The Ledge #600: Hudson's Best Of 2023

Choosing my favorite records of the year is always a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it's great fun for a music nerd like me to revisit the hundreds of releases I've checked out the last twelve months. But it's also frustrating trying to thin down those picks into a list that truly represents the past year. Many records that initially seemed a lock are suddenly eclipsed by new records that I simply can't ignore. Other albums that I had prematurely set aside have revealed themselves to be chock full of fabulous tunes that I can't imagine living without. 

Overall, this is another great year for music. I'll never understand the mindset of people, especially those around my age, that complain how there's no great bands or records these days. Sure, the pop charts are primarily filled with garbage, and one does have to spend more time than ever finding new artists. But the search has always been a great part of the fun of being a collector, and my main reason I've now put together 600 episodes of this show is to share my findings with others. I'm always thrilled when I hear that someone has bought a record due to my recommendation. So please let me know your thoughts on this countdown of my picks for the 40 best records of the year!

39. Hotline TNT, Cartwheel/Dion Lunadon, Systems Edge. (tie) It’s only fitting that the list ends with the two most recent discoveries. Hotline TNT is the latest project of Weed leader Will Anderson, and it’s a prime example of the modern era’s version of what was described as shoegaze years ago. Dion Lunadon is a veteran rocker who got his start in The D4, which put out two albums on Flying Nun Records, and also spent time in A Place To Bury Strangers. His third solo album of glam-influenced rock and roll probably would have charted higher in this year’s list if I had heard it a few weeks earlier.

38. The Blips, Again. A few years ago, the leaders of four bands convened in an Atlanta studio and put together a great rootsy rock and roll album. These four songwriters have reconvened and their second album is as strong as their debut.

37. Dwarves, Concept Album. A happy Dwarves album? Is that possible? Well, sort of. The snark is still there from He Who Shall Not Be Named and the rest of these masked marvels.

36. Jagger Holly, Rivoltella. Forced with a second lockdown in his Austria home, Jagger Holly’s Jay Dee sat down and started writing…and writing more. As he states on his bandcamp, “If 1 record is nice....2 records has to be better right?” The result is indeed two records of what pop-punk should sound like instead of the whiny vocal styles that plague the records that generally are described as such.

35. Local Drags, Mess Of Everything. Let’s take a little bit of The Shoes, mix it with early Tom Petty along with Wilco at their poppiest, and you have this rock and roll gem.

34. The Smashing Times, This Sporting Life. We all need a little jangle in our lives, and we have The Smashing Times to give us this year’s shimmering guitars.

33. JJ & The Real Jerks, Rat Beach. Our friends at Rum Bar Records released a ton of great music this year, but the highlight is quite possibly by these grizzled rockers. Take a little bit of Ramones, more than a couple of pinches of Dead Boys, and quite a bit of any other “loud fast rules” bands, and you have these wonderful jerks.

32. The Men, New York City. After a few albums that saw this veteran band attempt to expand their sound, this record is a true back to basics that, to quote Pitchfork, “wears its analogue heart on flannel-clad sleeves”.

31. Country Westerns, Forgive the City. Great band, terrible name. But with great garage rock such as this I’ll forgive the sin.

30. Kevin Morby, More Photographs (A Continuum). Technically, this record is a set of leftovers from last year’s This Is a Photograph album, but these aren’t second rate rejects. Instead, these are songs that lyrically or sonically just didn’t fit that album but deserved to be released.

29. Waco Brothers, The Men That God Forgot. A personal note here. I created a yearlong theme for my podcast, The Ledge, where I’ve been playing a cover of The Undertones’ “Teenage Kicks” on each and every one of my shows this year. I was obviously thrilled when I first saw a tracklist of the latest by these veteran “Clash meets Cash’ rockers and “Teenage Kicks” was the lone cover on their first set of original songs since 2016.

28. Bory, Who’s a Good Boy. Bory is the project by Portland newcomer Brenden Ramirez, and is produced by power pop maestro Mo Troper. This was a late addition, and I can’t wait to fully immerse myself into multiple plays of this catchy record.

27. Iggy Pop, Every Loser. It certainly seems like 2023 was a year for legends to return to the spotlight. Pop set the tone with this album that came out the first Friday of this year. Like the Stones album, Pop was reenergized by young producer Andrew Watt, which resulted in quite possibly the most varied Iggy album in decades.

26. Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Future Is Your Past. Thirty years after their very first release, Anton Newcombe’s latest collection of songs is his 20th album to date. The latest is an extension of last year’s Fire Doesn’t Grow On Tree, where Anton set a goal to record one new song a day for 70 days. I guess we’ll have a few more records from these sessions in the next few years.

25. Guided By Voices, Nowhere To Go But Up. Another year, another three albums by Robert Pollard and friends. So which one do I pick for this list? Honestly, I’m going to go with recency bias and choose the most recent record. But all three feature the typical three minute blasts of pop/rock bliss that Pollard has completely perfected since he stabilized his most recent lineup a decade or so ago.

