End of year round-ups can be a pretty predictable affair, with publications counting on fandoms of massive stars boosting their signal, be it an inflated spot on the chart, or a provocatively low spot designed to agitate. Of course, some massive releases are worthy of lofty positions, but we prefer to give spots to the albums we’ve had on constant rotation, regardless of promo push and ad-spend and all that grim stuff.
This is an honest list of albums we’ve absolutely hammered this year. We hope you’ll read about them and, if you haven’t heard them already, get them into your regular rotation on streaming, or buy a record or a t-shirt, or however you show your love to musicians.
2023 has been a great year, like all years are filled with wonderful music. It feels like hip hop has had a fallow year, and we’ll see a number of marquee releases in 2024. Rap music, we haven’t forgotten about you entirely – and there’s been some fun singles and mixtapes – so we’ll keep an eye on you next year. It’s been quite a psychedelic year, which looks like more homely vibes, or the glorious return of doof doof house. R&B rekindled it’s love of the dancefloor 4/4, and bedroom house had some real standouts.
The most interesting rock music moved away from a lot of the introverted, self-confessional music and by-now-pretty-drab post punk stylings, and we saw more explosive acid-shoegaze and melodious sugary rock. Some heritage acts came back too, with The Beatles gracefully bowing out and The Rolling Stones releasing their best music in yonks. Blur surprised everyone with a new LP – a bruised and melancholic affair which reminded everyone why they loved them so much.
Of course, this month, there’ll be an End Of Year FREE RANGE radio show, which naturally, will be shared on these very pages and whacked in the mailout. For those who like to ingest their media while sat on the toilet and at their own pace, here’s a number of albums which wowed us in 2023.
We’ll include a playlist with this article of our favourite bits, but this piece is looking at just the albums, not outstanding individual tracks.
POPCORPS ALBUM OF 2023
DINA ÖGON: OAS
Without question, THEPOPCORPS album of 2023 was the beguiling, stylish, soulful and wonderful ‘Oas’ by the insanely talented Dina Ögon. We’ve already enthused wildly about them on these pages, where we noted the echoes of “popsike and bubblegum Stax, as well as jazz and elegant folk, with added Anatolian funk and Tropicalia, all wrapped up in a daydream of West Coast sunshine and the long-haired end of Yacht Rock.”
Sung in their native Swedish, you’d be forgiven for thinking that it might make the music a little less accessible, but like all great music, it’s always best when it’s sung in it’s most personal tongue. Here, backed by lush arrangements, a super groovy rhythmic backbone, and seemingly effortless melodies, ‘Oas’ switches from uptempo psychedelic soul, to low-lit pop masterpieces, as seen in the endlessly fabulous ‘Mormor’.
When we said they might be the brightest band on the planet, it transpired that they were the absolute best and no-one really got close to them in 2023. In our introductory piece, we heard potential influences from the likes of Serge’s Melody Nelson LP, Gal Costa, Stereolab and Broadcast, but spending more time with the LP, there’s a kaleidoscope of music in there.
Bossa Jazz, the folk rock of West Coast ’70s Laurel Canyon, slo-mo ’80s boogie, baroque pop – it’s got smatterings of everything great in your record collection. In fact, we’d put good money on Dina Ögon having excellent record collections themselves. You can feel it on this album. It’s something you can’t fake.
There’s not many albums more achingly beautiful as this one, and if this is the first time you’re hearing about it, then go seek it out as soon as you humanly can. As much as the music isn’t rushed, the way people found this album seems to be a natural unfurling and those who stumbled across it have had it on repeat ever since.
Dina Ögon – you made our favourite album of 2023 and, genuinely, we think you’ve got even more to come. A perfect group – a perfect LP.
ALSO 2023’S BEST
GIRL RAY: PRESTIGE
Girl Ray have been making ace music for a while now, but with ‘Prestige’, they made a career best (so far). Disco is never dead, but in the clubs, the sound was lagging a little, co-opted by shy Tories and self-made sorts with weekday coke habits. However, undeterred, it turned out we needed a live group to get disco and dust down it’s lapels. And with songs like ‘Everybody’s Saying That’ and ‘Up’, Girl Ray would have had LP of 2023 in any other year.
Just pipped at the post, this is still one of the most treasured albums of the year and has been gathering up the plaudits and deservedly so. Perfect pop, music that’s emotional and fun – it’s got everything.
AVA ROCHA: NEKTAR
Ava Rocha is one of Brazil’s most talented musicians and honestly, we didn’t think we could love her more after hearing her first LP – the brilliant ‘Ava Patrya Yndia Yracema’. She’s blew us away with ‘NEKTAR’, which showed once again, just how inventive and wonderful she is. No other album in 2023 put avant garde music alongside pop quite as well as Ava did, and there’s enough to keep fans of ’70s Brazilian music happy, but it’s also fresh enough to be something entirely new.
The whole album is a total triumph and Ava Rocha remains one of our favourite musicians on planet earth right now. Utterly majestic!
