On the surface, you might think that this has not been a vintage year for albums. While big-hitting megastars like Beyoncé and Taylor Swift have been at the forefront of the industry with their tours, when it comes to new music, they have – along with the likes of Kendrick Lamar and Arctic Monkeys – been dormant this year. Rihanna used her Super Bowl performance to announce not that long-awaited album but a second pregnancy. And the lacklustre Glastonbury headliners confirmed that the world of new music, when it comes to the big names, has been feeling a little quiet.
Look closer and 2023 has produced some gems from a hugely diverse array of genres. The triumph of Ezra Collective at the Mercury Prize – with their 2022 album Where I’m Meant to Be – was proof that no, instruments are not dead, and jazz is not confined to Real Books and Ronnie Scott’s.
Similarly, many of the 10 albums below are not confined to one genre themselves: Caroline Polachek blends the electronic and the operatic; Jessie Ware inflects her modern soul with old-school disco; and J Hus creates a melting pot of Afrobeats and R&B.
But electronic is undoubtedly having a moment, too – in the post-Covid years a generation is longing for the dance floor, and 2023 has provided plenty of thumping bass, including James Blake’s Playing Robots into Heaven – an album that takes him back to his DJ roots. Whichever you prefer, or if you go in for a bit of both, it’s a deceptively exciting time to be a pop fan – or dare I say it, a rock fan, what with the return of a little-known band called The Rolling Stones.
10. The Rolling Stones – Hackney Diamonds
It was touch and go when The Rolling Stones dropped “Angry”, their first single for three years, as a surprise – when you’re a group pushing 80 and down a member, can you really still create the old rock-n-roll? Luckily, they proved they could – “Angry” was a rip-roaring track that managed to avoid taking itself too seriously while maintaining the glamour of their early classics. The full album, Hackney Diamonds, followed suit, with a sparkling collab with Lady Gaga and a cameo from their former drummer, Charlie Watts, who died in 2021 (he managed to record parts for two songs). It’s almost certainly their last, but this is an album that resists too much reflection or nostalgia: “You think the party’s over?” sings Jagger. “It’s only just begun.”
9. Olivia Rodrigo – Guts
In 2021, aged 18, Olivia Rodrigo stormed the pop world with her debut album Sour. Although her Disney Channel beginnings somewhat took the edge off her self-styled pop-punk princess persona – and multiple accusations of plagiarism left Sour listeners with something of a… well… sour taste – it didn’t stop her becoming a teen sensation and the buzziest new entry into the pop world for a long time. On Guts, she has grown up, musically and emotionally: while Sour was raw, coloured by the freefall of heartbreak, here she is self-possessed and cheeky. There is still plenty of adolescent angst and hyper-stylised retro guitar to get your teeth into – and although Rodrigo remains firmly on the “pop” side of “pop-punk”, her second record proves that she’s going to be around for much longer.
8. J Hus – Beautiful And Brutal Yard
Since his 2017 debut album Common Sense, east London rapper J Hus has emerged both as a critically acclaimed and widely loved figure in British hip hop. With a distinctive Afroswing sound and collaborations with the likes of Jorja Smith and Burna Boy, his 2023 album Beautiful And Brutal Yard is stocked with smoothly produced bangers like “Who Told You” (feat. Drake), a strong contender for the song of the summer – but it also speaks to the complexities of black British masculinity and life on the streets (in late 2018, he was sentenced to eight months in prison for carrying a knife in public). J Hus doesn’t shy away from the sexual braggadocio often cited as criticism of the very broad genre that is hip hop – but you can forgive him, couched as it is in precise, rhythmic flows and confident grooves.
7. Roisin Murphy – Hit Parade
You would expect an artist who’s been in the game for as long as Roisin Murphy, who came up as one half of the pop duo Moloko, really to know what they’re doing by now – and sure enough, Hit Parade shows that she’s honed her craft. A thoughtful, witty album of highly danceable yet melancholic art-pop, it was produced by the techno legend DJ Koze – both worked on the album remotely over the course of six years. The result is something quite special and refined, with voice-memo and spoken snippets over sparse beats and haunting tunes. It was unfortunate that Hit Parade’s release got overshadowed by controversy, after Murphy posted a rant about the supposed perils of puberty blockers to Facebook and alienated swathes of her fanbase, many of whom are queer. She apologised, but for many the album has been tainted.