24. Night Beats, Rajan. It may not sound correct, but I can’t help but think this wild mix of psych and Western genres would make it the perfect soundtrack for a remake of a 60’s spaghetti western.

23. Yo La Tengo, This Stupid World. Shortly before COVID hit, Yo La Tengo began recording jam sessions in their practice space. They reconvened a few months later, and started experimenting with these tapes they had previously recorded. The result is one of the veteran band’s more interesting albums they have put out in their almost 40 year career.

22. Graham Parker & The Goldtops, Last Chance To Learn The Twist. It’s always a great year when we see a new Graham Parker album, and this year is no exception. His first in five years, Parker’s latest combines his usual snark with a wry sense of humor, along with his love of classic soul and barroom rock.

20. Lucinda Williams, Stories From a Rock N Roll Heart/Pretenders, Relentless. (tie) Two legendary rock and roll women who have nothing to prove return with some of their best music ever, and they do it on their own terms. Chrissie Hynde’s latest Pretenders album rocks as hard as her band’s greatest moments, but it’s not a retread of her first two albums. Williams, who recently recovered from a stroke, combines barroom rockers with her patented grizzled folky ballads.

19. Cut Worms, S/T. Max Clarke’s third album as Cut Worms is a weird fever dream where Brian Wilson in his 1966 prime suddenly records an Americana album that would fit right in with 1999-era Jayhawks, Wilco, or Whiskeytown. Does that make sense? 

18. Frankie and the Witch Fingers, Data Doom. Let’s just let the bandcamp page describe this album, as it’s better than anything I could possibly write - “on…Data Doom the band hurtles the listener head first into the wood-chipper of technological dystopia, systemic rot, creeping fascism, the military-industrial profit mill, and a near-constant erosion of humanity that peels away the soul bit by bit. With a fuse lit by these modern-day monstrosities the band seeks to find salvation through a thousand watt wake-up of rock n’ roll exfoliation.” Are you as exhausted as me?

17. Osees, Intercepted Message. It’s insane to think that this is the 28th studio album by John Dwyer and Company, under quite possibly the tenth or so variation of their band name. What’s even more insane is that, with few exceptions, none of these albums sound the same. This record could be described as their “party record”, with synths leading the way. But that’s not saying this is an OMD album, as the garage-punk aggression is still present.

16. King Tuff, Smalltown Stardust. Kyle Thomas, aka King Tuff, has always mixed a wide range of influences into his records. On this record, Thomas adds quite a bit of 70’s singer/songwriter, along with a bit of early Wings, merged with the fuzzier sounds of Dinosaur Jr., Ty Segall, and many others.

15. The Rolling Stones, Hackney Diamonds. There’s absolutely no reason why a 2023 album by The Rolling Stones could be anything better than middling. A tour souvenir, maybe. Or something only for the devoted fan. Yet, this record works. The band sounds like they mean it, man. It may be prototypical Mick and Kieth, but there’s also a modern edge to it thanks to producer Andrew Watt.

14. Lydia Loveless, Nothing’s Gonna Stand in My Way. Lydia’s lyrics have always seemed like a direct path to her soul, and that’s never been more true than on this record. Yes, she’s been through a lot of heartbreak, but there’s also a feeling that she knows she’s going to make it and won’t let anybody get in her way.

13. The Exbats, Song Machine. Everyone’s favorite father/daughter band has now fleshed out their sound with the addition of two additional band members, and their new record is sort of a love note to the history of pop music. There’s some songs reminiscent of Phil Spector’s great girl groups of the 60’s. Other tunes seem to come straight from the Brill Building or whatever production team created the Partridge Family records of the 70s. Yet these syrupy tunes mix with the darker influences of bands like the Velvet Underground and the Ramones.

12. Sparklehorse, Bird Machine. As a rule, posthumous records don’t make my lists. But I can’t help but include this final Sparklehorse record. One year before he took his life, Mark Linkous spent a few weeks in the studio with producer Steve Albini, bashing out a bunch of simpler than usual tunes for a project that was never finished. Over a decade later, Linkous’ brother and his wife fleshed out these recordings, resulting in a fitting final chapter for a brilliant career that should have been bigger than it was.

11. Tommy Stinson’s Cowboys In the Campfire, Wronger. The former Replacements bassist has long promised this side project with buddy Chip Roberts, and it’s a wonderful departure from the great Bash and Pop album of a few years ago. This record is chock full of laid back Americana, and certainly showcases Stinson’s love of the likes of Johnny Cash, Dave Alvin, and John Doe (who makes a guest appearance).

10. Bar Italia, The Twits. This wonderful London trio released two records this year, but this second one was arguably the better of the pair. Their sound is chock full of many classic and contemporary bands - a bit of Sonic Youth, a midge of Dry Cleaning, among many others. What’s most interesting is that on most songs the three members each trade off on vocal lines, which journalist Skye Butchard says “(takes) songs in new directions, reveling in the tension where their individual ideas intersect"

9. Wreckless Eric, Leisureland. How does one describe a modern day Wreckless Eric album? It’s not easy. The melodic pop skills of his early days are still present, but he surrounds these tunes with landscapes of various sounds. This particular record flows best as one long piece of music. Well, two pieces, actually, if you’re listening via vinyl, as god intended.