GAYANCE: MASCARADE
Gayance’s hot buttered soul and rump shaking house is one of the surprise hits of the year, showing just how much life there is left on the dancefloor, especially in the hands of DJ and producer Aïsha Vertus. In our initial review, we said “if you’re into UK Garage, Detroit and Chicago house, soul, spiritual jazz, ’00s R&B, cuban, and just about every dancefloor-friendly, joyful genre you can think of, then this is an album that’s going to make you beam from ear to ear.” We stand by that.
If you’re in the business of making your life better by putting good things into it, then you should have Gayance on tap. Spiritual nourishment and ten tonnes of fun, too.
LANKUM: FALSE LANKUM
Folk music, when done right, should give you a sense of something being summoned behind you. If you’ve heard the doom-acid of ‘Go Dig My Grave’, then chances are, you’re still recovering from it or something evil has enveloped you entirely. We mean this in the best possible way, but as songs go, it’s one of the most harrowing you’ll ever hear.
While Trad Folk isn’t a swear word, Lankum manage to marry the traditional with heady experimentations and, alongside all that, it seems like they’re some of the most unpretentious and likeable people you could ever share a stout with. You don’t get to say this about many bands, but say it with your whole chest – there’s not a band on the planet quite like Lankum when they’re in full flow.
DJ SABRINA THE TEENAGE DJ: DESTINY
If one more person says DJ Sabrina The Teenage DJ is a secret pseudonym of Aphex Twin, we’re pretty sure that legally, she’s entitled to his royalty cheques. Whatever the case, DJ Sabrina’s joyous trolling of music critics and lengthy, dreamlike house workouts have got us under some kind of spell. It’s dance music sure, but it’s quite unique, with that fuzzy, psychedelic nostalgia that we’ve only felt before with the likes of Boards of Canada. Instead of cults and deep mathematics, DJSTTDJ is party music delivered via a haunted VHS tape of old perfume commercials and teen films.
The albums are wilfully long, there’s loads of releases to get through, but it’s original, inventive and so much fun that we have to join the legions of people who just can’t get enough of what they’re doing.
BIKE: ARTE BRUT
We keep seeing psychedelic rock line-ups and wondering where the actual psychedelic rock has gone. If you love heavy fuzz, songs with different tonal sections and a faraway look in it’s eyes, then your new favourite acid overlords may well come from São Paulo. Bike’s ‘Arte Brut’ is a cauldron filled with Sabbath LPs, Os Mutantes FX, experimental West Coast ’60s rock and something uniquely their own.
‘O Torto Santo’ is one of the best psychedelic rock tracks of 2023, with the only competition coming from themselves. It’s a perfect piece of Brazilian rock worthy of any serious head’s time.
MARLENE RIBEIRO: TOQUEI NO SOL
Marlene Ribeiro is a frequent collaborator, but on ‘Toquei No Sol’, she’s going it alone and the result is a complete one-off of an album, that draws from traditional Portuguese music, bossa, shoegaze, acid-folk, Nu-Age and ambient music, and while experimental, it’s one of the finest LPs 2023 has seen, marrying heavy psych with glitchy electronics and tape effects.
Soundscapes, instrumentals, fragile songs, Ribeiro’s LP has been on a steady rotation this year at THEPOPCORP HQ, and what a dreamlike gem it is. A hidden treasure. Do not miss out on this.
PARIS TEXAS: MID AIR
Paris Texas don’t seem too interested in making club music, rather, their eyes are set squarely at the mosh-pit. There’s many hip hop acts that have been given the dubious moniker of ‘The New Outkast’ – previously it was EARTHGANG, and now it’s these guys. While it may jar the average Outkast fan, let’s choose optimism and say that these all share one thing – a wilful disregard to follow the tried and tested rap superstar tropes.
Paris Texas have an experimental edge and no band to our mind has successfully mixed hip hop with rock as well as these guys. It’s snotty and nihilistic in places, but it’s also a fuckload of fun, and we can imagine kids crowd surfing and getting a fat lip after attending one of their gigs. It’s exciting, daft, witty, don’t give a fuck, and riddled with energy. If you’ve been missing some underground skuzz in your rap albums, this is going to do it for you.
LEMON TWIGS: EVERYTHING HARMONY
The Lemon Twigs always have at least one absolute killer on their LPs, but their supreme talent and magpie eye means that they can lack a bit of focus and LPs can rattle along with the wheels falling off. On ‘Everything Harmony’, they might have made a career best! The super jangle of ‘In My Head’ reminds us a little of Nick Lowe and Big Star, while ‘Any Time Of Day’ is a soft-pop masterpiece with the most impossible harmonies you’ve heard this side of ‘Pet Sounds’.
Everyone knows how exciting the ‘Twigs can be, but this time around, they’ve paired back a lot of the pomp and given themselves to their pop leanings and the result is one of the finest LPs of 2023.
The Pop Corporation 
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