The 2023 Writer's Brain Music Awards
Happy to have a newsletter to present this. Now I can expand upon my format that I only shared on Instagram stories in the past. I'll go over my favorite albums, but also a few new categories as well.
2023 was a great year for me and a great year for music. Part of the reason it was a great year for me is that I started this newsletter, and now I’m excited to share some of my favorite music of the last trip around the sun with y’all.
This is the penultimate newsletter of the year by the way. The next will be a list of my own personal achievements. Mostly it will be a list of my favorite pieces I published throughout the year, but I’m also going to get a little sentimental about some other great big things that made 2023 one of the best for me.
Now let’s get into the music.
1. Album Of The Year
Like the Grammys, the highest award on my list goes to the best album. If I can play a teeny, tiny role in sustaining the reverence for this longer format, I am going to do so.
And the winner is….
boygenius - the record
As if anyone who has been following this newsletter, following me on social media, or spoken to me between March and today is at all surprised. As I’ve said before, I’ve TL:DR’d enough about this band so I’ll do my best to refine my thoughts.
On a personal level, this is the only album I can point to that has gotten me through one, specific, difficult experience. Music has always been my source of relief and catharsis. I rely on it every day, but this is the first time I can say “I got through this because I listened to Phoebe, Lucy, and Julien’s magnanimity over and over and over again.” It’s a magnanimity that is compounded by the unending power found within their inimitable rapport, a rapport I feel both gratitude and pride to have witnessed for 45 minutes on the tenth anniversary of when one of my best friends died in a drunk-driving accident.
On a musical level, the triumph is undisputed. The variety of the 12 songs depicts the originality of the three members alongside their flexibility in welcoming the input of one another. It’s an album of stories. Some elated. Others dismal. All of them relatable and presented in a laconic fashion compared to the abyssal depths of their souls into which they dived in ideation. Distortion has its place. Acoustic has its place. Screaming has its place. Humming has its place. They didn’t need to stack every genre hallmark on top of one another to make an album that covers the whole sonic spectrum of popular music. The popular music they wanted to make just happened to cover the whole sonic spectrum.
2. My 20+ Runners Up
I always have one album that stands out to me every year, but beyond that, I don’t see much point in ranking music considering its inherent subjectivity. As such, these 20 or so runners-up are listed in no particular order. They may have some words attached. They may not. But every one of them is stellar in its own way.
MØAA - Jaywalker
Shoutout Jancy
Margaret Glaspy - Echo The Diamond
Squirrel Flower - Tomorrow’s Fire
Sofia Kourtesis - Madres
Tele Novella - Poet’s Tooth
Romy - Mid Air
Please, please, please, Romy, bring some of this “Enjoy Your Life” energy into the next xx album (and please make that soon).
Olivia Rodrigo - GUTS
The fact that I can love Olivia’s work so much without having a single ex is pretty fascinating when you think about it.
Santa Chiara - IMPORTED
Royal Blood - Back To The Water Below
I really hope they play Coachella. The one gig on their US tour that was sold out was Denver for some reason. Cool to know there are people around here into this kind of music, but annoying I couldn’t see them.
Blur - The Ballad of Darren
IzangoMa - Ngo Ma
Follow Brownswood Recordings right now. They are my basis for finding new, mystical jazz like this. I became familiar with them because they put out Mala’s 2016 album, Mirrors.
Being Dead - When Horses Would Run
Aluna - MYCELiUM
Chris Lake’s best track ever is on this album.
Miranda and the Beat - Miranda & The Beat
I love it when artists make subtle changes to their technically self-titled albums. Just like how Skream’s self-titled is Skream!
Nabihah Iqbal - DREAMER
James Ellis Ford - The Hum
Symphony Orchestra - Radiant Music
Shoutout Michael. And no, this is not classical music. It’s rock and fucking roll.
Unknown Mortal Orchestra - V
Whenever Ruban titles his albums with Roman numerals they are fucking masterpieces.
Skrillex - Quest For Fire
“Oh you mean Sonny?” Yes. In fact, I do.
Caroline Polachek - Desire, I Want To Turn Into You
Kelela - Raven
Jadu Heart - Derealised
KOAN Sound - Led By Ancient Light
When you listen to this, make sure to read along with the story they wrote.
3. Non-Album Of The Year
While the album is the premier format, great music is found in other formats as well. This category can apply to EPs, singles, DJ mixes, playlists, anything that requires curation of music and has a shareable link
Gretel Hänlyn - Head of the Love Club
If there was one artist I was obsessed with almost as much as the members of boygenius this year, it’s Gretel. I honestly can’t remember how I first discovered her debut EP, Slugeye. I think it was one of the few times when Spotify’s “You Might Also Like” function actually came through.
Regardless of the method, Gretel has not let me down since. This EP is even better than the first. The round timbre of her deep tenor is gargantuan. Like a call from a lover or friend that has the power to echo for hundreds of miles in all directions. This sheer force is balanced by her lyrics, depicting the historical woes of the early 20s but with a sense of affable shit-talking.
I flew back to LA early for Thanksgiving to see Gretel’s first-ever performance in the City of Angels. In the live space, her voice wraps around you before her guitar and the rest of her band adds another outer layer of cohesive beauty. It’s like her vocalizations are the house, and the instruments are the precious and ever-changing landscape surrounding it.
4. Album Of Not-This-Year
Discovery extends beyond the current year, and I want to honor fabulous music regardless of its release date.
Zella Day - Sunday In Heaven
The first thing I thought when I first heard Zella was:
“Holy shit, she sounds like Annie.”
The “Annie” following the expletive, of course, refers to Annie Clark — who produces, writes, sings, records, performs, and shreds the shit out of her custom Ernie Ball Music Man six-string under the name of St. Vincent.
Now, in general, I wouldn’t consider a comparison to another artist as a compliment. Everyone is unique and deserves to be recognized as such.
But as always, Annie is the exception to the rule.
I legitimately believed no one else in the world truly sounded like Annie. Perhaps someone has a similar voice or a similar sound. That doesn’t mean they sound like her.
To sound like Annie requires a certain brand of confidence that causes normal people of standard solidity in their composition to actually melt — only to reform when the music stops (I don’t know how many times I’ve reformed after listening to Annie at this point).
When I first heard, Zella I melted. Her confidence. Her sharp delivery. Her abandonment of any restriction. She is unique, but she also shares something I initially thought was inimitable with Annie Clark.