2023 was a year of incredible joy and sorrow for me, though I was yet to find out how much worse things could get. The music I listened and loved have a very specific context. It was in May of 2023 that saw me irrevocably changed and not uncoincidentally the last month I would update this website until almost 2026. I'm writing at the end of December of 2025 and 2023, from this perspective, almost seems like a dream. But unlike 2024, the worst year of my life, the music of 2023 has a joyous context that I will cherish forever. The title of this year's curation was selected in 2023, before I stopped updating, and it's just as relevant now as it was when I picked it. It's from the song Puppy and a Truck, from Jenny Lewis's album
Joy'all, #24 on my list.
Now while it is true that I picked my Top 50 albums at the end of 2025, I ignored all top album reviews for 2023 for two years. I think that makes my work a solid assessment of the year in music. See how my selections match up to the
NYTimes,
Pitchfork,
Consequence Of Sound,
Stereogum,
The Guardian, and
The Needle Drop.