The air is cold, the darker nights are illuminated with the glow of string lights and college students have returned home for winter break. It’s the most wonderful time of the year…year-end list season for music journalists!
I love taking the final few weeks of the year to reflect on all of the amazing releases I’ve streamed over the last 12 months, and 2023 is no exception. Without further ado, here are my picks for the 15 best albums that dropped this year!
15: “GUTS” – Olivia Rodrigo
A lot of people had a lot of feelings about Olivia Rodrigo’s sophomore album, understandably so. Her debut full-length “SOUR” captured the hearts of teenage girls everywhere, and even made fans out of people who might not have been able to relate to the music, but appreciated it nonetheless.
Stakes were high for Rodrigo’s follow-up, and although not everyone will agree with this take, I think she exceeded all expectations with this record. Her stellar songwriting still takes center stage, and while the topics are a bit more mature (for example, songs being taken advantage of by an older man rather than more generic breakup anthems), the tracks still pack as much of a punch as her past material.
The record opens with “all-american bitch,” a high-energy unapologetic look at being a woman in the 21st century, having to be everything and nothing all at once. Singles “vampire” and “bad idea right?” are more polished versions of archetypes from “SOUR,” the emotional slow ballad (think “drivers license”) and the fun danceable song of the summer (think “good 4 u”).
“get him back!” is undoubtedly my favorite moment on the LP, with Rodrigo being as relatable as ever without losing her tongue-in-cheek charm, explaining how she wants to get back together with someone and get the ultimate revenge over them all at the same time. This isn’t the only time she captures the teenage girl/young woman experience perfectly, with “logical” painting a heartbreakingly accurate picture of a manipulative lover and “ballad of a homeschooled girl” and “love is embarrassing” reading all of our minds when it comes to dating and trying to make friends at this point in our lives.
“GUTS” wasn’t “SOUR,” and I get why some people think that was a bad thing, but this record felt like the natural next step for Rodrigo’s career to me. I’m looking forward to seeing how these songs translate to the live setting when she embarks on her “GUTS World Tour” this spring.
14: “Paint My Bedroom Black” – Holly Humberstone
While Holly Humberstone shares a record label with Olivia Rodrigo and the two have toured together in the past, Humberstone’s brand of dreamy indie-pop is uniquely hers. “Paint My Bedroom Black” is also her sophomore effort, the follow-up to 2022’s “Can You Afford To Lose Me?,” both released via the legendary Geffen Records.
“Paint My Bedroom Black” is home to some of the most personal songwriting I’ve heard this year. Her playful admission of, “You’re the center of this universe / My sorry ass revolves around you,” in my favorite track on the album, “Into Your Room,” is just a taste of how honest she gets throughout the 42-minute runtime.
Despite this, Humberstone manages to make each song feel relatable to the listener, regardless of if they’ve actually gone through the same things that she has. Take “Kissing in Swimming Pools,” a song that sounds like it’s about wishing you could spend more time with someone before you have to leave. For this artist, it could be about having to leave to go on tour, but nearly anyone can relate to longing for more time with someone and not being able to have it.
Another highlight is the collaboration with fellow up-and-coming artist d4vd, titled “Superbloodmoon,” where the two artists’ voices and styles fuse together perfectly. With how graceful and gorgeous this entire record is, It’s hard to believe that this is only the beginning for Holly Humberstone, just a few years into her career at only 24 years old, but I can’t wait to see what she does next.
13: “Change The Way You Think About Pain” – Incendiary
This album is drastically different from the rest of the picks on this list, but that doesn’t mean it deserves to be here any less. Hailing from Long Island, New York, the veterans of hardcore music that make up Incendiary have hit it out of the park again on the band’s fourth full-length album, “Change The Way You Think About Pain.”
Incendiary’s music has always been political, from lyrics like “A choice to do nothing is a vote for death” on 2017’s “Sell Your Cause” to 2013’s “Force of Neglect,” a rage-filled track about the killing of schizophrenic homeless man Kelly Thomas by Fullerton, CA police officers. There’s no hiding it, this is protest music.
Influenced by a range of genres from more modern metallic music to classic punk and hardcore, Incendiary has always been sharp sonically and lyrically, but this 2023 record takes things to a new level. This time, the lyricism is more unapologetic and biting than ever, with no punches pulled.
