Little Simz has long held the niche of literary rap and despite her massive talent, it’s never really served her that well. Her albums are fun and always a little out of left field but too comfortable to be memorable. Drop 7 moves her out of her comfort zone musically but isn’t enough to jump her to the next level.
The instrumentals of “SOS” are just filler and while her Spanish is excellent, “Fever” doesn’t work. There’s some infectiousness but the sound doesn’t work for her. It’s unfortunate that “Mood Swingz” is one of the strongest tracks here given how deep it is in her comfort zone.
I appreciate that this is her trying a whole bunch of new things and I wish that one of them worked better but this is ultimately just a collection of failed experiments.
This album is the pointless animation of a corpse. It’s a grotesque rictus dance with nothing to say, an empty skull unable to do anything but howl. The provocations don’t land at all. “PAID” in uninteresting and the remixing of “Roxanne” is supremely boring. “BACK TO ME” might have been decent but sinks under self-sabotage. I have no idea who would be enough of an apologist to be convinced by Mike Tyson.
There’s the occasional sample or line to spark interest but never enough to carry a full song, let alone an album. In it’s favor, this album has none of the mess of the last few Kanye albums but that’s because it doesn’t even attempt anything novel. This is not polish, this is just laziness.
The only interesting thing about this album is the person who made it and it’s been a long time since he was interesting either.
I’m often jealous of moments like this. John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy were both trying similar experiments in 1961 and these village gate sessions let both of them bounce off each other and refine their sound into what became their defining works. These collaborations are miracles and music is so much the better for each of them.
Both Dolphy and Trane are very energetic here. The bop gets quite hard and is excellent for the challenge. The album largely sticks to what are now classics but does plenty of interesting things with them. Adding Dolphy to a standard like “My Favorite Things” brings both freshness and spice to the classic and the teasing of the whole group in “Greensleeves” is immaculate.
This album is mostly the hits and, while they were brand new then, they can be ground that has been a little too-well trod when brought together like this. There is enough invigoration here to keep anything from sounding tired though and these songs are the hits because they are very good and that’s not diminished by putting them together. They may lack they impact they have in their own introductions but they are still just excellent music well worth listening to in a new incarnation.
Additionally, the sax is intricate in their take on “When The Lights Are Low” and the solos are excellent sheets of sound that overwhelm and immerse the listener. The piano solo is a little basic but there is magnificent, off-kilter percussion behind it that simply must be heard.
Both as a moment in time and as an album in itself, these sessions are a pleasure to listen to and fit well into the oeuvre of both artists.
2023 was weaker than I would have liked for music but the singles list is as strong as any and astonishingly varied. The final five that I brought it down to are not content merely to differ from each other but each cover vast swathes of ground individually. Any one of these songs is a journey, together they suffice to represent a year that never seemed to end.
5. Käärijä – Cha Cha Cha
It’s only fitting then that the first song comes from the start of the year. Not to relitigate the past but Käärijä was robbed at Eurovision. Firstly, this song is everything you want from Eurovision. I don’t watch it for generic ballads, I watch it for the experience and “Cha Cha Cha” is certainly an experience.
It’s not just the breaking open the box or the silhouette with the tongue though. The best thing about the song is the tone shift two thirds in. That’s what takes this song from Eurovision meme to something special. It’s unexpected but seamless and adds dimension to the dancing man, taking him from insubstantial to resonant and the song from joke to banger.
4. Esparanza Spalding and Fred Hersch – Girl Talk
I have never seen a cover so completely devour the original as this version of “Girl Talk.” Spalding and Hersch take a rather flimsy standard from the 60s and consume the misogyny of the original to create something subversive and feminist.
Spalding is friendly and conversational throughout this and her humor is absurdly effective. She’s too sharp to need blunt force and each of her dagger points slip in with ease. This is the most relaxed dismemberment that I’ve ever seen.
3. 100 gecs – Dumbest Girl Alive
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the alternative rock of the 00s is a cultural wasteland. It constantly shocks me then how much material current musicians are able to draw from it. Of course, there are no rules for 100 gecs. They take what they want and they do what they want and make music their forebears could never have dreamed of.
They’re also just much funnier than they have any right to be. “Put emojis on my grave / I’m the dumbest girl alive” is excellent set-up and the eventual pay-off of “Text, text, text, text like you’re tryna start a fight / Yeah, I’ll fucking text you back, I’m the dumbest girl alive” kills every time.
2. Peso Pluma – LADY GAGA
Peso Pluma is easily the most exciting sound of 2023 and “LADY GAGA” is where you should start with them. This is Mexican regional music for the current moment. It’s so deeply rooted in corridos and yet sounds so modern. There’s no confusing it for reggaeton or trap but there’s also no way to confuse Peso Plume with a mariachi band either. This sound could only have come in 2023 and Peso Pluma himself is very much a child of the present day. It’s what makes it so exciting to see what he does next.
