Hello! Welcome back (or just welcome) to Rosy Overdrive’s Top 100 Albums of 2023! Today reveals the top 50 albums on the list. Yesterday unveiled numbers 100 through 51, so be sure to check those out as well if you haven’t yet.
See also:
Part One (100-76)
Part Two (75-51)
Part Four (25-1)
Playlist with all albums (Spotify link) (Tidal link)
50. ME REX – Giant Elk
Release date: October 20th
Record label: Big Scary Monsters
Genre: Indie pop, synthpop, folk rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
ME REX have already been in a class of their own, but that hasn’t stopped the London trio from continuing to evolve and push themselves. Giant Elk is their first “normal” album after a bunch of EPs and the experimental Megabear; surprising no one, the band can absolutely hold their own in an eleven-song, 40-minute format. Myles McCabe continues to be one of the most underappreciated songwriters in indie rock, and the band sounds as loud, polished, and confident as ever as they find new and exciting new hidden depths to McCabe’s already substantial songs.
49. Patio – Collection
Release date: September 22nd
Record label: Fire Talk
Genre: Post-punk, art punk
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
Patio’s second album has something for everyone; musically, Collection is a collection of quite aurally pleasing indie rock and art-punk, dealing in both garage-y bluntness and more restrained melodicism. At the same time, there’s plenty of unexpected and exciting instrumental moments, and Collection’s lyrics are attention-grabbing too, both when Loren DiBlasi and Lindsey-Paige McCloy decide to be straightforward and when they’re a bit cagey. It’s a record that prompts one to listen a bit more actively, rewarding any such attention bestowed upon it more and more with each pass. (Read more)
48. Local Drags – Mess of Everything
Release date: March 17th
Record label: Stardumb
Genre: Power pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Local Drags is a power pop group from Springfield, Illinois, and their latest record, Mess of Everything, represents the best of the genre–big, catchy hooks abound on it. There’s just no other way of saying it; these songs are timeless. It’s another no-fat release on this list–twenty-four minutes, ten songs, and endless fun. It starts off with a few massive hits, but Local Drags also do the Midwestern thing of hiding the best couple of tracks (the note-perfect “Aloe” and the massive “Better Now”) at the end.
47. Nicole Yun – Matter
Release date: April 14th
Record label: Kanine
Genre: Indie pop, dream pop, power pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Nicole Yun led the 2010s Richmond dreamy indie rock group Eternal Summers, but in recent years she’s turned her attention to a solo career. Her second album, Matter, is a breezy collection of fluffy but meaty pop rock songs that are aided in no small part due to Yun’s front-and-center, charismatic vocals. There’s a Guided by Voices-esque effortless catchiness to a lot of Matter (interestingly enough, Yun has collaborated with GBV’s Doug Gillard before, but not on this record), although it takes a seasoned songwriter to offer up this many hooks.
46. Fust – Genevieve
Release date: June 16th
Record label: Dear Life
Genre: Alt-country, folk rock, country rock
Formats: Vinyl, cassette, CD, digital
I really loved Fust’s 2021 album Evil Joy and its pensive but confident take on alt-country, and it’s been exciting to see the North Carolina band turn a few heads with their follow-up, Genevieve. The differences between Evil Joy and Genevieve are subtle but noticeable–the expanded lineup (MJ Lenderman and Indigo De Souza, among others, guest on the album) and sound (recorded in a proper studio) don’t overwhelm bandleader Aaron Dowdy’s songwriting, and in fact enhance it–an appropriate addition for a collection of tracks that, even for Fust, feels particularly ruminative. (Read more)
45. Total Downer – Caretaker
Release date: January 27th
Record label: Just Because
Genre: Power pop, pop punk, emo
Formats: Cassette, digital
Total Downer’s debut full-length album is an excellent collection of punk-y power pop tunes that establishes bandleader Andy Schumann as both a catchy and weighty songwriter. Caretaker is a brief record, coming in at about 26 minutes, but Total Downer tear through thirteen fiery tracks that find Schumann covering lyrical subjects that can be as wide-ranging as they are hard-hitting. Total Downer wield big choruses in the service of pure catharsis, tackling everything from childhood trauma to shitty bosses to the loss of a close friend with good and loud alt-rock. (Read more)
44. The Bug Club – Rare Birds: Hour of Song
Release date: October 18th
Record label: We Are Busy Bodies
Genre: Power pop, pop punk, twee
Formats: Vinyl, digital
It’s been a whirlwind of a 2023 for Welsh trio The Bug Club–reissuing their first two records, a live album composed entirely of new material, and, capping it all off, a beast of a double LP. Interspersed with brief spoken word reprieves, Rare Birds: Hour of Song is, indeed, sixty-plus minutes of The Bug Club at their garage-rock-power-pop best. High-octane rock and roll tunes like “Fully Clothed”, “Samuel Was Beautiful Tonight”, and “Can Ya Change a Thing Like This?” would be centerpieces for most bands; on Rare Birds: Hour of Song, you’d best grab onto them before The Bug Club move on to the next bird.
