My Top 10 Albums of 2023

Including a back-to-back winner for the first time ever

If I’m 100% honest my top album of this year was Dance Mode by Bluey, which absolutely dominated my Spotify most played list. No joke, it’s one of the best kids albums out there so I wasn’t too upset about it.

I didn’t listen to as much new music this year as I normally do so I’m certain I missed some stuff I’d really love. Please tell me everything I missed by replying to this email.

Honorable Mentions

Zach Bryan - Zach Bryan

Cold War Kids - Cold War Kids

Needtobreathe - CAVES

10 BigXthaPlug - Amar

Most new rap seems to be weird emo warbling about being sad. There’s very little actual rapping, but a whole lot of emotions.

BigXthaPlug does not discuss his emotions. He raps heavy about drugs, guns, sex, and how genuinely awesome he is in all of those categories.

But the Dallas rapper’s staccato, baritone flow makes me personally feel many emotions.

The prevailing one is that I am invincible and can fight the sun.

9 Bad Bunny - nadie Sabe lo que va a pasar mañana

Bad Bunny has an innate ability to put out something completely fresh that also always sounds exactly like you’d want it to. Some artists are like Kanye where they purposely attempt to make something that’s the opposite of what you expect. Others are like Luke Bryan who put out the same song over and over again.

Bad Bunny is perfectly in the middle of those extremes. Always moving forward, doing something new, without abandoning the sound that people love.

8 Jervis Campbell - Hopeful Hearts Club

Credit for this one goes to my wife who discovered him. We went to his concert and he said his name was pronounced “Jayre-vis” like a combination of Jerry and Travis.

Yeah…almost didn’t put him on here because of that.

Jk my last name is Bedgood I can’t make fun of anyone else’s name.

Campbell is a fresh new voice in the Christian music scene which is so oversaturated with cookie cutter blandness.

7 Bahamas - Bootcut

Afie Jurvanen has been doing this thing long enough, and well enough, that he can do whatever he wants. For example, the Toronto native of Finnish descent calls himself Bahamas. And everyone just accepts it.

For his latest album he made a country album. And it’s good. Like, really good. He didn’t get silly with the lyrics, writing about pasture parties and catfish dinners that he can’t relate to. He kept it mostly in his wheelhouse of self-deprecation, storytelling, and love songs, but he did it with the twang turned up a little in the voice and a lot in the instrumentation. He’s a brilliant, unique guitar player and this was a great exercise in showing that off in a different genre.

I also love how all-out he went on the theme with the promo. Perfectly done.

6 Boygenius - The Record

The rare supergroup where the sum of the parts are actually better than the solo work of all of the ultra-talented members.

I don’t need to write that much about this, every other white person who listens to NPR in America already has.

To be honest, I don’t listen to NPR, I listen to Turnpike and That Mexican OT.

5. Turnpike Troubadours - A Cat in the Rain

Evan Felker’s long-awaited return was exactly what fans have been waiting for since his alcohol-related hiatus in 2019. A Cat in the Rain hits all the right notes for anyone who loves what Turnpike do. It’s not to the level of depth that their last release A Long Way from Your Heart reached, but it’s still a perfect example of why Turnpike are still the best country band around. Even when an album isn’t their best, it’s still better than just about anything else out there.

4. That Mexican OT - Lonestar Luchador

You know how you had so much trouble rolling your Rs in Spanish class? That Mexican OT somehow rolls whatever consonant he wants in the middle of his fast-flowing bilingual bars. It’s insane. Rap has been around 50 years now, so anytime someone can create a unique flow it’s wildly impressive.

This album is honestly a mess. A raucous, debauched, hilarious, amazing mess.

It’s got features from Paul Wall, Maxo Kream, and BigXthaPlug. The hottest name in stand up comedy, Dallas’s Ralph Barbosa, appears throughout in skits.

It’s full of bangers like Johnny Dang, Hit List, and Barrio.

The Lonestar Luchador is one to watch in the rap game.

3. The Arcs - Electrophonic Chronic

I honestly forgot this album came out in 2023 because all of the singles came out throughout 2022 and got constant play from me then. The Arcs is the side project of The Black Keys front man Dan Auerbach as well as veteran indie musician Leon Michels and the late, great genius Richard Swift.

Swift was the architect of The Arcs’ sound for their first album, 2015’s Yours, Dreamily. He also produced and played on albums by many of the biggest names in indie music over the last few decades. But he died in 2018 due to alcoholism and it appeared that The Arcs would never release another record. So it was a shock when they announced Electrophonic Chronic. Many of the songs were already in process before Swift died, but others were created fresh after years of The Arcs project lying dormant.