1. Sufjan Stevens – Shit Talk
“Shit Talk” is the culmination of a career and heartbreak at its most visceral. I’ve heard it countless times over the past year and it still breaks me every time. Great art resists the flattening of human experience so natural to the prosaic concerns of daily life. It complicates and textures experiences that would otherwise collapse into trope. “Shit Talk” is beautiful and crushing and quite easily the best music of 2023.
One of the real pleasures of Afrobeats is how omnivorous it is. The other is how fun it can be. There’s always something unexpected in Work of Art. There are trumpet sounds and buzzes and piano licks and vocalizations in the thicket of sound that catch me by surprise no matter how many times I hear this. There’s so much detail in these album that rewards attention but this is also a hell of an album to just turn on and have fun with. It’s great groove after great groove in songs full of ideas and motion and I cannot sit still when “Amapiano” starts up. The only issue you can have with this album is how hard it is to stop playing it when you need to go and do anything else.
Young Thug is just fun. He makes rap into simple, unabashed fun. It’s such a breath of fresh air to hear him in an industry that’s obsessed with all the trappings around the music. He’s very obviously not oblivious to the peripherals but when you hear him rap, you can be.
His fun extends to his guest stars. He loosens up Drake to great effect in “Oh U Went” and “Parade on Cleveland” and he corrupts poor Lil Uzi Vert on “Hellcat Kenny” for some shockingly funny bars. He’s also infectious as ever in “Gucci Grocery Bag” which brings back all of the best of trap. This is music that sounds like it was a pleasure to make and is a definite pleasure to listen to.
LE SSERAFIM is quite comfortably my favorite thing in K-Pop right now. Their fashion and choreography are immaculate, their attitude is fully on-point and their pop is just so much more experimental than anyone else in the space. You see this in their K-Pop cuts. “Eve, Psyche & The Bluebeard’s Wife” and “UNFORGIVEN” are K-Pop chartbusters and rightfully so but you can see how omnivorous their taste is. The tracks constantly surprise with unexpected beats and breaks and they pull from a ton of influences.
They’re even willing to play out of K-Pop outright. “Blue Flame” is very “American Boy” and the strong “FEARNOT” could be a Taylor track. Their ear is evident across the album. Like Seo Taiji, it’s not just that they take many inspirations but that their ear for good music is impeccable and their ability to consume and integrate many sources is incredible. That they can do all of this and package it with the best K-Pop visuals that I have ever seen is absurd. There’s still a lot of roughness to this album and it’s somewhat of a loose bag but this is as exciting of a statement as you’ll get.
Blondshell is why you always root for the indie band. It’s personal, it’s idiosyncratic, it’s clever and it’s excellent lo-fi rock and it’s not shy about any of it. Right from the opener, “Veronica Mars,” Blondshell is clear that she’s going to talk about what she wants and she’s going to do it well. The line “Logan’s a dick / I’m learning that’s hot” is succinct, packed with meaning and the kind of line that can redefine your relationship with a beloved series. More interesting still are the guitar screams that end the song and the fuzz it delves into.
They follow it with the much slower “Kiss City” with the expertly delivered “Kiss City / I think my kink is when you tell me that you think I’m pretty” but return quite well to a more riotous energy in “Salad” and “Sepsis.” Blondshell does a great job moving between speeds from song to song. “Sober Together” slows down the tempo in order to deliver a very personal story underpinned by excellent, fundamental rock.
Blondshell finds a lot of ways to stick with you after a listen. Snippets of the music or the lyrics surface without warning during your day and they’re welcome every time.
Sometimes, you just cannot force a square peg into a round hole. This could have been a bedroom pop album in the way of something like Clairo’s debut album. That would have allowed her to deliver something short and focused and something that would stay more tightly defined within the sound that she got traction with. Heaven knows clearly has larger pop ambitions and while that might very well be in her future, the result right now is an album with plenty of strong moments, but not enough interesting music to carry the full project.
This comes up particularly strongly in the songs with features. You can see how these were designed for crossover appeal. However, the Central Cee verse just drags down a song with clever moments, but one that was already struggling to hold up its own weight. Similarly, I felt that the Ice Spice feature, while a cultural moment for both of them, is not one of her best.
PinkPantheress has moments, especially in songs like “Feelings”, with very compelling sounds and she’s still way too exciting to write off, but this album isn’t the breakout she wanted it to be.
Amaarae does a lot of things with Fountain Baby. Some of it is great, some of it less so but the variety is tremendous. The best part of it is the horniness. “Sociopathic Dance Queen” has it in spades and is excellent for it and the same is true for “Co-Star.” This is also just clever music. The layers in “Disguise” are greatly compelling. There are some misses here, like the punk of “Sex, Violence, Suicide” but there’s a lot of things that work well and a lot of good music and you’re sure to find plenty to groove to.
Top Five Records 