2023 in Music

On December 31, 2023 By Luther M. SilerIn Music5 Comments

I purchased– and yes, “purchased” is the right word– 72 albums in 2023. I am an Old, and I have never taken to streaming, and so I’m still paying for all this stuff, and the fact that I got handed $200 in Apple gift cards partway through the year definitely didn’t hurt. Obviously not all of that is 2023 music, and as usual, I’m going to talk about stuff that was new to me this year.

The usual caveat whenever I’m talking about music: I have no idea how to write coherently about music, and never have, and furthermore I still cannot understand other people when they write about music. I have seen a ton of “Best New Releases of 2023” types of lists in the last few weeks, and purchased some music based on them, and … I just don’t get it. I’m pretty convinced that you could take the actual review parts of this article, randomly swap the artist and albums’ names, and republish it, and no one would notice. So this isn’t a list of reviews, it’s not a Best Of, and it’s sure as hell not in any kind of order other than maybe reverse chronological order of when I bought them. These are just albums that I enjoyed in 2023. Maybe you’ll like them too.

And I can hear you already, going “Wait, Luther, there’s no way you didn’t have Diamonds and Pearls already!” And you’re correct! I bought it on release day when I was in high school. What came out this year is the Super Deluxe Edition of Diamonds and Pearls, by Prince and the New Power Generation, which, for all my love of Prince’s entire career, will always be my favorite iteration of him.

The physical version of this motherfucker is seven disks long. There are live versions and alternate takes and an entire concert and demos and remasters and I’m going to stop typing now because you’ve already clicked away to go spend money.

I discovered Ren in 2023; Freckled Angels is a 2016 release but Sick Boi came out this year. Sick Boi is absolutely a rap album; Freckled Angels is something else and I’m not even going to try to describe it. Ren is Irish and monumentally talented and even if you’re not generally into hiphop you might want to look into him. Good shit.

I think it might actually be illegal to write anything about music in 2023 without mentioning Guts, by Olivia Rodrigo, and, well … yeah, it deserves it. I am really proud of myself for never unleashing my feelings about Sour in this space; Rodrigo has been underage for most of her career and picking on an actual child for musical choices that most likely were made mostly by other people who didn’t have her best interests in mind (no goddammit I’m not gonna do it) is not a move I want to make. But Guts is a more mature and multidimensional piece of work in every imaginable way, and bad idea right? is a fucking banger and I no longer feel like she should be taken away from her parents. All good. We’re fine.

2023 is also the year Paramore finally clicked for me, and after spending weeks mainlining This is Why every time I got into my car I went back and picked up most of the rest of their backlist. I mean, Christ, the name of their album is half of the line this is why I don’t leave the house; it’s like it was written for me.

You may have seen Queen Omega freestyling her ass off over a Dr. Dre beat on TikTok; I did, over and over and over again, until I cracked and spent money. I don’t listen to a ton of reggae nowadays, and I listen to even less reggae that doesn’t have anyone named Marley involved with it, but Freedom Legacy was a great dip back into the genre, and I feel like I might explore what modern, hip-hop influenced reggae is doing more next year. This is a hell of a collection, though, and I’m glad I grabbed it up.

Six? Six sounds good. Here’s the rest of the list:

#REVIEW: EVERYTHING IS LOVE, by Beyoncé and her husband

On July 2, 2018July 2, 2018 By Luther M. SilerIn Music, Reviews1 Comment

1529188714_5c1de0914dc0d389b19ae56fe7cc046c It must be so weird to be Jay-Z, guys. He is, by any standard, one of the most successful and well-known rappers of all time and an insanely talented businessman to boot, and he still managed to somehow marry up, to a woman who is better than him at damn near every single thing the two of them do. Don’t get me wrong; I married up myself, and my wife is also better than me at goddamn near everything. It ain’t a bad thing. But to be as successful as this guy has been, and still be #2 in your house? Crazy.

So here’s the thing: although I don’t talk about her all that much I am a big fan of Beyoncé. I’ve phrased that very deliberately. I am a fan of Beyoncé, not so much of her music. As an entertainer, she’s amazing, but I’m not necessarily going to reach for Dangerously in Love when I’m looking for something to listen to. She’s had a couple of songs on each of her albums that I like; sometimes a couple that I really like, but Lemonade was the first of her entire records that really clicked for me and even then if I’m playing it it’s to listen to Daddy Lessons or Formation and not to listen the whole way through.

And despite all the good stuff I just said about Jay, I’ve always thought he was kind of overrated as a musician. Him and Nas both fit into the same headspace for me, guys who have been around forever and been obscenely successful in hiphop (although Jay is a level beyond Nas, I think) but who I just don’t think are as good as everyone thinks they are. Don’t @ me. I bought 4:44 just like everybody else. The dude’s still huge. I don’t get to decide that, and he doesn’t have to give a shit what I think. But still.

So it’s kind of fascinating to me that Everything is Love is my favorite Beyoncé album and my favorite Jay-Z album, and by a substantial margin. I have always and always will preferred hiphop to all other forms of music, and it turns out that when you take Bey’s talents and turn the dial a few notches toward rap you get something that I really fucking like. Here’s how much I like this album: I’ve not only had it on damn near constant rotation in my car since I downloaded it, but when I’m not listening to it I’ve been revisiting everything else I have by both of them.

I dunno if I even really have anything else coherent to say about it. I’m terrible at reviewing music; I always have been, and it’s not like this album needs my help, right? If you were gonna cop this one you had it two hours after you found out it existed and nobody is going to try it based on Oh, Luther liked it! But still. Do it anyway. This is something special, and these two need to make music together more often.

The general theory seems to be that me doing an advice column would be entertaining, but I need some people with problems! Drop me a line and let me know how your life is Wrong and I will fix it.

In which I make a painful admission

On January 27, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn Music13 Comments

Taylor Swift’s new song isn’t completely terrible.

Although I admit I’m not sure I have the courage to watch the video:

It’s not that I have a blanket dislike of bubblegum pop, mind you. My affection for Avril Lavigne has been confessed enough times that it hardly even feels like a confession anymore. But Taylor Swift? God. Taylor is the worst, and her single before this one was like the ur-Taylor Swift song. Shake it Off is literally everything about Taylor Swift that sucks concentrated into four minutes, and I hate it so much that I have to turn off the radio when it comes on.

This one, on the other hand? I knew I was in trouble the first time I heard it, when this line floated through my ears:

Oh my god
Look at that face
You look like
My next mistake

And I thought “Heh, that’s kind of clever,” and only a minute or two later realized that I’d thought something complimentary about a Taylor Swift song. It’s amazing to me that these two tracks are on the same album; one of my biggest gripes about Swift is that she seems unable to write about anything other than herself and how everyone’s always picking on her/doing her wrong/mean/insufficiently worshipful, and Blank Space actually betrays a sense of humor about herself, which to my knowledge she’s never done before.

I’m not about to buy the album or anything. But yeah, this one? Not bad.