Rosy Overdrive’s Top 100 Albums of 2023 (100-76)

We’re finally here! Welcome to the fourth annual (and third annual ranked version of) Rosy Overdrive’s Top 100 Albums of the Year. Today, albums 51 through 100 are being posted, and tomorrow (Wednesday, December 6th), the top 50 will be revealed. Wow! So much great music!

Thank you to anyone reading this list, anyone who has shared Rosy Overdrive with others, or anyone who even just makes it a part of their music life in some way. I am truly grateful. 2023 was the biggest year for the blog yet, and I am fully planning on bringing that energy with us into 2024 (plus, I’m aware that if I don’t keep Rosy Overdrive at 200% annual growth indefinitely, my shareholders will fire me and replace me with AI).

Here is a playlist featuring all of the records from this list that are available on streaming services: on Spotify, on Tidal. As with last year, separate lists for EPs and compilations/reissues will go up over the next couple of weeks. To read about more music beyond what’s on this list, check out the site directory, and if you’d like to support Rosy Overdrive, you can share this (or another) post, or donate here. This year, we’re doing a Rosy Overdrive Reader’s Poll as well, so if you haven’t filled that out, get on it and be a part of all this, too! Okay, okay, let’s get to the important stuff!!

See also:
Part Two (75-51)
Part Three (50-26)
Part Four (25-1)
Playlist links (Spotify) (Tidal)

100. DJ Silky Smooth – I’m Glad for Life

Release date: March 27^th
Record label: Bee Side Cassettes
Genre: Indie pop, indie folk, experimental pop
Formats: CD, cassette, digital

DJ Silky Smooth (aka Jacob Schwartz) has been making music under the name since at least 2017, and his latest full-length record I’m Glad for Life is full of bright, shiny, guitar-based indie pop songs. Instead of just sticking to the more pure folk-y/baroque indie rock of bands like his labelmates Another Michael and Blue Ranger, however, Schwartz throws in some interesting electronic additions, the occasional vocal effect, and prominent drum machines. “Offbeat” touches aside, however, I’m Glad for Life is an indie pop record first and foremost. (Read more)

99. Living Dream – Living Dream

Release date: January 20^th
Record label: Long Gone Sound System
Genre: Psychedelia, jangle pop, dream pop, experimental rock
Formats: Cassette, digital

We’re reaching all the way back to January for this one, but it’s worth it. Living Dream are a four-piece group from Indianapolis whose self-titled debut record is an intriguing, fascinating album of lo-fi, hazy, but frequently accessible indie rock which also features a surprising amount of flute. Living Dream wanders around unpredictably, more often than not in the same song–charming, jangly electric guitars give way to psychedelic, flute-led passages, and then it’s back to indie rock all over again. 

98. Upchuck – Bite the Hand That Feeds

Release date: October 13^th
Record label: Famous Class
Genre: Garage punk, noise rock, hardcore punk, garage rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital

I always appreciate a band that strikes while the iron is hot, and that’s exactly what Atlanta’s Upchuck have done on Bite the Hand That Feeds. Barely a year after Sense Yourself (one of my favorite albums of 2022), the garage punk quintet have returned with their Ty Segall-produced sophomore album. It doesn’t abandon what worked from their debut–hardcore punk ferocity balanced with plenty of undeniably “pop” moments–but it does find the band honing their skills and songs even further down into short, sweet daggers.

97. Six Flags Guy – And Nothing Did So What

Release date: July 14^th
Record label: 329
Genre: Post-rock, noise rock, 90s indie rock, post-hardcore, slowcore
Formats: Digital

Columbus, Ohio’s Six Flags Guy are a post-rock trio–specifically, they’re practitioners of the Slint-Unwound-Touch & Go-Quarterstick vein of the genre, the version with roots in post-hardcore and American 90s indie rock. The band find plenty of new and exciting ground in these old haunts; And Nothing Did So What’s eight songs prowl through smoky, dingy soundscapes unmoored from recognizable structure, with subtle vocals and guitar work both ready to launch into a frenzy of noise at any given moment. (Read more)

96. Bory – Who’s a Good Boy

Release date: December 8^th
Record label: Earth Libraries/Earth Worms
Genre: Fuzz rock, power pop
Formats: CD, digital

Bory is Brenden Ramirez, a Portland, Oregon-based singer-songwriter and guitarist who’s played with power pop ringers Diners and Mo Troper, the latter of whom produced Who’s a Good Boy. Although shades of Troper and Diners’ Blue Broderick can certainly be heard in the album’s songwriting, Ramirez develops a style distinct from either of them on the debut Bory full-length. Who’s a Good Boy is a comparatively cooler record–it’s a bit more muted, low-key, “slacker rock”-y in parts–which, in a way, makes the giant power pop choruses that Bory nonetheless offer up throughout the record hit even harder. (Read more)

