Largehearted Boy's Favorite Albums of 2023

A playlist of '00s bangers, an interview with Melissa Broder, Pitchfork on the shoegaze revival, a new essay by Kate Christensen, and more

2023 was an amazing year for new music. Increasingly, I found myself drawn away from indie rock and alt-country into the worlds of electronica, dream pop, dance music.

These are the albums I recommended to friends, Largehearted Boy readers, and strangers the most this year (my personal metric for “favorite”).

Laurel Halo mixes acoustic sketches with ambient music to great effect on Atlas.

Water From Your Eyes’ Everyone’s Crushed is the band’s most accomplished effort yet, an album which surprises and impresses on its first spin with its hooks then sinks deeper with every listen.

Meg Baird’s been heard playing guitar in Espers and drums in Heron Oblivion and Watery Love lately, but her second solo effort Furling is her strongest musical achievement yet. As captivating as it is fascinating, this is easily one of my favorite albums of the year.

Julie Byrne’s The Greater Wings might be, from first track to last, the strongest album of the year and the best album about grief since the Antlers’ Hospice and Mount Eerie’s A Crow Looked At Me.

Joanna Sternberg’s I’ve Got Me is one of my favorite albums of the year, a collection of smart and quirky songs that pierce with their emotional depth (and humor).

Mandy, Indiana’s i’ve seen a way is one of the most exciting debut albums I’ve heard in years, both abrasive and beautiful at the same time.

Mitski impresses yet again, lyrically stunning in this country-leaning album.

Sofia Kourtesis’s Madres album is an intimate portrait boldly drawn.

ANOHNI’s first release since 2016 is powerful in its rawness and sincerity, an album almost entirely recorded in first takes.

Jess Williamson’s Time Ain’t Accidental is a modern and artful take on alt-country.

Yves Tumor has always been as interesting as they are eclectic. Their new album, Praise A Lord Who Chews But Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds), moves easily between post-punk, rock, and dance. An unforgettable record from an exciting artist.

A Playlist Largehearted Boy’s favorite albums of 2023 (11 albums, 115 songs, 6 hours and 59 minutes)

Largehearted Likes:

1. The Ladies of Cake Zine Are Making Sweets Cool Again
   KING-CLEMENTS: I’m looking around and I have never seen a small indie zine with this kind of whole following. How’d you pull this off? Is it luck? Is it just hard work?

   ABARBANEL: Tanya and I have both been working in this industry for a long time. I worked at Bon Appetit. Tanya’s a pastry chef and a writer in the literary community here. And a magazine is a social object. We worked with 50 people on the issue and probably another 20 on the party. Everybody brings their friends. It’s a fun place to be.

2. Pineapple Beach Club
   One of the most relaxing places I’ve ever been. Highly recommended for reading, writing, and beautiful beaches.

Largehearted Book & Music Links:

1. Fairy Tale Architecture, a series at Places Journal
   The brother-sister duo of writer Kate Bernheimer and architect Andrew Bernheimer curate a series in which diverse architects explore the intimate relationship between the domestic structure of fairy tales and the imaginative realm of architecture.

2. March Xness’s playlist of “00s bangers”
   It features new music some some of our favs this year, including at least 4 Aussie artists: (Xness faves) Quivers covering REM’s “Radio Song,” (Xness faves) Haiku Hands, (new to us) Tropical Fuckstorm covering “Stayin’ Alive,” and new fav Angie McMahon doing an all-timer cover of “Knowing Me, Knowing You.”

3. Maris Kreizman on how to fix Goodreads
   So how to fix it? It starts with people: Goodreads desperately needs more human moderation to monitor the goings-on. Obviously, part of any healthy discussion is the ability to express displeasure — those one-star reviews, ideally accompanied by well-argued rationales, are sacrosanct — but Goodreads has enabled the weaponization of displeasure.

4. The Shoegaze Revival Hit Its Stride in 2023

   Duster’s newfound popularity is just one example of how—thanks in large part to social media and streaming—once-marginal ’90s subgenres have found a new generation of fans by swirling together into a vibes-first incarnation of indie rock. It’s all come together underneath the banner of shoegaze, a sound once synonymous with squalling guitars and blissed-out vocals that today has become a vehicle for young people to express uncontainable feelings.

5. Melissa Broder on how meditation can inform your writing

6. Paul Hanley on his new book, Sixteen Again: How Pete Shelley & Buzzcocks Changed Manchester Music (And Me)
   Why did you choose Buzzcocks?

   Paul Hanley: Well, there’s the cultural significance of them bringing the Sex Pistols to Manchester twice, and kick starting indie music. Then there is the fact that Pete Shelley was a song writing genius who could say more in a three minute pop song than most writers could say in a whole album. But most importantly they were my favourite band between the ages of 14 and 16, which is about the only time in your life when it’s OK to have a favourite band.

7. Auraist
   We recently posted pieces on prose style by Booker Prize winner Paul Lynch, Eskor David Johnson, Nicola Griffith, Anna Della Subin, and Lavie Tidhar.

8. Simon Reynolds has a new book forthcoming!
   Futuromania: Electronic Dreams, Desiring Machines And Tomorrow's Music Today is a sequel of sorts to Reynolds' famous book Retromania: Pop Culture's Addiction To Its Own Past, which was published in 2010.

9. A new essay by Kate Christensen

10. 32 Books NYLON’s Excited About in 2024

11. How Do You Even Sell a Book Anymore?

    The enigma of how to sell a book touches all corners of literary culture. It affects what kinds of titles publishers acquire and, at the other end of the pipeline, which titles readers see the most.

    
    

Last Two Weeks’ LHB Feature Posts:

Camille A. Collins’s playlist for her short story in the anthology Black Punk Now

Chịkọdịlị Emelụmadụ’s playlist for her novel Dazzling

Mike Barnes’s playlist for his book Sleep is Now a Foreign Country

Nate Patrin’s playlist for his book The Needle and the Lens

Victoria Lancelotta’s playlist for her story collection Ways to Disappear