There’s something refreshingly urgent about the way that fans pile on top of each other to sing the lyrics to these songs at Incendiary’s shows. The rallying war cry of “Every window deserves a brick” in track three, “Echo of Nothing,” was so loud I felt like the ceiling could cave in at the band’s album release show this past summer.
I wasn’t surprised by how much I loved this album; I’ve called Incendiary my favorite band of all time for close to five years now. Despite this, I was still thrilled to be able to confirm what I predicted during the band’s six-year hiatus from releasing music: they’ve certainly still got “it,” whatever “it” is.
12: “THINK LATER” – Tate McRae
It didn’t feel right to put this album any higher than the bottom few picks, solely because it only came out at the beginning of December. It also didn’t feel right to leave it off the list, because it is so damn good. So, here we are.
Tate McRae has existed on the fringes of “top pop girl” territory for the past few years, going viral on TikTok with songs like “you broke me first” and “that way” in 2020 and “she’s all i wanna be” and “uh oh” in 2022. However, with this album, I feel that she has full catapulted into the “it girl” sphere.
The album opener “cut my hair” and title track “think later” have similar vibes, both trap-pop-infused bops that feel like a long drive late at night. The singles, the Timbaland-influenced “greedy” and endlessly catchy and sassy “exes,” are two of the strongest tracks on the LP.
McRae is at her best when she’s expressing raw emotion, whether it’s on a pop hit like “run for the hills” or “hurt my feelings” or a slower, more vulnerable moment like “grave” or “calgary.” I think my personal favorites are the new national anthem for girls’ girls, “we’re not alike,” and “messier,” which is so complex I can’t decide if it’s a love ballad or a cry for help in a toxic relationship.
11: “Super Over” – Leah Kate
You might know Leah Kate, for better or for worse, from her viral TikTok hit “10 Things I Hate About You.” Skyrocketing to internet fame almost overnight helped earn her a spot opening for alternative band Chase Atlantic on its summer 2022 tour, but she quickly became infamous again when audience members were seen pretending to record videos of her performance when they were actually playing games like Subway Surfers or holding up their calculator apps.
Despite these videos being my first impression of her, I decided to give Kate’s music a try by listening to her EP “Alive and Unwell” at the end of last year. I really enjoyed the title track, “But I Lied,” and “Never Been Better,” and they grew on me a lot over the next few months.
TikTok may have never fully come around on Leah Kate, but after hearing her spring 2023 single “Happy” (with a weird but kind of perfect and super fun Eminem interpolation), I was all in. “Super Over” is one of the most fun pop records of the year, and I wish more people pushed past their initial impressions of Kate to give it a shot.
There are more ultra-catchy club dancefloor anthems like “Space,” “Get In Loser,” and “Bored,” but we see a side of this artist that we didn’t see on our For You Pages on songs with deeper lyricism like “Liar” and “Unbreakup.” My biggest highlights sonically were “Desperate” and “I Forgot,” but this whole LP has nearly endless replay value for me. Leah Kate may have social media to thank for her rise to fame, but the artist herself should be credited for creating such a refreshing and playful pop record this year.
10: “Death is Nothing to Us” – Fiddlehead
Pivoting back from pop to the worlds of punk and hardcore, it’s safe to assume that anytime Fiddlehead releases something, it’ll be on my year-end favorites list. Made up of alternative music legends like members of Have Heart and Basement, I’m convinced that anything this band touches turns to gold. Its 2023 effort “Death is Nothing to Us” was no exception.
Fiddlehead is known for its intense songs about dark topics like grief, loss, and depression, but there’s always some sort of light at the end of the tunnel, a message of hope that leaves listeners feeling a bit better about their lives than when they started listening. The band’s third full-length continues this theme, proclaiming that death is nothing to them, and the idea of dying shouldn’t stop anyone from living their lives to the fullest.
There isn’t anything too complex about the lyricism here, but that’s not a weakness. On standout track “The Woes,” frontman Pat Flynn sings, “The woe is me, the woe is you, here in our rooms / So walk with me and I’ll walk with you out of our doom,” serving as a thesis statement of sorts for this band and this album. Things are tough, but you’ll always have someone or something to help you get out of it.