6. Young Fathers – Heavy Heavy
Where to begin with a band like Young Fathers, whose music is so visceral that it feels like the pulse of life itself? The Scottish trio, formed in Edinburgh in 2008, won the Mercury Prize for their debut album Dead in 2014; this year they found themselves on the shortlist again, three albums later, with Heavy Heavy. From the uplifting shuffle of “Rice” to the excitable propulsion of “Sink or Swim”, Heavy Heavy comes with all the urgency of Young Fathers’ previous work, though at times it feels a little less, well, heavy – softer, somehow, round the edges. Still, with colossal choruses and lyrics loaded with feeling set over pounding percussion, this is an album that jolts you into life and movement.
5. Jessie Ware – That! Feels Good!
Having transitioned from slick electro pop to all-out disco with the arrival of her fourth album, What’s Your Pleasure?, in 2020, the pop-soul singer Jessie Ware has continued firmly on the party train. That! Feels Good! is an album of riotous hedonism, a celebration of the dancefloor, queer culture, letting your hair down and having a good time. Ware whizzes us round under glitterballs and whispers huskily in our ear (on the opening title track, she repeats over and over: “That! Feels good! Do it again”). All her cries for pleasure are backed by punchy brass and sizzling hi-hat, from the sexy shuffle of “Pearls” to the smooth Latin groove of “Begin Again”. The message throughout is clear: get up, get out, get dancing.
4. Sufjan Stevens – Javelin
The release of a new Sufjan Stevens album at the beginning of October gave everyone permission to wrap up, hunker down and exhale. Javelin is the 10th album from Stevens, the creator of a fuzzy, spiritual kind of folktronica that is as joyous as it is heartbreaking – this record is dedicated to his former partner Evans Richardson, who died in April this year. Although Stevens is known to fluctuate between expansive electro songwriting and a more intimate, acoustic guitar-based folk, Javelin has got a bit of everything: plenty of plucked strings and cooing woodwinds but snowballing synths and ethereal bells, too. It doesn’t take much Sufjan Stevens to feel like you’ve been listening to his music all your life, and if his back catalogue seems impenetrable, Javelin is such a contained version of everything he’s about that it could be a great place to start.
3. Boygenius – The Record
Phoebe Bridgers, one third of the indie-rock so-called supergroup Boygenius, has described the band’s formation as “kind of an accident”, but for their devoted fans, it’s the happiest of accidents. The trio comprises Bridgers, Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker, three singer-songwriters of unique styles united by a collective vibe that could be described as “angry girl music of an indie rock persuasion”, to borrow a phrase from 10 Things I Hate About You. Together, they are a powerhouse of emotion. The Record is their first full album, following 2018’s self-titled EP, and it is a feast of woodsy vocal harmonies, soft guitar and delicious songwriting. Daring rhythm and hopeful energy propels “$20”, while “Emily I’m Sorry” has a gentle lilt and a sadness that cuts to the bone. Apart, Bridgers, Dacus and Baker are three of the best indie songwriters in the game – and all together they’re even better.
2. James Blake – Playing Robots into Heaven
You can tell within half a second of Playing Robots into Heaven that it’s James Blake – a trait that is testament to the talent and strength of both the album and the artist. For more than a decade the singer-songwriter-producer has been expertly manipulating his gentle, soulful melodies into walls of electrifying sound, sometimes icy, sometimes like a warm bath. In comparison to his 2019 album Assume Form, a tender reflection of his relationship with the presenter and model Jameela Jamil, and 2021’s Friends That Break Your Heart, Playing Robots into Heaven is a return to Blake’s DJ roots. He doesn’t neglect those glassy melodies, but here there’s driving basslines and pacey beats that create tracks of dark techno and echoing, ambient electronica. In many ways, it feels like it’s all been leading up to this – and while Blake has got to the point where he can do little wrong, you also wonder how he could possibly do better.
1. Caroline Polachek – Desire, I Want to Turn Into You
With her second album, Caroline Polachek has proved that her progressiveness and musical creativity are once in a generation. Formerly of the band Chairlift, Polachek produces otherworldly electronic music with her ethereal, operatic vocal at the centre, creating a sound that sits somewhere between Kate Bush and Imogen Heap. On Desire, I Want to Turn Into You, she experiments with Latin grooves, vocoders and bagpipes – collaborating with the Scottish piper Brìghde Chaimbeul on “Blood and Butter”, and featuring Dido and Grimes on “Fly to You”. Polachek is always on the move, creating swirls of sound that carry you with her: on “Welcome to My Island”, she uses her voice in lieu of a guitar solo, while on “Smoke”, she uses a repetitive vocal refrain to take us up, up and away. Without a doubt, my album of the year – nobody’s doing it like Polachek.