The record isn’t as great as the original but it retains that unique, psychedelic garage rock feel of the first one with some completely new elements infused. It’s one of those records that transports you directly to a place and time. Where that time or place is, I do not know. It probably doesn’t exist. But I want to go to there.

2. Jason Isbell - Weathervanes

Perhaps Isbell’s best record since Southeastern, it is a master songwriter at his most powerful.

For me, Death Wish is a more powerful song about real love in marriage than 2017’s If We Were Vampires because it delves into the really un-romantic side of a relationship, namely, what do you do when you cannot help the one you love? How do you keep loving when you’ve tried everything? When you just want to hold her until it’s over? You’re left with more questions than answers, because sometimes there are none.

King of Oklahoma, Cast Iron Skillet, and Middle of the Morning are all some of his greatest ever works.

But for me, there’s something special about When We Were Close.

So much so that I want to break it down line by line, but I don’t want to put a huge block of copy here before I get to No. 1 so I’m going to add it in a different section at the end.

1. Jess Williamson - Time Ain’t Accidental

In the 12 years that I’ve been doing this Top 10 albums list, no one has ever gotten top honors two years in a row. Jess Williamson shared the title last year with Waxahatchee as their combined album, under the name Plains, was my album of the year. But this year, it goes to Williamson herself with this breathtaking solo effort.

Williamson’s album is untethered from time and space while at the same time being deeply grounded in reality. The Texas native lives in LA now, but the album seems to take place in an endless tug of war between those spaces. It’s as if her life exists in a perpetual, hazy blue dusk drive through West Texas, dreaming about the loves she’s left in Austin and the ones she’s heading towards in LA.

Beautiful people, eternally young
City of Angels gets stuck in your lungs
So I don't check the weather in Texas no more
I just close my eyes

Lyrically she’s wrestling with the men in her life as much as the pursuit of the LA dream, however that dream has changed as she’s made her way in the business. To call the album country would be completely inaccurate. Musically it barely touches country elements, save a slide guitar here and there. Williamson’s accent and phrasing oscillate from Texan to LA, which in the wrong context could be distracting and inauthentic. But for her, it’s a tool to tell the stories and convey the emotions of being connected to these two very different places.

This one was an easy choice for me as the best of the year. Time Ain’t Accidental is a timeless work of art that should be respected as one of the great albums of the 21st century.

---

When We Were Close Breakdown

When We Were Close is about the death of Isbell’s friend, the great Americana singer-songwriter Justin Townes Earle. I was a massive JTE fan. He introduced me to the Americana genre. I was totally enamored with him as a teenager and in my 20s. But everyone who knew anything about JTE knew he was a haunted soul. He was the son of the alt-country legend Steve Earle, born during one of Steve’s seven marriages. Named after the iconic and tragic Townes Van Zandt. Started touring, and doing drugs, in his early teens. Destined for greatness and destined for tragedy.

Jason and Justin were kindred spirits early in their careers, loving the same kinds of music and trying to make their way playing and writing real music in a country scene that was veering further and further away from it. And, they were kindreds in the ways they liked to have cope with their demons. Isbell famously got sober, and got famous, in 2013. JTE found fame and success earlier, but never was able to find consistent sobriety like Jason. Their paths drifted, Isbell’s toward superstardom and freedom, JTE’s towards a leveling off in success and, eventually, a drug overdose death. He’d gotten married, had a daughter, seemed to be happy. But he never fully kicked his habits.

Jason hasn’t talked much about JTE since his death, but this song reveals a lot of the reasons why. They weren’t close anymore. There’s clearly some anger and bitterness that existed. Things left unsaid that they probably hoped to address some day. But there’s also deep love, deep regret, and deep appreciation for a friend from long ago. So, with that background, I wanted to break down these lyrics.

---

I got a picture of us back when we were close
Before we had somebody picking out our clothes

Right away, the relationship between Jason and whoever he’s talking about is clear: they used to be friends, but for some reason aren’t anymore. It was before they were famous, but, curiously, both of them became famous enough to have designers picking out their clothes. Alternatively, you could read the line “picking out our clothes” to reference Jason being famous enough for a designer at the same time a funeral director was picking out JTE’s clothes.

But you always dressed in your Sunday best
Even when we didn't have nowhere to go

I got a picture of us playing in a bar
And your shirt cost more than your guitar

Right away anyone who knew JTE knows the song’s about him now. He was a notorious clotheshorse. He spent so much money on nice, quality jeans, shirts, shoes, and suits. Even when they weren’t making much money or going anywhere, JTE was always dressed to the nines. When JTE died, Jason tweeted “Justin bought the suit I got married in.” Clothes were JTE’s love language.

