Chorus.fm’s Top 30 Albums of 2023 • Page 4

Little too much countryish stuff here for my liking. Things surprised to not see:

Bully “Lucky for You”
Lies “LIES”
White Reaper “Asking for a Ride”
Pierce the Veil “Jaws of Life”
Post Malone “Austin”
happydaze “Full Free Radical”
Beartooth “The Surface”
Kevin Drew “Aging”

 

Lol, there are maybe four albums on that list that could be reasonably described as "countryish," and at least one of those four would be a stretch.

 

This post reminds me that like every year, people forget that these kind of lists are a combination of the contributors' collective taste. Knowing what I know from their taste by reading their posts and interacting with them all over the forum for years, I'd say the lack of some of these is anything but surprising.

Especially Pierce The Veil and Beartooth. I wouldn't say the former is that much popular on here following the allegations and the album got ripped in most online places. Beartooth doesn't seem like the kind of band any of them craves and I'm not sure about Post Malone either.

 

I don't think Post Malone has ever gotten a lot of love on this site, either from staff or in the forums.

 

Fair enough. It's miserabilist poetry for sure. I just wanted to cite a younger act from the genre that might appeal to an old-head on the site.

 

This list needs more Republic of Wolves! Petey got snubbed too

 

It's somewhere on my list.

 

Then this makes me curious, how does Home, Like No Place Is There by The Hotelier sit with you now?

If I remember correctly that was the #1 the year it came out. Both Trophy Eyes and that Youth Fountain album were in my top 10.

Had that Hotelier album came out this year would you have viewed it differently?

 

That album’s better than both of those by a massive margin, for one. I also haven’t listened to it in a long long time, for the aforementioned reasons. It was #4 originally, number five on my re-rank.

 

I loved that Hotelier album at the time, but I think I'd have a tough time going back to it. Just such a heavy listen. I truly don't remember the last time I gave it a spin. Probably when I was compiling my decade list for the 2010s.

 

Two albums I'm not seeing on these lists but I would put in my top 5:

Lankum - False Lankum
Young Fathers - Heavy Heavy

Both were Mercury prize nominees this year, check them out if you're on here looking for recommendations

 

I thought I'd see more Mansions on lists, same with Manchester Orchestra. I know theirs was just an EP, but Yellowcard's mediocre one somehow made it.

Thought I'd also see at least some the Front Bottoms.

Great year in music, with an amazing October and November.

 

Didn’t The Front Bottoms have some pretty upsetting allegations and accountability issues?

 

A former guitarist of the band that hasn't been in the band since 2019.

 

The way the band handled it was not good at all: Aug 4, 2023 & Aug 6, 2023

 

Always curious, why do this? Like, you wanna know why Man Orch didn't make the list and Yellowcard did? Because more people that sent in lists liked the Yellowcard album. What is calling it mediocre going to do besides make those of us that liked the album mad? I'll never get it.

 

I also just don’t think those are equivalent situations? ManOrch released a solid EP that I liked ok, but it felt a little disappointing to me that they went the short-form release route after two really strong full-album achievements. Felt a bit like a step backward. Versus Yellowcard, a beloved band from a lot of our pasts that broke up in 2016, coming back with their first new music since. The latter, by default, is going to drum up more excitement than the former.

 

Plus 2023 was definitely the "Year of the EP" with it being the first year I've included EPs in my main list since I came back to them so often in my rotation. Yellowcard 100% deserves their ranking.

 

The cool thing about seeing all the contributor lists is knowing that somehow we all came out of the same little scene niche and have expanded since.

didn’t write nearly enough for the site this year, but I did listen to about 90 new albums and chose my 30 from that list.

But please, if you like heavy music at all… listen to that Silent Planet record. What a behemoth.

 

Superbloom is a masterpiece.

 

It's definitely expanded, especially after changing to Chorus.fm. When Phoebe Bridgers's first album was voted top for 2017 I was pretty surprised. Then I was thankful for being exposed to her because I ended up loving that album, and still do. However there are some that made the lists that I seriously doubt would still be voted so highly, Kacey Musgraves in 2018 comes to mind.

 

Yeah it's all opinions anyways and top lists always cause people to say one thing is shit and another is more deserving. I could have worded it better. Manchester Orchestra has had a huge following on this site, at least they did or I thought they did, so I assumed their EP would rank highly. So when it wasn't on the list I was definitely surprised.

 

I wasn't disappointed because I was just happy they were releasing new music so close to a recent LP. There were four years between A Black Mile and the Million Masks. So 6 new songs coming out that's less than 2 years removed from their last release was a major win for me.

 

IMO, that Kacey record is easily the best album of 2018 and I’m proud it topped our list. (Also, Phoebe wasn’t our top album in 2017, Julien Baker was. Phoebe was 4.)

 

Oh damn, I really thought she was at the top. I think with Kacy in 2018, it was the first time I realized that there's way more country music influence on this site than ever before. Seems like that trend has continued.