95. The Reds, Pinks & Purples – The Town That Cursed Your Name

Release date: March 24^th
Record label: Slumberland/Tough Love
Genre: Jangle pop, indie pop
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

The Town That Cursed Your Name offers up plenty of the hallmarks that the prolific Glenn Donaldson has established as leader of The Reds, Pinks & Purples–gently-strummed chord progressions, generous melodies, and a wistful, melancholic voice overseeing it all. That being said, Donaldson sounds a bit louder, more electric, and fuzzier than he has of late on this one–not that he needs a reason to turn the amps up a bit, but it feels appropriate for The Town That Cursed Your Name’s subject matter, which deals with the familiar plight of many fledgling bands and musicians. (Read more)

94. Podcasts – Podcasts

Release date: August 4^th
Record label: Prefect
Genre: Indie pop, post-punk, jangle pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital

The annoyingly-named Podcasts are an Oslo-originating four-piece (Kyle Devine, Tore Størvold, Emil Kraugerud, and Trust Fund’s Ellis Jones) who’ve been working on their debut record since 2019. Although it’s only their first album, Podcasts clearly shows the band has gelled as a four-piece–loosely speaking, the record recalls vintage British-inspired guitar-based indie pop groups, although there’s a trickiness to it as well, displaying the band’s fondness for unexpected twists and turns in their pop songs, which they pull off with confidence. (Read more)

93. Your Heart Breaks – The Wrack Line

Release date: July 7^th
Record label: Kill Rock Stars
Genre: Folk rock, power pop, singer-songwriter
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

Seattle’s Clyde Peterson has been helming Your Heart Breaks for over two decades now–their peers include John K. Samson, Kimya Dawson, and Nana Grizol, all of whom appear over the course of The Wrack Line’s nineteen songs and 64 minutes. Peterson’s latest is a lot to take in, but it’s more than worth giving Your Heart Breaks all the leeway that The Wrack Line asks of us. The album boasts gorgeous folk songs, toe-tapping indie rockers, and a host of insights and observations that are completely unique to its creator.

92. Advertisement – Escorts

Release date: September 15^th
Record label: Feel It
Genre: Garage rock, psychedelic rock, post-punk, krautrock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital

Seattle-originating sextet Advertisement have spent the last half-decade cultivating a singular sound, a freewheeling, adventurous take on rock-and-roll that evokes everything from Lou Reed to Creedence Clearwater Revival to The Men to heavy psychedelia. Escorts is fairly uncategorizable–it’s a jammy album made by a band that doesn’t really sound like a “jam band”, it feels indebted to classic rock but is quite liberal with synths, and it frequently wanders but always feels on its way to somewhere. (Read more)

91. Patches – Scenic Route

Release date: April 14^th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Post-punk, jangle pop, college rock
Formats: Digital

I wasn’t expecting Patches to return so soon after last year’s superb Tales We Heard from the Fields, but Scenic Route was certainly a welcome surprise. The sophomore Patches album picks up where their debut left off, but represents a sonic evolution for the remote-collaborative trio as well–instead of splitting the difference between darker and lighter material on a track-by-track basis, the songs on Scenic Route combine them individually, with just about every one of them containing a mix of both bright, poppy jangle pop and clanging post-punk. (Read more)

90. Daily Worker – Autofiction

Release date: February 3^rd
Record label: Bobo Integral
Genre: Lo-fi power pop, psychedelic pop
Formats: Digital

Harold Whit Williams has played guitar with Austin jangle pop group Cotton Mather since the early 1990s, but the Alabama native also makes music on his own as Daily Worker. Autofiction, my favorite of the four 2023 Daily Worker records (two LPs, two EPs), is an album of lo-fi, home-recorded power pop whose ramshackle charms only enhance his songwriting. Williams presents his songs casually, but not enough so to diminish their power–it reaches the level of many “big” psychedelic pop records, with only a fraction of the excess production those albums possess. (Read more)

89. The Hold Steady – The Price of Progress

Release date: March 31^st
Record label: Positive Jams/Thirty Tigers
Genre: The Hold Steady
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

Unlike the past couple of Hold Steady records, The Price of Progress wasn’t an immediate “hit” for me. I’ve warmed on it throughout the year–seeing them live undoubtedly helped–to the point where I’m finally, belatedly, fully on board with this one. Yes, the band sounds a bit more subdued on this album, but that slowly reveals itself as an essential part of The Price of Progress’ structure–Craig Finn is on fire here as a writer, and something like the powerfully self-contained “Sixers” undoubtedly couldn’t have been pulled off by the band in 2004.

