My 101 Favorite Albums of 2023
It's List Season. Surely, you've already seen a ton of other Best Albums of 2023 lists. And if you're really invested in what I do, then maybe you already heard me rank my top 10 albums of the year on my podcast Endless Scroll. But if you only care about Eli Enis in written form, then that's cool. I also made a list of my 101 favorite albums of 2023, and I've typed it all out down below.
"Why 101 albums? Why not just a top 10 or 20?" Simple: Because I can. Plenty of music out there. It's not that hard. But also...in 2019, back when Endless Scroll was just my co-host Eric and I, we decided to embark on the stupid undertaking of ranking our 100 favorite albums of the year. We asked our friend Jaran to join us, and it was a lot of fun. We did that again in 2020, and then when our other cohosts Michael and Miranda joined the pod in 2021, we stopped doing top 100's because that was just way too much for four people (and Miranda would never in a million years commit to that ridiculous task).
I, however, have continued the Top 100 tradition every year since, and last year I bumped it up to 101 to ensure an album I totally forgot to rank but really enjoyed got included. This year, I figured I'd do 101 again just 'cause. Do I love every single album/EP (I included both) on this list? No. Frankly, there're some projects listed below that I only listened to a handful of times. But I at least had a special moment with each of them. At the very least, there was a day or two when I listened to it on repeat and thought, "Goddamn this is fuckin' sick."
I listen to a shit-ton of music. And I'm the type of listener who hops between albums and artists and styles at a pretty rapid rate. I don't linger on albums for very long, and that can be both a good and bad thing. I admittedly don't develop the lived-in relationship with 95% of what I listen to. I don't commit to knowing even my favorite records like the back of my hand. Sometimes that happens when I just can't stop playing a record, but I'm not someone who dedicates hours upon hours of granular listening to everything I find enjoyable.
There's not enough hours in the day for that, and I'm invested in too many different genres and scenes and eras of music to pull off that sort of approach. In between all the new music I digest in a given year, I'm constantly listening to older stuff in preparation for the 2-3 podcast episodes I do each week, for writing assignments, and for listening along to whatever music book I'm reading on a given week. A lot of that stuff goes in one ear and out the other, and that's just the nature of what I do for employment, and what my hobbies necessitate.
Even so, I always find a ton of music that I sincerely enjoy every year, so these 101-album lists really aren't that challenging to cobble together come December. The ranking isn't really important, so don't get hung up on that. Basically anything in the 101-50 range could be switched around depending on the day. And of course there're unavoidable recency biases that inform how I value one hardcore seven-inch over the other, or whatever, at the year's end.
But overall, this is a pretty damn good representation of where my music taste was at in 2023. My No. 1 is from an artist I didn't even consider myself a fan of at the year's start, and now I'm a lifer. In fact, my top four albums of the year are from artists who I was either unfamiliar with or not engaged with in any meaningful way before 2023, and I think that's pretty damn cool.
I'm at the age where a lot of my peers' tastes are starting to plateau. They're not listening to new music the way they used to, and they're not seeking out new genres or sounds or innovations in the way they used to. On the contrary, my ear has only gotten more curious throughout each successive year in my twenties, and at the ripe 'ole age of 29, I'm as fascinated by what The Kids Like as I am interested in what more "adult oriented" artists have to offer. In fact, in the time since I wrapped up this list just a few days ago, there're already a bunch of other new projects I've heard that I probably would've included if I had the chance (shoutout Apex Predator and Outta Pocket).
Without further adieu, below are my 101 favorite albums of 2023. Hope you find something new to you.
- Lana Del Rey - Did You Know There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Boulevard?
- Bully - Lucky for You
- Sexy Redd - Hood Hottest Princess
- Ken Carson - A Great Chaos
- Never Ending Game - Outcry
- Skrillex - Quest for Fire
- Pain of Truth - Not Through Blood
- Wednesday - Rat Saw God
- Feeble Little Horse - Girl With Fish
- Spiritual Cramp - Spiritual Cramp
- Ratboys - The Window
- Yo La Tengo - This Stupid World
- Slow Pulp - Yard
- Ice Spice - Like?
- Purelink - Signs
- Young Thug - Business is Business
- Code Orange - The Above
- Militarie Gun - Life Under the Gun
- MJ Lenderman - And the Wind (Live and Loose)
- Anklebiter - To Live and Withstand
- The Hives - The Death of Randy Fitzsimmons
- Golden Apples - Bananasugarfire
- Indigo De Souza - All of This Will End
- Sweeping Promises - Good Living Is Coming for You
- Poison Ruin - Harvest
- Restraining Order - Locked in Time
- A.s.o. - A.s.o.
- Jouska - Suddenly My Mind is Blank
- Balmora - With Thorns of Glass and Petals of Grief
- RP Boo - Legacy Vol. 2
- Chappel Roan - The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess
- Silver Car Crash - Shattered Shine
- Mitski - The Land is Inhospitable and So Are We
- Yeat - Afterlyfe
- Gaadge - Somewhere Down Below
- World I Hate - Years of Lead
- Zulu - A New Tomorrow
- Destiny Bond - Be My Vengeance
- Spaced - Boomerang
- Quannnic - Stepdream
- Fuming Mouth - Last Day of Sun
- Magdalene Bay - Mini Mix Vol. 3
- Olivia Rodrigo - Guts
- 03 Greedo - Halfway There
- Another Michael - Wishes to Fulfill
- Angel Du$t - Brand New Soul
- Computerwife - Computerwife
- RX Papi - Dawg Storm
- Sofia Kourtesis - Madres
- Fawn/Cement Driver - Split
- Dying Fetus - Make Them Beg for Death
- Radiator Hospital - Can't Make Any Promises
- Youth Lagoon - Heaven Is a Junkyard
- Buggin - Concrete Cowboys
- dreamTX - living in memory of something sweet
- God of War - Serotonin
- Jeff Rosenstock - Hellmode
- Hollden - Off the Bone
- Liquid Mike - S/T
- Speed Plans - Statues of God
- Initiate - Cerebral Circus
- The Virgos - Pennsylvania Death Trip
- Bill Woods - Maps
- CMAT - Crazymad, For Me
- Scarab - Scarab
- Blithe Field - Grits Kissed
- Dying Wish - Symptoms of Survival
- DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ - Destiny
- Full Body 2 - infinity signature
- Cursetheknife - There's a Place I Can Rest
- Vagabon - Sorry I Haven't Called
- April Magazine - Wesley's Convertible Tape for the South
- No Cure - Commitment to Permanence
- The Armed - Perfect Saviors
- Human Garbage - Straight Not Giving a Fuck
- Marlene Ribeiro - Toque no Sol
- Kommand - Death Age
- Lancey Foux - Back2datrap
- Bleary Eyed - Bleary Eyed
- Sun Organ - Candlelight Showertime
- Stingray - Fortress Britain
- Loma Prieta - Last
- xNOMADx - On Skylines of Embers
- 9Million - Gush
- Ozone - Shutting You Down
- Inner Peace - '23 Demo
- Downward/Trauma - Split
- Maria BC - Spike Field
- Diztort - Vengeance is Mine
- Washer - Improved Means to Deteriorating Ends
- CLIP - Appetizer
- Dead Heat - Endless Torment
- Tanukichan - Gizmo
- Weapon X/World of Pleasure - Weapon of Pleasure
- GEL - Only Constant
- Existence - Go to Heaven
- Elvis Depressedly - Who Owns the Graveyard?
- Cusp - You Can Do it All
- Ephemeral - Tower of Silence
- Hotline TNT - Cartwheel
- Grand Scheme - Numbers Game