There’s something for all fans of these musicians on this record, from nods to their past as hardcore kids on “True Hardcore (II),” references to past songs like “Loverman” on “Loserman,” and even an ode to the communities and friendships surrounding the band on “Fiddleheads.” In everything this band does, it continues to bring hope to self-proclaimed “oldheads” and new fans alike, which says more than any album review ever could.
9: “The Dark” – The Band CAMINO
The Band CAMINO has had a way of making songs that make you feel like you’re the main character in a coming-of-age movie all throughout its career. Every time I think I’ll be disappointed by something that this band puts out, I’m actually faced with a new collection of favorite songs to longingly stare out the window to on the train. I wish all bands made music that made me feel like that.
I consider The Band CAMINO’s self-titled debut album a perfect 10 in any and all ways, especially for how closely I relate it to the first few weeks of my freshman year of college. Two years later, I can still vividly see myself walking to class listening to “Underneath My Skin,” screaming along to “Know It All” in the car with my friends, and playing “1 Last Cigarette’ live on WQAQ for one of my very first radio shows.
When I heard that the band was releasing its sophomore effort this year, I prayed for another set of songs that would serve as the soundtrack to more college core memories. I listened to this LP for the first time while sitting in the common room of my suite staying up late doing homework, and I will always associate all of these songs with that night: it’s safe to say The Band CAMINO has done it again!
This album grabs you right away and won’t let go, with the infectious melodies of “Told You So” and the cathartic choruses of “What Am I Missing?,” followed by more instant pop-rock classics like “Let It Happen” and “Afraid of the Dark.” The best song on this record is undoubtedly “Last Man in the World,” an addictive and endlessly replayable two minutes and 42 seconds. Congrats to The Band CAMINO on another 10/10 album, looking forward to hearing the next one in approximately two more years (please).
8: “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess” – Chappell Roan
2023 was a huge time for discovering new artists for me, and Chappell Roan is certainly one of my favorite surprises of the year. Her debut album “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess,” at its core, is a story about leaving: leaving your hometown to pursue your dreams, leaving a bad date early to party with your friends, leaving a toxic relationship because you know you deserve better, leaving the bar with someone you won’t remember in the morning…the list goes on.
I was hooked on Roan when she released “Red Wine Supernova” back in May, and I wasn’t the only one – Rolling Stone named the single the 18th best song of 2023. An unapologetically queer hookup anthem, it’s impossible to be in a bad mood while listening to this track, or bombastic opener “Femininomenon,” or “HOT TO GO!,” the “YMCA” of the 2020s, or most of the songs on this one, to be honest. There are more intimate moments like “Casual” and “Coffee,” but they still pack as much of a punch as the others, just in a different way.
The songs that I think people will be talking about for years after Roan’s debut are moments like “My Kink Is Karma” and “Naked in Manhattan,” where the lyricism is as honest and fun as it gets and the instrumental is made for a never-ending night out. She definitely uncapped her glitter gel pen to write this album, and I couldn’t be more grateful for it.
What makes me happiest about “Midwest Princess” is that, like many of the artists on this list, this is only the beginning for Chappell Roan. She has said on Instagram that she is already working on her second album, and if this is what she could do for her first rodeo, I can’t imagine what she has in store for when she gets back on the horse.
7: “Snow Angel” – Reneé Rapp
When I saw Reneé Rapp as Regina George in “Mean Girls” on Broadway over the summer of 2019, I definitely didn’t think she’d end up in one of my “album of the year” posts, but here we are. Look up “versatility” in the dictionary and I’d be shocked if a picture of her isn’t next to the definition.
We’ve known that Rapp can act, as evidenced by her performances in the aforementioned “Mean Girls” and the HBO Max series “The Sex Lives of College Girls,” but the debut album “Snow Angel” solidifies her spot as a true performer. These 12 tracks fuse clever lines with catchy hooks and relatable lyricism to take listeners on a journey through the trials and tribulations of young adulthood.
Emphasis on relatable, as Rapp literally screams in frustration over a relationship on “Talk Too Much,” blames her relationship insecurity on her horoscope sign in “Gemini Moon,” and sings about how seeing her ex with a new girl gives her a stomach ache on the aptly titled “Tummy Hurts.” Some of these tracks feel like instant classics, like “Pretty Girls,” which sees Rapp complaining about being used by “heteroflexible” girls who don’t really know what they want, but giving into having a good time with them anyway, all over an infectious pop instrumental.
