The Dadrock origin story – as a burgeoning music junky growing up, I loved the Village Voice’s Pazz & Jop music poll. After tabulation “by hand,” it came out in February and represented a consensus of the best music from the previous year, from a broad coalition of music critics across the country. Like most good things it was killed by the internet.
2023 was a good – not great – year in music. Most years it seems like there is a consensus of the best of the best releases, at least to some degree. But as I looked at several lists from the likes of Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, Paste, and others (including dadrock.co, natch), there seemed to be a wide array of releases considered the best of the year. This led me to go down a ridiculous rabbit hole, compiling an array of Best Of lists and creating the inaugural, and likely final, dadrock.co Albums Of The Year Power Poll©️.
Do you ever start a relatively meaningless task, realize that it is taking way too long and isn’t worth the effort, but you’ve come this far so you might as well keep going? Yeah.
I focused on Best Of lists that were at least 50 albums deep, though in a couple cases (LA Times and Esquire) their lists were 20 albums, and Rolling Stone ranks their top 100. I skipped publications such as the NY Times who have each music editor give their personal top 10 (too much work) and and a couple lists I came across who seemed hell bent on celebrating the most obscure albums released this year (Mojo barely made the cut when Dexy from Dexy’s Midnight Runners made the list…). What ranking should I give albums that didn’t make the top 20/50/100, respectively? In other words, if Esquire kept going beyond their top 20, where would Everything But The Girl’s Fuse land? I decided, somewhat arbitrarily, to rank albums that fell out of Rolling Stone’s top 100 at #101. Same for the top 50 lists (#51). Brooklyn Vegan had a Top 55 list (weird), so I went with #56 for albums that failed to make their list. For the top 20s, I went with #40 (#21 would skew them too high in my opinion). This is a mixture of art and science, and it was my stupid idea, so that’s what I went with.
When taken in this form, it is astounding to consider how many “critically acclaimed” albums are released in a single year. For this exercise, 282 releases were considered the “best” of the year by 12 publications. By my suspect math, only about 34% received consensus praise. Not a single album appeared on every list, which is remarkable when you think about it.
The rabbit hole led me to rank my personal 50 albums, which is a lot. My list had at least a half dozen that got NO love from ANY of the other lists. This led me to summon the tone of Snoop Dogg at the 1995 Source Awards (click to watch on youtube)
“The music press ain’t got no love for Genesis Owusu?!” “Y’all got no love for Disclosure?!” For Unknown Mortal Orchestra?? “Bar Italia?!!” I know this is a subjective process, it seems like music criticism malpractice to not include certain releases. Lil Yachty’s Let’s Start Here may be polarizing but how is that album left off of Pitchfork’s top 50, for example? Jon Batiste’s World Radio is up for a slew of Grammys. It may be lame for a music snob to consider Grammy accolades, but it seems odd that the album would essentially be ignored (I got you at #35, Jon).
One more thing – every year in addition to my round up of the best albums of the year, I like to acknowledge the worst album to come out from a prominent artist. Sort of the Razzies of music, it can’t be the worst album from some band you’ve never heard of. I name it The Last DJ Award, after Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers 2002 rather stinky album that came on the heels of a successful run(Into the Great Wide Open, Wildflowers etc). It feels a bit cruel to name this award after Petty (RIP) but the Last DJ Award has such a resonant ring to it that I’m sticking with it, at least for now. This year’s Last DJ Award goes to America’s Sweetheart, Dolly Parton. I know what she’s doing here, putting out a rock album in response to being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, but just…NO. If you consider the star power she collaborated with for this mostly unlistenable album in terms of total rock start net worth, Rockstar would equate to the biggest waste of capital since Sam Bankman Fried. Dolly, I Will Always Love You, but this is too much. Honorable mention to Roger Waters for releasing a reinterpretation of Dark Sign Of The Moon. WTF?! We all make fun of young people but old people make dumb decisions, too.
OK so here you go, the Power Poll no one asked for:
Best Albums Of 2023 – Power Rankings (click to review)
Kudos to the Power Ranking Top 10:
- boygenius, the record
- Olivia Rodrigo, GUTS
- Lana Del Rey, Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd
- Caroline Polachek, Desire, I Want to Turn Into You
- Sufjan Stevens, Javelin
- Mitski, The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We
- billy woods / Kenny Segal, Maps
- Wednesday, Rat Saw God
- Noname, Sundial
- ANOHNI and the Johnsons, My Back Was a Bridge for You to Cross
And here are the Dadrock Top 50 Albums Of 2023:
50 SZA, SOS
Pitchfork, Rolling Stone and the LA Times all gave SZA’s SOS their top album of the year. One issue: it came out in December 2022. Their argument is that it came out in December, after their Best Of lists came out. My argument is that’s a bit of a cop out. Great album, but it’s so last year. Slotted here out of respect.