88. Eyelids – A Colossal Waste of Light

Release date: March 10^th
Record label: Jealous Butcher
Genre: Jangle pop, college rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

The fourth Eyelids full-length (five if you count the half-live, half-odds-and-ends Maybe More) contains plenty of the massive, blissful, timeless-sounding pop rock we’ve come to expect from Chris Slusarenko and John Moen (“Crawling Off Your Pages” kicks things off with an all-timer), although A Colossal Waste of Light feels a little exploratory as well. Songs like the title track and “Runaway, Yeah” feature some of Eyelids’ best choruses, but they take relatively unexpected paths to get there, suggesting there’s still plenty of fruit in the band’s core collaboration.

87. The Mountain Goats – Jenny from Thebes

Release date: October 27^th
Record label: Merge
Genre: Folk rock, piano rock, indie pop, singer-songwriter
Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital

Jenny from Thebes is the first Mountain Goats studio album under 45 minutes long since 2012’s Transcendental Youth, but it feels like the quartet pack even more into this one than they did in some of their more rambling recent material. It’s something of a sequel to John Darnielle’s boombox swan song All Hail West Texas (those sons of bitches made a Hold Steady album, didn’t they?), but the band has evolved pretty far from the early lo-fi days. No tolerance of tape hiss or knowledge of these characters’ lore is required to enjoy the Mountain Goats’ ever-more polished pop rock here.

86. Hurry – Don’t Look Back

Release date: August 11^th
Record label: Lame-O
Genre: Jangle pop, indie pop, power pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Don’t Look Back is the fifth Hurry album, and it contains plenty of what’s made Philadelphia’s Matt Scottoline such a reliably great songwriter–heart-on-sleeve, bittersweet melodies, gorgeous guitar work, middling tempos and four-minute runtimes galore, and, of course, undeniable hooks. Scottoline doesn’t favor the louder, more distorted end of the power pop spectrum, instead trending towards intricate, deliberate song structure. Don’t Look Back is both a subtle record and an immediate one; it never passes up an instant-gratification chorus, but it’s full of tracks built to last for the long haul. (Read more)

85. Misophone – A Floodplain Mind

Release date: December 1^st
Record label: Another Record/Galaxy Train
Genre: Chamber pop, folk rock, psych pop
Formats: CD, cassette, digital

The English band Misophone (led by the songwriting duo of S. Herbert and M.A.) arose in the mid-2000s, releasing at least seven albums between 2007 and 2013. After a decade off, the massive A Floodplain Mind more than bridges the interstitial gap. The album is overwhelmingly long (thirty songs and 120 minutes), adventurous in its arrangements, but friendly and welcoming at its core. It’s just about as “digestible” as something of this size can be, with its sprawling but pleasing mix of chamber pop, orchestral psych pop, and earnest folk rock never growing stale or tedious. (Read more)

84. Glow in the Dark Flowers – Glow in the Dark Flowers

Release date: April 14^th
Record label: Born Yesterday
Genre: Dream pop, lo-fi indie rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Glow in the Dark Flowers is the duo of Jessee Rose Crane and Philip Lesicko, who gained notoriety over the past decade for their work in Chicago group The Funs. The self-titled Glow in the Dark Flowers album is some very good sleepy, distorted late-night indie rock, with elements of slowcore, post-rock, fuzz rock, and dream pop, but without slotting neatly into any of those. The songs on Glow in the Dark Flowers glide forward and the vocals are right in the middle of it all, creating an album that’s immediate but one that rewards digging under the surface as well.

83. Silicone Prairie – Vol. II

Release date: July 28^th
Record label: Feel It
Genre: Garage rock, post-punk, punk rock, power pop, jangle pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Although My Life on the Silicone Prairie Vol. II still very much feels like a bedroom rock record, it’s polished in comparison to the first album from Kansas City lo-fi punk musician Ian Teeple. The success of Vol. II comes first and foremost due to Teeple’s songwriting, which is wide-ranging beyond the vast majority of lo-fi garage rockers; underneath the Tascam-recorded sheen is a vintage college rock-inspired record, one that reminds me of a more off-the-cuff version of early Game Theory, and there’s plenty of bizarre psychedelic pop moments on Vol II. as well. (Read more)

82. Madder Rose – No One Gets Hurt Ever

Release date: August 4^th
Record label: Trome
Genre: Dream pop, psych pop
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital

Billy Coté and Mary Lorson went through the pandemic differently–the latter “didn’t feel much music”, while the former wrote an album’s worth of songs. Luckily the Madder Rose co-leaders have each other–with Lorson on lead vocals, the two have made a great record of dreamy, lightly psych-y, lightly slowcore-y indie rock with No One Gets Hurt Ever that holds up quite well against the group’s canonical 1990s albums. Made with the patience of musicians who have been at it for three decades, No One Gets Hurt Ever is pop music at its most substantial. 

