums	%
파란노을 [Parannoul]	2	2%
Guided By Voices	2	2%
Lankum	1	1%
Ivo Perelman / Nate Wooley / Matt Moran / Mat Maneri / Fred Lonberg-Holm / Joe Morris	1	1%
Sigur Rós	1	1%
Deathcrash	1	1%
Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter	1	1%
Show all

Country	Albums	%
	40	40%
	20	20%
	7	7%
	6	6%
	3	3%
	3	3%
	2	2%
Show all

Top 100 Music Albums of 2023 chart changes

Biggest fallers
Down 4 from 22nd to 26th Tracey Denim by Bar Italia
Down 1 from 26th to 27th La Baracande by La Nòvia
Down 1 from 27th to 28th Um Tijolo Com Seu Nome by Lupe De Lupe

New entries
The Head Hurts But The Heart Knows The Truth by Headache

Leavers
Julius Eastman Vol. 3: If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You Rich? by Wild Up

Top 100 Music Albums of 2023 similarity to your chart(s)

Other year charts by Arthurknight

Title	Source	Type	Published	Country
Top 100 Music Albums of 2025	Arthurknight	2025 year chart	2025
Top 100 Music Albums of 2024	Arthurknight	2024 year chart	2024
Top 100 Music Albums of 2023	Arthurknight	2023 year chart	2024
Top 100 Music Albums of 2022	Arthurknight	2022 year chart	2024
Top 100 Music Albums of 2021	Arthurknight	2021 year chart	2023
Top 100 Music Albums of 2020	Arthurknight	2020 year chart	2024

Top 100 Music Albums of 2023 ratings

Showing latest 5 ratings for this chart. | Show all 6 ratings for this chart.

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Rating	Date updated	Member	Chart ratings	Avg. chart rating
100/100	01/24/2025 00:56	ThuramThugood	106	90/100
100/100	12/21/2023 10:34	ForegroundNoise	472	87/100
90/100	12/13/2023 05:48	Exist-en-ciel	125	99/100
95/100	12/10/2023 18:09	LedZep	1,104	84/100
100/100	12/08/2023 15:58	Repo	555	100/100

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Top 100 Music Albums of 2023 favourites

Showing all 5 members who have added this chart as a favourite

ThuramThugood

drstuey

cestuneblague

Repo

Norman Bates

Top 100 Music Albums of 2023 comments

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From cestuneblague 03/26/2024 14:29

Lots to discover here, mercurial and eclectic mix in the best way.

#302690 | Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)

Rating:  

100/100

From ForegroundNoise 12/21/2023 10:35

Stellar chart as ever. No idea how you find the time to listen to all this, but can always rely on you for a fresh take on the year in music!

#300572 | Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)

Rating:  

90/100

From Exist-en-ciel 12/13/2023 05:59

After a break from music of almost a year, I decided to make my 2023 list at the very end of the year. I've only listened to 50% of the albums it contains, but your list, like all the ones you make, is very interesting and relevant. Good work!

#300455 | Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)

Rating:  

95/100

From LedZep 12/10/2023 18:11

Thanks for the comment! Excellent chart and even better descriptions, a lot of the interesting albums I've skipped for one reason or another (Lankum, George Clanton...)

#300393 | Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)

Rating:  

100/100

From Repo 12/08/2023 15:59

Fantastic chart and notes! Excited to check a bunch of your recs out!

#300366 | Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)

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