I’m not sure what the extended future will hold for Reneé Rapp, but over the next few weeks, she’s hosting “Saturday Night Live” with Jacob Elordi and starring in the screen adaptation of the “Mean Girls” musical, so it’s safe to say she has quite a bit on her plate. I do think that we’ll see new music from her soon, and if it sounds anything like any of the songs on “Snow Angel,” (or her recent collaboration with Megan Thee Stallion, “Not My Fault”) I’m sure I’ll be streaming it.
6: “The Good Witch” – Maisie Peters
For many, including me, the summer of 2023 was a time of embracing girlhood and healing your inner child. Whether this meant making friendship bracelets, dressing up in extravagant glittery outfits, or doing both in celebration of Taylor Swift’s “The Eras Tour,” the “Barbie” movie, or both, I was all over it.
Maisie Peters is an artist who I think embodies this movement perfectly, so it only made sense that she dropped her album “The Good Witch” just after the first day of summer. Like the title’s nod to “Wicked” suggests, this record is a theatrical experience from start to finish.
It opens with the title track that feels like an overture of a musical, making references to the artist’s past and the songs that will follow it on the tracklist. “The Good Witch” is packed with booming pop anthems, like “Coming Of Age” and “Lost The Breakup,” that you won’t be able to sit still while listening to.
Peters is known for her heartwrenching lyricism, and she digs deeper than ever before here, painting vivid pictures of relationships gone wrong on “Two Weeks Ago,” “Therapy,” “Want You Back,” and “Body Better.” She does this best on “Wendy” and “History Of Man,” where she compares her exes to Peter Pan (a boy who could never grow up) and the ancient city of Troy (“Men start wars yet Troy hates Helen,” she sings).
While I might consider every single track on this LP a standout, I find myself returning to “BSC” and “Watch” the most, because its lyrics are Peters at her most unhinged. “I saw you with your girlfriend / Sure, I don’t know she’s your girlfriend / Well, fucking sue me, ‘cause at least then we could talk,” she pleads on the bridge of “Watch.” “BSC” is even more delightfully spiteful, including the glorious lines, “I am both Kathy Bates and Stephen King / I can write you out the way I wrote you in.”
Released on Ed Sheeran’s Gingerbread Man Records, an artist Peters has frequently toured with, it’s clear that she’s had at least one amazing songwriting mentor, but what makes her words so powerful is how incredibly easy they are to match up to your own life. No matter what you’ve been through, “The Good Witch” has a song that will feel like a big hug for you.
5: “Intellectual Property” – Waterparks
Waterparks is a band that I’ve had complicated feelings about through the years. The band’s first two full-lengths, “Double Dare” and “Entertainment,” are among some of my favorite records of all time.
The “FANDOM” album cycle came at a weird time for me, and I felt like I fell out of love with the band and its fanbase for a number of reasons. Then, “Greatest Hits” came out during my senior year of high school in 2021, and I fell back in love all over again.
“Intellectual Property” was one of my most highly-anticipated albums of 2023, and it certainly did not disappoint. Waterparks’s unique pop-punk sound pushes genre boundaries more than ever before on this record, leaning into elements of electronic-pop on “ST*RFUCKER” and “END OF THE WATER (FEEL)” and more radio/Top 40-esque pop on tracks like “FUNERAL GREY” and “2 BEST FRIENDS.”
There are darker moments on the LP as well, like the lyrically and instrumentally heavy “REAL SUPER DARK” and “RITUAL,” with lyrics that discuss religious trauma and growing up too fast and vocal delivery à la Corpse Husband. Speaking of lyrics, frontman Awsten Knight’s writing is at its best here, from clever wordplay on “BRAINWASHED” to the heartwrenching bridge of “CLOSER.”
Nobody does a closing track like Waterparks, and this album’s conclusion, “A NIGHT OUT ON EARTH,” is no exception. Every final track on a Waterparks album feels like the final track in the first act of a musical, summarizing everything that has happened so far and letting key themes and storylines shine through. This couplet from the first verse does that perfectly: “Desensitized, the love I get is virtual / Now Jesus hates my guts, it’s getting personal.”
