Radio Faux Show Volume 3, Number 15: Best Music of 2023 (So Far)

Radio Faux Show Volume 3, Number 15: Best Music of 2023 (So Far)

It is not easy to discover new music that one likes. With the endless supply of newly released songs on streaming services, and easy access to music from all over the world, it becomes more and more difficult to filter out the junk and find the good stuff. This is especially true if one enjoys music from a variety of styles. I assume that if all a person wants to listen to is new rap, country, or pop then it is easy to check the hit lists and enjoy what is currently popular. I prefer to look for new sounds that are not as familiar. This search will occasionally lead me to the familiar and popular but also to new discoveries. After three years of researching new music for the Radio Faux Show, I have discovered a variety of methods to do this research using Google, streaming services, and a variety of sites, and even though most of the music I find is not to my liking, the result is always rewarding.

The albums I have selected as a Best of 2023 (So Far) list are an extremely apt snapshot of how I listen to music and the music to which I like to listen. It is all over the place and ranges from quiet introspection to catchy hook-driven pop to dissonant experimentation, sometimes all within the same song. It is doubtful that all this music will remain on my Best of 2023 list at the end of the year, but some of these albums are already strong contenders. In addition to the new artists that usually make up Best Of The Year lists, it is exciting that so many old artists are releasing such high-quality new music. About a third of the albums I have selected are by artists who have been recording for at least 25 years, including some who have been recording for over fifty years. This makes me happy because hearing great new music by an artist such as Peter Gabriel is not only exciting for his fans but also a great way for younger listeners to discover a lifetime of work by an artist they may have ignored otherwise. More importantly, from a personal perspective, I have already discovered at least a dozen artists this year who are new to me and have released other music over the last few years that I will now search out. If I wasn’t making these shows, I would not have discovered Water From Your Eyes, Yikii, or Susan Sundfer (to name just three). This is, after all, one of the main reasons I make these shows. Discovering new music is my passion, and the music of 2023 is feeding it well.

As usual, there is a playlist for this show.

Amazon Music

Spotify

I’ve attempted to track the songs with a flow that isn’t quite as jarring as might be expected based on the diversity of artists I’ve selected. What I find interesting with this collection of music from 2023 is that even though the artists range from those who started in the ‘60s to those who have just begun their careers, there is a “sound of the 2020s” that is starting to became identifiable to me after three years of making the Faux Show. This is not to say that all music in 2023 sounds the same, but it is great to hear music by an artist from the ‘80s that still sounds like that artist (but with modern production) juxtaposed with new music. In fact, some new music by older artists, such as Sparks and Peter Gabriel, shows that they were decades ahead of their time and modern production has finally caught up to the sounds they were making in their prime.

If the next 6 months produce more music of the caliber of these albums I have selected, this is going to be a great year in music.

Debut Albums

New recording artists are born every day. There are so many, in fact, that there is no way to discover all of them unless you spend a ridiculous amount of time trying to do so. I don’t have that much spare time, so the new artists I discover tend to either be critically acclaimed (and easy to discover) or are working in a style of music that I enjoy. While researching this show, I am sure I skimmed over several debut albums that I might enjoy, but there are a few that made my final list.

the record is the debut album for supergroup boygenius, although it is certainly not a debut for any of the members of the band. Consisting of three female songwriters (Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus), the group has pulled an incredible amount of songwriting talent into their first full length collection as a trio.
Yaeji is a Korean American songwriter and her debut album With A Hammer is getting a lot of attention as one of the best albums of the year. I’m not sure about it yet. The music is an odd interpretation of modern R&B, soul, electronic, and pop music, all filtered through some weirdly experimental production techniques. In the end, it falls shy of providing any sort of groove that I find interesting. The fact that she is not a very good vocalist does not help. This one intrigues me and I need to listen more to try to figure out what is going on.
Blondshell is the debut full length album for Sabrina Teitelbaum. She started out as a relatively unsuccessful pop artist known as BAUM, but this collection of indie rock under the name Blondshell seems to have found her songwriting wheelhouse. I am sure that Liz Phair comparisons can be found out there, but I think that may be an unfair comparison. Blondshell has her own unique voice on these recordings.

Newer Artists

The majority of music I selected is by artists who have been around for only a few years. They are artists that cover a variety of styles, but all of them sound like 21st century songwriters and musicians. Some of these albums may require repeated listening before I can tell how much I like them, but a few have already stood out.

After listening to Everyone’s Crushed, I went back to explore the earlier recordings of Water From Your Eyes. Their first album was a forgettable collection of covers. They followed that up with several short albums (EPs really) and singles, all of which show their evolution into the sound they have produced on their 2023 album. This is an early favorite for my Best of 2023 list.

Praise A Lord Who Chews But Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds) is the latest album for Yves Tumor, and probably the best album title of 2023 so far. Experimental electronic music is quickly becoming my favorite style of new music. It is not a style I listened to much before making the Faux Show, and the music can be very hit or miss, but when it hits it is some of the most rewarding music of the new generation. This album hits.

The Long Island brothers known as The Lemon Twigs spent their teenage years playing late night shows, releasing pop music that sounded much older than them, and getting a lot of media attention. I can’t say much about that music because I was not aware of any of it until recently. What I can say is that their 2023 album Everything Harmony is currently Ms. Faux and my favorite new album. From the John Denver-influenced opener “When Winter Comes Around” to the Todd Rundgren-inspired “In My Head” to the gorgeous title track, this is an album that deserves to be on everyone’s Best of 2023 list at the end of the year.