But you played so heavy, and you always let me sing a couple
Even though you were the star

JTE had sledgehammers tattooed above his thumb because Guy Clark said his acoustic guitar playing was so loud and heavy it sounded like a sledgehammer. JTE found fame as a solo artist before Jason, but he recognized Jason’s talent and always brought him along. When JTE made his late night TV debut on David Letterman’s show, he had Jason play electric guitar in his band.

I was the worst of the two of us
But Rex's Blues wasn't through with us
You were bound for glory and grown to die
Oh, but why wasn't I?
Why wasn't I?

The chorus gets to the heart of Isbell’s struggles here. Both of them were hopeless addicts during all of this time. He claims he was even worse than JTE.

Rex’s Blues is a song by Townes Van Zandt about a hopeless poet “grown to die.”

Named after the man who wrote that song, who died the death of an addict, born to an addict and a songwriter, it seems that JTE’s fate as a famed songwriter who succumbs to addiction was sealed before he was ever born.

Jason also followed that exact life and career path. However, he was able to get clean and didn’t die. But why?

I saw a picture of you laughing with your child
And I hope she will remember how you smiled

JTE seemed to have turned a corner with his marriage and fatherhood. He was smitten by his daughter and people who knew him would say he was a different person. It gave people like me, who didn’t know him, hope that he’d be around for a long time.

But she probably wasn't old enough, the night somebody sold your stuff
That left you on the bathroom tiles

This is where the song take a brutal turn. There’s a snarl in Isbell’s voice and he says this line. He’s clearly angry. He’s mad JTE never kicked that habit. He’s furious that someone sold him something that was too strong. He’s heartbroken that JTE’s daughter won’t really remember the good qualities of the guy that Jason used to be close to.

Jason could have sugarcoated what happened, but he paints a very clear picture of the end. It was cold. It was lonely. It was awful.

Got a picture of you dying in my mind
With some ghosts you couldn't bear to leave behind
But I can hear your voice ring, as you snap another B-string
And you finish off the set with only five
And for a minute there, you're still alive

JTE was alone when it happened, but Jason can’t shake the image of him dying. The only thing that snaps him out of it is listening for that signature baritone and that sledgehammer thumb breaking another guitar string.

[chorus]

It's not up to me to forgive you
For the nights that your love had to live through
Now you'll never need to look me in the eye

This is such an interesting thought Jason’s exploring here. He and JTE were no longer close. JTE’s death, while tragic, is in no way about Jason. There’s no forgiveness that needs to come Jason. The one who was hurt most is JTE’s wife and daughter.

It’s clear, though, that there’s a lot that went unsaid between Jason and JTE throughout the years they drifted apart. I almost think this final line is in reference to a very specific, private conversation between them; something that Jason wished he and JTE had been able to hash out in a personal conversation some day down the line.

I am the last of the two of us
But the Fort Worth Blues isn't through with us
You've travelled beyond the Great Divide
Oh, but why haven't I?
Why haven't I?

Do you notice something different in this chorus? This is where the genius of Jason Isbell’s songwriting is on full display. The previous two choruses he reference Rex’s Blues by Townes Van Zandt. Now he’s saying Ft. Worth Blues. Why?

Because Ft. Worth Blues is a song by JTE’s dad, Steve about the death of Townes Van Zandt. Steve talks about touring around the world after Van Zandt’s death and seeing reminders of him throughout the world.

It’s clear that Jason’s now experiencing the same thing with JTE. Now that JTE’s traveled beyond, as Steve’s song says, the Great Divide, Jason’s left contemplating if JTE’s better off. It’s flipped form survivor’s guilt to a slight envy of JTE’s situation.

I think this song is the perfect summation of what makes Jason a great songwriter, and also it just rocks. It’s appropriate that Jason made the tribute to JTE a song that his band can play “real heavy.” Also, a side note and I don’t know if this is a coincidence or a cheeky move by Jason, but musically this song sounds very similar to Ryan Adams “Gimme Something Good.” Adams and Isbell also used to be close and have drifted apart, presumably because Ryan Adams is notoriously unlikeable, and had some real unsavory stuff come out about him. But I just wonder if there’s a little nod here musically to someone else Jason is no longer close with from that same era.

---

If you made it this far, congrats to you. I appreciate it. What albums did I miss this year? I always love listening to suggestions. And if you read all of this and aren’t a subscriber yet, please hit that subscribe button!