This band is incomplete without the live experience, and as someone who saw them play nearly this entire record at Irving Plaza this summer, I can confirm that these songs hit just as hard in person. The Waterparks boys will be hitting the road again in 2024 once again in support of “Intellectual Property,” and even if you’ve never heard the album, I can’t recommend buying a ticket enough.
4: “10,000 gecs” – 100 gecs
While there are similarities between many of the records on this list, I don’t think there’s an album in existence right now, let alone on this list, that sounds anything like the music that 100 gecs makes. The duo’s music is most commonly classified as hyperpop, and while that label is usually mostly true, it’s impossible to fit its latest effort “10,000 gecs” into a box.
The first three tracks on this record are the strongest, but they all couldn’t be more different. “Dumbest Girl Alive” sees vocalist Laura Les singing playful lyrics like “Put emojis on my grave” over a chaotic instrumental. The song is anchored by a central guitar riff, but there’s so much going on on top of it, from video game sound effects to acoustic breakdowns.
Track two “757,” is classic “gecs,” the hyperpop sound that existing fans are probably used to, with even more outlandish lyrics. “I smell the trees when I’m in Colorado / Interior gas station McDonald’s,” is a personal favorite.
“Hollywood Baby” is the track I could see making it into the mainstream the most on this album, and it has already made strides towards that, being named WWE’s theme song for the NXT Great American Bash premium live event this summer. It’s high-energy, chaotic, so addictive that it’s endlessly replayable.
There are genuinely funny moments on this LP too, like the entirety of “Frog On The Floor” and “I Got My Tooth Removed,” which seems like a sad ballad, but is really just a ska song in disguise. In 100 gecs tradition, there’s a song made up entirely of sound effects and samples (think “gecgecgec” and “I Need Help Immediately” from “1,000 gecs”), “One Million Dollars.”
The album’s lead single, “mememe,” is the most upbeat track and probably my personal favorite. Although I’m not usually sure exactly what Les and Dylan Brady are singing about, I still feel the intensity and emotional impact, which speaks to how amazing this band truly is.
3: “This Is Why” – Paramore
There is no greater joy than still loving the bands that got you into the music you listen to now. I heard “crushcrushcrush” by Paramore on an emo knockoff Kidz Bop CD called “Lil Rock Starz” that my mom bought for me in 2009, when I was six years old. The band’s 2013 tour with Fall Out Boy was one of my first concerts ever, so, needless to say, Paramore has played a huge role in getting me where I am today, as a music fan and as a person.
“This Is Why” feels like a natural progression of the band’s career in all ways, a mature next step after 2017’s incredible LP “After Laughter.” It almost feels like a period piece of sorts, with songs like the title track and “The News” feeling all too relevant to the social, cultural, and political climate of life in the United States in the 2020s.
The high-energy moments absolutely soar, whether you’re listening on the train on your way to work or from the lower concourse of Madison Square Garden (speaking from experience on both). I don’t think I fully appreciated this record until I heard so many songs from it live back in May.
“You First” was a perfect way to open the band’s set on its summer tour, boasting one of my favorite lyrics of the year: “Feels like I’m living in a horror film where I’m both the killer and the final girl.” Plus, I nearly couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw mosh pits opening to “Figure 8,” but I promise you you’d want to jump around if you were hearing that chorus live too.’’
My favorite song on the LP by far has to be the penultimate track “Crave,” which frontwoman Hayley Williams has said is about growing up alongside her fans and being a member of Paramore during some of the most important years of her life. I didn’t think it was possible to put the feeling of missing a moment before it’s over into words, but Williams did it in this chorus.
“This Is Why” is completely different from the band’s older work like “Riot!” and “Brand New Eyes,” but I’m not the same person I was when those albums came out, so nobody should expect the musicians to be either. I’ve loved growing up with Paramore as the soundtrack to my formative years, so knowing that that feeling is (sort of?) mutual means a lot to me and sums up how I feel about this band and this album really well.