These albums by new artists need time to grow on me, but so far they are some of my 2023 favorites.

Desire, I Want To Turn Into You by Caroline Polachek is one of the most critically acclaimed albums of 2023 so far, but I am not sure it is for me. I’m giving it a shot though.

Bc Camplight has been releasing albums for about 15 years and seems to have a sense of humor that could appeal to me. Plus, his music is catchy. I’ll need to listen to his album The Last Rotation Of Earth more during the summer.

Rat Saw God is Wednesday’s fifth album. It is Southern shoegaze noise pop. This one may grow on me.

Cécile McLorin Salvant is a jazz vocalist and Mélusine is her seventh album. The tunes present a variety of jazz influences. This is definitely a contender for Best Jazz Album on my end of year list.

Lakecia Benjamin is a jazz/R&B saxophonist and Phoenix is her fourth album. The tunes present a variety of jazz influences. This is definitely a contender for Best Jazz Album on my end of year list.

Squid (O Monolith) and Shame (Food For Worms) are two artists that Faux Jr. has introduced to me over the last couple of years. I like both of them and these new albums are good additions to their relatively small discographies.

Older Artists

In a world that tends to eat up and then spit out new artists before they can fully mature, it is great to find artists still making great music after 20 years. Several veteran artists of the late ’90s/early 2000s have released great new releases this year.

After beginning their recording career almost 25 years ago as a duo called the Knife, Swedish electronic artist Fever Ray has now spent the last fifteen years creating a sporadic discography of critically acclaimed music. I am late to the dance party, but their third album Radical Romantics is incredible music.
The National are one of the most consistent artists of the last 20 years. They have never reached the level of popularity of bands like Foo Fighters, but they are similar in that they helped create a specific sound of American music and have continued to create definitive examples of that music throughout their career. The First Two Pages of Frankenstein continues their mastery of emotional downtempo indie rock.
Duster released a few albums and EPs in the late ’90s and then they stopped recording for almost 20 years. They have now returned over the last few years as a favorite of young college crowds. Their new album Moods/Modes updates their sound while maintaining their original slowcore beginnings.

Really Old Artists

When the youngest musicians on the list are indie rock pioneers Yo La Tengo, you know these are really old artists. Sometimes grandparents make great music. I don’t know if any of these musicians are grandparents, but they are certainly old enough to be.

After fifty years of relative obscurity, Sparks are the fairy tale musical story of the 2020s. Their fans have known for years (often a lifetime) about the genius of this band, but the rest of the world has taken far too long to finally catch on. Their new album, The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte, is incredible and shows that they have spent a career as architects of the music of the 21st century.
I can’t explain in words how exciting it has been to hear new music from Peter Gabriel in 2023 that sounds like him in his prime. His new album i/0 has been rumored to exist for years, but it is finally close to being released. There have been six songs released so far, and every one of them sounds great. Brian Eno is producing and Gabriel’s voice sounds amazing. There are three different mixes being produced, so it is hard to know how the final product will sound, but fans know it is worth the wait.
Shonen Knife have been making their unique version of punk rock for over forty years. They are awesome and Our Best Place is yet another great release by the Queens of Japanese Punk Rock.
This Stupid World is the 17th album for Yo La Tengo. At this point, any Yo La Tengo album is a mix of the sounds they have mastered over the last forty years. This new release is no different, and is another great album in their collection.

International Artists

Echoes is the latest release by the Nordic experimental supergroup Fire! Orchestra. They are virtually unknown by anyone who doesn’t pay attention to the avant-garde. It is challenging, gorgeous, meditative, and groove-tastic all at the same time. If this was a Top 20 list, this would be #1.
Parannoul is a South Korean shoegaze artist and After The Magic is his new album. K-Pop fans should steer clear of this one, but the members of the Faux Household think it is great.

Shonen Knife (Japan) – see above

Fever Ray (Sweden) – see above

Yikii (China) is one of my favorite discoveries made while researching this show. She is an experimental Chinese artist. The Crow-Cyan Lake is her latest album in an unbelievably prolific discography. This is incredibly difficult music, but well worth the effort. Really good experimental music is not definable. This is that kind of music.
With Blómi, Norwegian songwriter Susanne Sundfør continues the return to the folk sound of her first recordings. It has been six years since her last release, which was her first album in years that focused on folk instead of pop, and she has spent those six years creating a great collection of songs. I know little about Sundfør prior to discovering her while researching this show, but this record is an immediate contender for my Best of 2023 list.

Bob Dylan

If you don’t already understand that Bob Dylan is an American treasure and a living icon on a short list of people who invented the modern sound of music – a shrinking list that includes Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, and Sonny Rollins, then you are either beyond saving or need to go back to his 1963 debut album and start from the beginning. If you do understand this, then you were as amazed as I was when I first heard this recording. Created as a soundtrack for an upcoming film about his early music, Shadow Kingdom presents 13 newly recorded versions of songs from Dylan’s first 20 or so years of songwriting. The musicians on these songs include Don Was, T-Bone Burnett, some great session musicians, and several members of Oingo Boingo.

The arrangements are amazing; no percussion – just guitars, bass, harmonica, and accordion – and Dylan’s voice is at its strongest in years. This may not be the last Dylan album, but every album he makes at this point could be his last. If that turns out to be the case, then this is the perfect album for the occasion.

That concludes my Best of 2023 (So Far) list. The next show is the 100th official Radio Faux Show blog post, so I’m working on a special Faux Household related theme. In the meantime, as always, thanks for listening (and reading)!

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