43. Timeout Room – Tight-Ass Goku Pictures
Release date: February 3rd
Record label: Tough Gum
Genre: Power pop, lo-fi pop, jangle pop
Formats: Cassette, digital
The first release from S.T. McCrary’s solo project Timeout Room (fascinatingly called Tight-Ass Goku Pictures) is a guitar pop album with personality and hooks to spare in its thirty minutes. McCrary’s home recording style is lo-fi but clear-sounding, in a way that reminds me of The Cleaners from Venus, and his influences range from bright indie pop groups like those on Flying Nun’s roster to more punk bands like the Wipers. Tight-Ass Goku Pictures ends up a unique mix that doesn’t quite sound like either of those extremes, offering up groovy punk-pop bangers and off-kilter and swerving songs in spades. (Read more)
42. Rob I. Miller – Companion Piece
Release date: May 12th
Record label: Vacant Stare
Genre: Lo-fi indie rock, jangle pop, singer-songwriter, power pop
Formats: Cassette, digital
Rob I. Miler’s debut solo album came out mere months after an excellent record from his main band, Blues Lawyer (which is also on this list somewhere). One listen to Companion Piece makes one hear why these songs fit more under Miller’s own name. For one, it’s a full-on breakup album, with the album’s eleven songs focusing intently on a disintegrating relationship. And, befitting of the solo nature, Companion Piece is a lot more humble-sounding than All in Good Time’s relative polish, mostly recorded at home by Miller himself–but Miller is still the same songwriter, and his pop instincts are no less potent on Companion Piece. (Read more)
41. The World Famous – Totally Famous
Release date: October 13th
Record label: Lauren
Genre: Power pop, pop punk
Formats: Cassette, digital
Los Angeles’ The World Famous are one the most exciting new guitar pop groups to debut this year. the Massachusetts-originating band pulls from both coasts on Totally Famous–I hear Weezer-y surf-pop song construction, the lazy darkness of The Lemonheads, the suburban wandering pop of Fountains of Wayne, and the wide-eyed California as inhabited by Jason Lytle on their debut album. It all adds up to an incredibly inviting and promising power pop debut (and one that is surprisingly back-loaded–side two is just about perfect in its overabundance of chorus-worthy hooks). (Read more)
40. Diners – Domino
Release date: August 18th
Record label: Bar None
Genre: Power pop, indie pop
Formats: Vinyl, cassette, digital
Domino is the prolific Blue Broderick’s seventh full-length album as Diners, and the first since she moved from Phoenix to Los Angeles. With help from producer and power pop scholar Mo Troper, Broderick takes a turn for the louder, rockier, and full-band-embracing on this one, but the Diners of Domino consistently put together songs that don’t abandon the project’s previous sound (that of lo-fi, casual bedroom pop) so much as punch it up. Breezy but with the band (Troper, Broderick, and Bory‘s Brenden Ramirez) alert and at the ready, Domino is power pop in its hookiest, sturdiest, purest form. (Read more)
39. Interbellum – Our House Is Very Beautiful at Night
Release date: April 7th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Folk rock, experimental folk, psychedelia
Formats: Digital
Beirut’s Interbellum is the project of Karl Mattar, and it’s quite impressive that he made the bulk of Our House Is Very Beautiful at Night himself, given how intricate and involved the album is as a whole. It’s a beautiful and frequently head-spinning indie-folk-rock-noise record, encompassing everything from charming and straightforward pop rock to acoustic folk songs to fuzzy, layered psychedelia. Early 2000s-era Microphones and Elephant 6 feel like touchstones for this album, but Mattar is at the helm for all of Our House Is Very Beautiful at Night, and his vision is a unique one. (Read more)
38. Teenage Halloween – Till You Return
Release date: October 20th
Record label: Don Giovanni
Genre: Pop punk, power pop, emo
Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital
It took Teenage Halloween three years to follow up their excellent self-titled debut album, but I’m happy to report that Till You Return is every bit that album’s equal in terms of massive power pop hooks and electric punk rock energy. The Asbury Park group offer up a murderer’s row of emo-punk songs–just about every track here reaches “anthem” status. They’ve slimmed down to a quartet since their last album, and it feels like the four of them have a lot of chemistry together here–although it takes a bit of time before the initial sugar rush wears off and one can even start to think about intraband dynamics.
