The Brighton Film Club's Albums of the Year 2023

Well those twelve months sure went quick!

That’s how I started the Albums of the Year rundown back in December 2022 and it doesn’t feel like any time has past since then.

Such an up and down year across the world for so many reasons and an extremely interesting one in musical terms. Whilst not necessarily a ‘vintage’ year in terms of releases it’s notable for quite how many different albums we’ve had this year without some of the usual ‘big hitters’ wading into the battle.

That’s reflected in just how different these round up lists are across the spectrum of musical publications this year with lots of discrepancy across the opinion of the ‘cultural gatekeepers.’

I feel the below list sits somewhere in the middle and reflects just how kaleidoscopically varied our current musical landscape is. I, for one, haven’t included SZA’s excellent SOS (top spot for Pitchfork and Rolling Stone this year) because it came out in 2022, albeit I understand that it was outside the usual window for these sorts of things and those particular publications wanted to honour it accordingly.

Sadly, this year also saw a number of musical legends sadly depart us for that great gig in the sky: Jeff Beck, David Crosby, Tom Verlaine, Burt Bacharach, Trugoy the Dove, Steve Mackey, Andy Rourke, Tina Turner, Dan Lardner, Tony Bennett, Sinead O’Connor and Shane MacGowan to name a few.

I present to you, after the customary squabbles and more shuffles than a Vegas casino, The Brighton Film Club’s Albums of the Year 2023:

30. Creeper – Sanguivore

29. Post Malone – AUSTIN

28. Dominic Fike – Sunburn

27. The Kills – God Games

26. Fireworks – Higher Lonely Power

25. BC Camplight – The Last Rotation Of Earth

24. Paris Texas – MID AIR

23. Mitski – The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We

22. Sleep Token – Take Me Back To Eden

21. Zach Bryan – Zach Bryan

20. Olivia Rodrigo – GUTS

19. SG Lewis – AudioLust & HigherLove

18. Blondshell – Blondshell

17. Indigo De Souza – All of This Will End

16. Amaarae – Fountain Baby

15. The Japanese House – In the End It Always Does

14. Blur – The Ballad of Darren

13. Drake – For All The Dogs

12. Paramore – This Is Why

11. Nothing But Thieves – Dead Club City

10. Queens of the Stone Age – In Times New Roman…

9. PVRIS – EVERGREEN

8. Young Fathers – Heavy Heavy

7. Caroline Polachek – Desire, I Want To Turn Into You

6. Wednesday – Rat Saw God

5. The National – First Two Pages Of Frankenstein and Laugh Track

4. Bombay Bicycle Club – My Big Day

3. 100 gecs – 10,000 gecs

2. Lana Del Rey – Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd

1. boygenius – the record

There’s also been a smattering of excellent EP’s this year worth checking out if you’ve exhausted the above: Brigitte Calls Me Baby, Hot Wax, No Rome, dv4d, Hippo Campus, Yonaka, Slotface, Zach Bryan and even boygenius, not content with just releasing the best album of the year to name a few.

Wait, there’s more: Andy Shauf, Inhaler, Gorillaz, Shame, Meet Me @ The Altar, Black Honey, Fall Out Boy, Matt Maltese, Foo Fighters, Jenny Lewis, Royal Blood, Coach Party, Romy, Travis Scott, Sufjan Stevens, Bad Bunny, Barry Can’t Swim and City and Colour were a few of the others fighting for inclusion on this list and are also worth a spin amongst what seems like countless others this year!

Have a fantastic festive season and roll on 2024.