8. Purling Hiss, Drag On Girard. Purling Hiss began as a one-man project of Philadelphia guitarist Mike Polizze. Now a full-fledged band, this is the record for fans of fuzzed up garage rock.

7. Wilco, Cousin. After last year’s somewhat overrated country-ish Cruel Country, it’s nice to see the band back to experimentation. For the first time ever, they even reached out to an outside producer, Cate Le Bon. The results are one of those “creeper” albums that takes a few spins to unveil its charms.

5. Brad Marino, Grin & Bear It/Geoff Palmer, An Otherwise Negative Situation. (tie) it may not be fair to either Marino or Palmer, but it’s hard for me to think of one without the other. They’re friends that regularly play on each other’s albums, and they both tend to put out records around the same time. They’re pretty much the power pop/punk/rock version of Rockpile’s Dave Edmonds and Nick Lowe.

4. Paint Fumes, Real Romancer. The veteran garage/punk rockers’ fourth album is quite possibly their best. Their bandcamp site states it’s for fans of the Nerves, Ramones, and Gun Club, and I can’t think of a better description.

3. Civic, Taken By Force. Asked to describe their second album, the Melbourne-based five piece responded with “1984 meets Endless Summer”. A head scratcher, to be sure, but yet it weirdly is apt. Noisy, explosive proto-punk guitars meets singalong choruses, aptly produced by Radio Birdman’s Rob Younger.

2. The Whiffs, Scratch ‘N’ Sniff. What I just wrote about Uni Boys also fits with this fabulous Kansas City band, which made their short tour together this year a dream lineup.

1. Uni Boys, Buy This Now! Power pop was back in a big way in 2023, but it’s an evolved form of the genre. “Power” is the key word. Yes, the pop melodies are full of the giant hooks we expect from these sorts of bands, but they’re intermixed with louder guitars and faster tempos. These bands are forging their own visions instead of simply following the past. This L.A. foursome grew up at Burger Records shows, and you can tell.

Tonight's show also sees the conclusion of a yearlong project that has been great fun - the "52 Weeks of Teenage Kicks" series. I had originally planned on just playing a demo version of The Undertones' original track, but I received a surprising email just a couple of days ago. "Hey it's Krusty, longtime caller first time listener", it read. "Procrastinated my way through almost the whole year on this one (its pretty easy when you suck at drums!). Usually I am playing with my band Fashionkill, but this is my first effort at playing everything involved! Like the metallica blecccchh album, this is definitely more studio tricks than actual musicianship! Drums on Thursday, Everything else on Monday. Mixed on Tuesday. Sent today. Keep up the good stuff!" Thank you, Krusty, and thanks to all of the others who participated in this series!

Here are the tracks I aired to represent all 40 selections (aired in reverse, "countdown" order, of course):

1. Uni Boys, Down To The City.

2. The Whiffs, It’s Not Over.

3. Civic, Blood Rushes.

4. Paint Fumes, Starting Over.

5. Brad Marino, Lucy.

6. Geoff Palmer, Surfin’ Nebraska.

7. Wilco, Cousin.

8. Purling Hiss, Something In My Basement.

9. Wreckless Eric, Standing Water.

10. Bar Italia, World’s Greatest Emoter.

11. Tommy Stinson’s Cowboys In the Campfire, Mr. Wrong.

12. Sparklehorse, I Fucked It Up.

13. The Exbats, Himbo.

14. Lydia Loveless, Poor Boy.

15. The Rolling Stones, Whole Wide World.

16. King Tuff, Smalltown Stardust.

17. Osees, Intercepted Message. 1

18. Frankie and the Witch Fingers, Syster System.

19. Cut Worms, Take It and Smile.

20. Lucinda Williams, Rock N Roll Heart. 

21. Pretenders, Losing My Sense Of Taste.

22. Graham Parker & The Goldtops, The Music Of the Devil.

23. Yo La Tengo, Sinatra Drive Breakdown.

24. Night Beats, Motion Picture.

25. Guided By Voices, Puncher’s Parade.

26. The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Do Rainbows Have Ends.

27. Iggy Pop, Strung Out Johnny.

28. Bory, Feel the Burn.

29. The Waco brothers, Teenage Kicks.

30. Kevin Morby, This Is a Photograph II.

31. Country Westerns, Grapefruit.

32. The Men, God Bless the USA.

33. JJ & The Real Jerks, Girl I Want My Money Back.

34. The Smashing Times, Lets’ Be Nice With Johnny.

35. Local Drags, Heard About It.

36. Jagger Holly, Don’t Bore Us (Get to the Chorus).

37. The Dwarves, Feeling Great.

38. The Blips,, Who Took My Baby Away.

39. Hotline TNT, History Channel.

40. Dion Lunadon, Diamond Sea.

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