37. Leor Miller’s Fear of Her Own Desire – Eternal Bliss Now!
Release date: May 19th
Record label: Candlepin
Genre: Experimental pop, lo-fi indie rock, dream pop
Formats: Cassette, digital
Leor Miller is a New Haven-based singer-songwriter who’s been making noisy, hazy rock music on her own for several years now. Her latest, Eternal Bliss Now!, is mostly a guitar-based album, but it’s not one that lives entirely in the world of indie rock. I can hear how Miller has been inspired by non-rock genres (hip hop, electronica, and hyperpop, per her bio) in presenting these songs, even as she approaches them from an indie rock perspective. As disparate as the influences are, Miller remains laser-focused on interpersonal connectivity and other big but interconnected subjects throughout the record. (Read more)
36. The High Water Marks – Your Next Wolf
Release date: June 23rd
Record label: Minty Fresh
Genre: Lo-fi power pop, psych pop
Formats: Vinyl, cassette, digital
The High Water Marks are on their third album since 2020, and they’re only getting better. Your Next Wolf just might be their strongest front-to-back record yet, with founding Apples in Stereo/Elephant 6 member Hilarie Sidney and her partner Per Ole Bratset continuing their mission to combine 60s psychedelic pop with messier indie rock to incredible ends–it’s seventeen songs and forty minutes of loud, fuzzy pop music with a full-band bite and a characteristic High Water Marks catchiness. (Read more)
35. Mo Troper – Troper Sings Brion
Release date: November 17th
Record label: Lame-O
Genre: Lo-fi power pop, art pop
Formats: Digital
We’ve gotten (at least one) Mo Troper full-length every year since 2020, and while this year is no different, the Portland power pop hero has taken a different tack with Troper Sings Brion. The concept–Troper records fleshed-out, full-band versions of cast-off songs that the legendary behind-the-scenes popsmith Jon Brion didn’t include on his sole solo “pop” album Meaningless–is brilliant, and Troper is just the ringer for the job. Intricate construction, lethal melodies, bizarre musical turns–it’s hard to tell exactly where Brion ends and Troper begins throughout the record, but Troper Sings Brion is too much fun to be concerned with such matters.
34. Yo La Tengo – This Stupid World
Release date: February 10th
Record label: Matador
Genre: 90s indie rock, experimental rock, noise pop
Formats: Vinyl, CD digital
As usual, I like the new Yo La Tengo album, and this time it seems a lot of other music writers did, too! I’m less interested in doing the “Yo La Tengo’s best album since ___” game and more apt to just appreciate This Stupid World for being a very good Yo La Tengo album (a commodity that maybe had been undervalued in recent years). Nine fairly disparate but all classic Yo La Tengo songs here–the beautifully empty “Apology Letter”, the transcendent noisiness of “Brain Capers”, hit single “Fallout”, that opening track. Okay, maybe This Stupid World is the best front-to-back Yo La Tengo album since–
33. Ther – A Horrid Whisper Echoes in a Palace of Endless Joy
Release date: April 14th
Record label: Dead Definition
Genre: Indie folk, slowcore
Formats: Cassette, digital
Coming fourteen months after their latest album, Ther’s A Horrid Whisper Echoes in a Palace of Endless Joy takes a turn towards quiet and sparse but quite spirited-sounding indie folk. A Horrid Whisper… is a stark-sounding, vulnerable album that’s guided by Heather Jones’ unwavering, central vocals, but Ther find shades within their folk sound, like the prominent pedal steel in the country-tinged “Impossible Things”, the acoustic-picked slowcore of “Love Is Always”, and the soaring, crescendoing folk rock of “Big Papi Lassos the Moon”. (Read more)
32. Gaadge – Somewhere Down Below
Release date: August 4th
Record label: Crafted Sounds/Michi Tapes
Genre: Shoegaze, noise pop
Formats: Vinyl, cassette, digital
If 2021’s Yeah? was the sound of Gaadge moving from the solo project of Mitch Delong into a real-live band, then their sophomore album, Somewhere Down Below, is the sound of the Pittsburgh quartet embracing it. The album’s fourteen songs feel like largely group efforts, with the varied-sounding record equally taking influence from Guided by Voices’ hooky lo-fi basement pop, heavy-duty shoegaze like Lilys and My Bloody Valentine, and the more electronic and experimental version of shoegaze practiced by their present-day peers. Somewhere Down Below is the best kind of record from a creative team–one that’s full of ideas, where one can find something new and great with each listen. (Read more)
31. Telehealth – Content Oscillator
Release date: March 31st
Record label: Very Famous
Genre: New wave, synthpunk, egg punk, post-punk
Formats: Vinyl, cassette, digital