2: “So Much (For) Stardust” – Fall Out Boy
Funnily enough, I discovered Fall Out Boy the same way I discovered Paramore, through a watered-down child-friendly cover of “Thnks fr th Mmrs” in 2009 and a MounumenTour concert at Jones Beach in 2013. I’ve accepted that the bands I loved as a kid won’t always have the same sound they did when I first found them, and while I’m happy that Paramore’s “This Is Why” is a fresh sound for the band, “So Much (For) Stardust” feels like a true return to form for Fall Out Boy in the best way possible.
Lead single “Love From The Other Side” sounds like it could be on any of the band’s albums released between 2005 and 2013, but is still new and unique enough to exist on a record dropped in 2023. I could say the same about many of the tracks on this LP, like the singalong “Heartbreak Feels So Good” and the delightfully pessimistic “Hold Me Like A Grudge.”
The best tracks on this album see bassist and primary lyricist Pete Wentz writing his heart out the way he did pre-hiatus. My jaw genuinely dropped hearing songs like “Fake Out” and “The Kintsugi Kid (Ten Years)” for the first time because I felt the same way I did hearing songs from 2007’s “Infinity On High” for the first time.
Epic, booming choruses on “Heaven, Iowa” and “What A Time To Be Alive” coexist perfectly with classic FOB interludes like “The Pink Seashell” and “Baby Annihilation.” Every time I play my favorite song from the album, “I Am My Own Muse,” in the car, my mom says it sounds like a WWE wrestler’s theme.
The closing title track has orchestral elements and callbacks to the opening track like a concept album or a soundtrack to a musical or a film might have. All of this speaks to how eclectic Fall Out Boy remains, even over 20 years into releasing music.
The best thing about the “So Much (For) Stardust” album cycle and tour has been seeing how much fun the band members are having with it, fully celebrating all of their music, both new and old, regardless of how successful. 2008’s “Folie A Deux” used to cast such a dark shadow over the band, known as the record that flopped and started its hiatus.
Fast forward to this year, deep cuts from the record like “West Coast Smoker,” “w.a.m.s.,” “27,” and “The (Shipped) Gold Standard” have all been played live for the first time, and “Pavlove,” originally just a bonus track only available on CD, has been played live and released on streaming services. This era of the band feels like an ode to embracing your past, present, and future all the same, and seeing the band do this has healed my inner child (and current 20-year-old me) endlessly.
1: “Feed The Beast” – Kim Petras
My favorite album of 2023 was released by an artist that I didn’t start listening to until October 2022. This year was my first full year as a fan of Kim Petras, and her music has brought me a kind of joy that I honestly didn’t know was possible before.
I discovered Petras at the same time as so many others, when she went viral on social media for her song “Coconuts” and took the Billboard charts by storm with Sam Smith on “Unholy.” I listened to her next few singles, “brrr,” “If Jesus Was A Rockstar,” and “Alone,” as soon as they dropped.
Seeing her live for the first time at the Governor’s Ball music festival in June fully cemented my status as a super fan, pushing me to dive into her discography head first. I fell in love with all of her music, from her early singles like “Heart To Break” and “Can’t Do Better” to her debut mixtape “Clarity” and her Halloween compilation “TURN OFF THE LIGHT.” I became a full-fledged fan at the perfect time, since “Feed The Beast” dropped just a few weeks after my obsession began.
According to the artist, feeding the beast is about sacrificing every part of yourself to your greatest passion in life, in her case, music. It’s clear that Petras put an insane amount of heart and care into this album, and along with her usual feel-good (and often sex-positive) bops, there are really personal and vulnerable moments here as well.
“Claws” and “Minute” my favorite tracks on the album, show emotional depth that longtime fans probably weren’t used to seeing from the singer. There are Europop-influenced bangers like “Castle In The Sky” and “uhoh,” a stellar collaboration with BANKS on “BAIT,” and even some tracks reminiscent of the “Slut Pop” era like “Sex Talk” and “Hit It From the Back.”
While I’ve delved deep into the emotional meanings of many of these records, “Feed The Beast” is just an album that made me feel happy and empowered this year, and in a time where music that makes me feel that can be hard to find, I deeply appreciated this LP. Judging by her no. 1 spot on my Spotify Wrapped this year, I’m sure I’ll be streaming Kim Petras and this album for months and years to come.
You can listen to tracks from these albums and other 2023 favorites here, and check out more best-of-2023 content on Strawberry Skies here!