49 Hozier, Unreal Unearth
48 Queens of The Stone Age, ‘In Times New…’
47 Lana Del Rey, Did you know…
My theory about LDR – music writers have a collective crush on her. It’s like the David Lee Roth theory back in the day about how critics love Elvis Costello because they all looked like him. Critics are smitten with Del Rey, and give her music favoritism. Don’t @ me.
46 El Michels Affair & Black Thought, Glorious Game
45 The War & Treaty, Lover’s Game
44 Yo La Tengo, This Stupid World
43 Wednesday, Rat Saw God
42 Sunny War, Anarchist Gospel
41 Holly Humberstone, Paint My Bedroom Black
40 Slow Pulp, Yard
39 Mitski, The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We
38 Genesis Owusu, Struggler
Non-American rappers have a tough time breaking through in the US, but with Struggler, Australian emcee Owusu cracks the code.
37 Bar Italia, Tracey Denim
36 Unknown Mortal Orchestra, V
35 Jon Batiste, World Music Radio
34 Kaytranada & Amine, Kaytramine
33 Inhaler, Cuts & Bruises
Who knew Bono had a son who has a band that sounds a bit like Boy-era U2, mixed with All That You Can’t Leave Behind-era U2? Not me till a couple months ago.
32 100 gecs, 10,000 gecs
31 M83, Fantasy
30 Kali Uchis, Red Moon in Venus
29 Blondshell, Blondshell
28 Nation of Language, Strange Disciple
27 Chemical Bros, For That Beautiful Feeling
26 Young Fathers, Heavy Heavy
25 The Rolling Stones, Hackney Diamonds
At this point, the Stones have been doing it so long as “old” people that the commentary tends to veer into cliche. But let’s face it – if your grandpa put out some new music, it would probably feature songs about little blue pills, an inability to navigate TikTok, or validating Trump conspiracy theories. Let’s give Mick & Keith some credit.
24 Andy Shauf, Norm
23 Sufjan Stevens, Javelin
22 Ratboys, The Window
21 Black Pumas, Chronicles Of A Diamond
20 Noname, Sundial
19 Killer Mike, Michael
18 Olivia Rodrigo, GUTS
As a grown ass man, it feels a bit weird-slash-creepy to dig young pop superstars like Rodrigo. But apparently I’m not alone, as GUTS ranked #2 on the Power Poll, presumably consisting of the opinions of many other grown ass men.
17 Dinner Party, Enigmatic Society
This super cool album from a jazz supergroup of sorts was completely ignored for reasons I fail to understand.
16 Jamila Woods, Water Made Us
15 Mandy, Indiana, i’ve seen a way
14 Everything but the Girl, Fuse
13 Chris Stapleton, Higher
12 Jenny Lewis, Joy’All
Lewis’ solo output to date:
Rabbit Fur Coat (2006) – really cool debut, a compelling departure from her work with Rilo Kiley.
Acid Tongue (2008) – a leap forward in terms of songwriting; the title track is the best thing she’s written to that point.
The Voyager (2014) – an excellent album from start to finish. Her best album to date.
On The Line (2019) – check that, here’s her best album to date.
Joy’All (2023) – not her best, and maybe even a bit of a let down. But at this point, all I want from Jenny is 5-6 new tracks to include in playlists, is that so wrong?
11 Lil Yachty, Let’s Start Here.
The best album ever produced by a “Lil”.
10 Arlo Parks, My Soft Machine
The 2022 rookie of the year returns with another hypnotic collection of brilliant songs.
9 Disclosure, Alchemy
Another album completely overlooked. Disclosure is the sound of a group who have put in their 10,000 hours to create a soundscape that takes the listener on a journey, Molly sold separately!
8 The National, First Two Pages of Frankenstein
7 Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, Weathervanes
6 Wilco, Cousin
5 Caroline Polachek, Desire, I Want to Turn Into You
4 boygenius, the record
3 Zach Bryan, Zach Bryan
At the beginning of the year, if you’d have told me I would have a country troubadour in my top 3 albums of the year, I would have put the odds at:
Jason Isbell +140
Chris Stapleton +200
The Field (All Others) +1100
Yet here we are. Zach Bryan, a country superstar I barely knew existed, delivers a blood on his sleeve collection of songs that will burn a hole in your heart.
2 Janelle Monáe, The Age of Pleasure
Despite my admitted crush on her… Janelle Monáe’s music always left me wanting. A little too removed from the heart, I suppose. The Age of Pleasure changes all of that – a coming out pool party with the likes of Grace Slick and Sister Nancy invited to take a dip in Monáe’s sexual and musical liberation.
1 Jungle, Volcano
Talk about a surprise – Jungle puts out a masterpiece of good vibes. I defy anyone to listen to Volcano and not feel better about themselves and the world they live in, even if only for the duration of the listen. Josh Lloyd-Watson and Tom McFarland are the architects of the collective, but it’s Lydia Kitto’s mysterious vocals that often sound like samples from unearthed soul records that steal the show.
OK there you have it. Oh, one more thing – my xmas gift to you: This Is 2023 playlist, a mega mix of tracks from the year, one song per artist. No purchase necessary. Rock on.