Telehealth’s debut record, Content Oscillator, is an incredibly fun-sounding synthpop/egg punk record, devoting just as much time to jamming lead singer Alex Attitude’s societal observations, sketches, and satirical portrayals into its songs as it devotes to making them as enjoyable and entertaining as possible. Telehealth sound a lot like Devo on Content Oscillator–and, befitting of its subject matter, Attitude and collaborator Kendra Cox accomplish this by embracing much more than surface-level “Devo-core” aesthetics, going further and dedicating themselves to developing an entire worldview over the course of the record. (Read more)
30. Empty Country – II
Release date: August 4th
Record label: Get Better/Tough Love
Genre: 90s indie rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
I’ve long been an open fan of the dearly departed Cymbals Eat Guitars, and while I enjoyed frontman Joseph D’Agostino’s 2020 self-titled debut as Empty Country, the project’s second album is a huge and somewhat dizzying leap forward. D’Agostino has put together a dark but fascinating world in Empty Country II, pulling from industrial horror and mythology to create an unsettling parallel universe to ours (the album comes with an accompanying short story). Musically, Empty Country is up to the gargantuan task at hand, creating a massive tangle of indie rock that feels distinct (but not removed) from D’Agostino’s previous band.
29. Annie Hart – The Weight of a Wave
Release date: August 4th
Record label: Uninhabitable Mansions
Genre: Synthpop, indie pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital
New York’s Annie Hart was part of synthpop trio Au Revoir Simone, and in recent years has moved into the world of film scores and instrumental composition; Hart’s fourth solo album, The Weight of a Wave, makes it clear that the singer-songwriter is still in touch with her synthpop roots. The record’s ten indie pop tunes sound sharply-written and -recorded but not overly labored-on–Hart cites krautrock as an influence, and the minimal presentation of these pieces of synthesizer-driven songs bear this out. Gigantic hooks abound nonetheless, and The Weight of a Wave is a full-realized pop record regardless of how busy it is at any given moment. (Read more)
28. Bell and the Ringers – Bell and the Ringers
Release date: March 10th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Pop punk, power pop, emo
Formats: Digital
Bell and the Ringers are a long-distance duo made up of Melbourne’s Lucas Bell and Toronto’s Brent Vipond, and their self-titled debut record evokes a very specific kind of 2000s-era indie-pop-punk. Bell and the Ringers has some heft to it–the balance that Vipond and Bell walk throughout the album is keeping the pop punk energy up while still developing the tracks (and, to be clear, they are successful in delivering an incredibly energetic record). What the duo put together here is enough to sell an intriguing, promising under-the-radar band. (Read more)
27. Sunshine Convention – The Sunshine Convention
Release date: July 21st
Record label: Cardinal Telephone
Genre: Lo-fi indie rock, power pop, fuzz rock
Formats: CD, digital
As Sunshine Convention, Brooklyn’s Jake Whitener has a familiar and pleasing sound–fuzzy, lo-fi, loud, but above all massively pop-friendly. Nevertheless, The Sunshine Convention doesn’t feel played out at all due to Whitener’s sharp songwriting skills, the album’s excitable energy, and the fact that there’s still plenty of room to explore in the space of these genre labels. Whitener is fluent in everything from lo-fi Guided by Voices to early Elephant 6 to Sparklehorse to Yo La Tengo, and he can turn any of these starting points into loud, hooky indie rock anthems with ease over the course of a debut record that hits the ground running. (Read more)
26. Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit – Weathervanes
Release date: June 9th
Record label: Southeastern/Thirty Tigers
Genre: Alt-country, country rock, folk rock, singer-songwriter
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
We all know Jason Isbell is a great songwriter. It’s not surprising that Weathervanes is a good album. Still, after Reunions, I may have been too quick to put him in the “twilight” phase–he’d show up every few years and release an unobjectionable album that nonetheless wouldn’t surprise me at all. Weathervanes is not that–it’s the work of an artist who’s absolutely still at their peak. It’s full of shooting-star songs, snagging lines and scenarios that other writers could try forever to approach, and it does it while taking the most tedious kind of album format possible (thirteen songs, 60 minutes) and making it seem like the perfect length.
Click here for:
Part One (100-76)
Part Two (75-51)
Part Four (25-1)
Rosy Overdrive 