81. Brian Mietz – Wow!

Release date: April 21^st
Record label: Sludge People
Genre: Power pop, indie pop, lo-fi pop
Formats: Cassette, digital

Brian Mietz is a subtly great pop songwriter–he’s one of the best modern practitioners of “bummer” power pop, as seen on his underrated 2020 album Panzarotti. On the follow-up to that record, Wow!, Mietz remains skilled in pop songcraft–these ten songs sound laid-back but emotional, and Mietz keeps the melodies simple, but he isn’t opposed to building around them a little bit, with several songs on the record sounding surprisingly busy. Songs like “Caller” and “Buried Alive (Too Tired)” sound incredibly effortless, but “Cranefly” and “Steal Some Time” lose nothing in their relative complexity. (Read more)

80. The Unknowns – East Coast Low

Release date: March 10^th
Record label: Bargain Bin
Genre: Garage punk, power pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital

The Unknowns are yet another excellent Australian garage rock/power pop band, a subset that really shone in 2023.  The Brisbane group have been around for awhile and are associated with Aussie punk superstars The Chats, although their second album, East Coast Low, is a lot more indebted into classic punk-adjacent power pop than the bigger band’s pure punk rock. Songs like “Shot Down”, “Thinking About You”, and “Crying” are pure rock and roll with massive hooks and plenty of shout-along moments.

79. Deep State – Diary of a Nobody

Release date: April 15^th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Alt-country
Formats: Digital

I hadn’t heard of Athens, Georgia’s Deep State before stumbling upon Diary of a Nobody, which, according to their Bandcamp page, seems to be their final album. Diary of a Nobody is a comfortable, rootsy sounding garage rock album led by singer-songwriter Taylor Chmura and also featuring Rosy Overdrive favorite Christian “Smokey” DeRoeck (Blunt Bangs, Little Gold). Deep State sound just as adept barreling through rockers like “Young People” and “Tired Medium” as they do in the laid-back “Secret Freezer”.

78. Vulture Feather – Liminal Fields

Release date: June 2^nd
Record label: Felte
Genre: Post-punk, art rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Vulture Feather have risen from the ashes of Wilderness, a Baltimore-based 2000s indie rock band that seemed to disappear at the end of that decade. Half of the band (guitarist Colin McCann and bassist Brian Gossman) have recently reemerged in the tiny northern California town of Hayfork, added drummer Eric Fiscus, and picked up where their last band left off, making a slow, deliberate, Lungfish-esque version of guitar-heavy post-punk on their debut together. The rhythm section lumbers, McCann’s guitar chimes and drones, and his vocals sound focused but emotive, gamely supplying Liminal Fields with the final ingredient in turning these songs into unlikely anthems. (Read more)

77. Fixtures – Hollywood Dog

Release date: February 24^th
Record label: Naturally/Bobo Integral
Genre: Power pop, 90s indie rock, post-punk, “noir pop”
Formats: Vinyl, digital

Brooklyn’s Fixtures were a six-piece band who stuck around for a half-decade, just long enough to put out their first, last, and only full-length album. On Hollywood Dog, Fixtures commit fully to a familiar-feeling but nevertheless distinct sound–they start off with the foundation of sturdy, guitar-forward 90s indie rock and blow it up with a 2000s indie-esque love of big choruses, auxiliary musicians, and several vocal contributions from various members. Fixtures contained multiple full-time horn players (trumpet player Riley Cooke and saxophonist Jules Block), and neither’s prominence feels out of place throughout the album. They’ll certainly be missed by me, and, after you listen to Hollywood Dog, you as well. (Read more)

76. Guided by Voices – La La Land

Release date: January 20^th
Record label: GBV, Inc.
Genre: 90s indie rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital

Sixteen albums into their “new lineup”, this iteration of Guided by Voices still have a ton left in the tank, as their trio of 2023 releases has demonstrated. La La Land kicked off the band’s 2023 in January with the lineup’s fourteenth full-length, and it feels like a departure from GBV’s twin 2022 releases–a bit less muscular than Trembler and Goggles by Rank and Crystal Nuns Cathedral and a little more ornate and regal. Really, though, listen to the stretch from “Ballroom Etiquette” to “Slowly on the Wheel”–four completely different-sounding songs, all classic, all recognizably Guided by Voices.

Click here for:
Part Two (75-51)
Part Three (50-26)
Part Four (25-1)