Best albums of 2023

The year of our lord 2023 was a great year for new music. So now that the year has come to a close, and it’s… mid-to-late January—I’d like to take a look back at this year in music. Or I guess last year in music. This is an incredibly biased list, I didn’t search out any music beyond my typical genre bubble, and I’m sure there are some absolutely pristine albums that came out last year that I’ve never even heard of. So this is less ‘2023 in music’ and more so ‘Marshall’s 2023 through the lens of the music that he happened to find compelling and therefore defined the completely unrelated experiences that made up his year.’
So let’s get started with my third-favorite album of the year, Origami Angel’s The Brightest Days.
As is typical with Origami Angel, this album delivers a heartfelt message about the struggles of modern existence in a package of energetic, rockin’, pop-punk-y emo anthems.
This album came out in June, while I was struggling to adapt to a new job that had me working late nights and lots of overtime, all while Lauren was doing super early mornings and equally long hours, so there were weeks where we didn’t have a full conversation the entire week—Sunday was our one day off that lined up and it would be the first time we’d really be able to talk since the Sunday prior.
Needless to say I didn’t cope well, but things kept moving—in fact, we were moving houses at the time, and I needed to keep up my energy for work, whether I felt energetic or not.
This album provided that much-needed energy for me, without turning a blind eye to the cognitive dissonance going on behind the scenes.
Stand-out tracks for me from this one include “Thank You, New Jersey”—very funny lyrics on that one—“Picture Frame”’s chord progressions are fascinating, I haven’t dug in too deep but at face value it feels like they’re borrowing from jazz getting some very 2-5-1-esque progressions and fun chromatic movement but it could just be a clever use of sequences. Then of course the emotional arrival of the album is the last track “Few and Far Between” where the facade kind of falls and you get the very honest submission of “its been raining the whole summer” like ‘okay yeah, I guess I’ve felt pretty shitty.’
It also does something that Origami Angel does very well that I believe is like—a bonus multiplier on the ‘is this a great album’ scale and that’s looping in on itself. The last song on the album doesn’t do a perfect loop with the beginning of the album, like there isn’t a synth drone in the background that perfectly lines up with the first song if you have the whole thing on repeat, but it does re-introduce the melody line that the album starts with, in the same key and with the same instrumentation—so it would feel pretty natural if you had the album playing on repeat. They also do this very well in what is arguably their best album, Somewhere City from 2019 which, by the way, I would consider to be the epitome of modern midwest emo—and probably my top album of 2019 but I’d have to look back at its competition.
So that’s Origami Angel’s The Brightest Days, my third-favorite album of 2023.


Now for my second-best album of the year, featuring TikTok darling PeteyUSA and his album USA… by Petey.
I was surprised to hear when Petey released his first album back in 2021, but I was a fan of his videos and on a whim I listened to it and… well I had a countdown clock on my phone for when this new album was coming out, so needless to say—Petey’s music is something truly special.
He has such a unique, funny yet wistful voice that comes through so well in his music—honestly even more so than in his videos, cause his goal isn’t necessarily to make you laugh here, its to make you feel something. Sure there are plenty of laughs in his music but it often takes a backseat to his honest, gut-wrenchingly relatable submissions about his personal struggles with mental health and relationships.
Along with excellent lyrics, all of his music features some of the most compelling, grabby electronic music production I’ve heard in the indie music scene in quite a while. You can always tell a shit-ton of work went into producing these songs, which can totally catch someone off guard if they only see Petey as a video creator. Though, as an aside I guess I always knew he had some musical inclinations as the first ever TikTok of his that I saw was the masterful “when I see a long line and I’m not sure if you’re in that line, instead of asking you I’ll just quietly walk past you” which Lauren and I quote pretty much daily.
This album, of course, is a perfect continuation of Petey’s foray into music. It develops his sound even further, dipping a little into less electronic-led indie rock, with one of my favorite tracks—the hilariously named “Skip This One”—featuring some gorgeous twinkly guitar lines pulled straight out of the midwest emo/math rock playbook. It also has a song that I would argue is Petey’s best song so far, and one that wins the coveted spot of Marshall’s best song of the year: “Family of Six”.
The entire song is built upon one of the most infectious riffs I’ve ever heard, its so simple but so ridiculously effective. I have danced in my car, I have danced in the kitchen, I would dance on my roof if I needed to, I cannot listen to this song without dancing in some capacity. And it goes somewhere—this song is always moving toward an arrival point. It starts off with just one synth introducing us to the riff, while the lyrics set the stage for what the song is about—which… we’ll get to the lyrics in a second. But this riff cycles on itself so effectively and every time it builds a little more tension and just keeps moving forward—and this tension keeps building and building until 3 minutes in when the rug is pulled out and we’re left with just acoustic guitar still driving that riff forward. And we build little by little bringing the drums back in toward the end, fading out before things can get too crazy again.
And to me that’s what this song is about—it’s about getting a little too into it, overcommitting and saying ‘oh shit, I should take a step back’. As we’re building tension in the front half of the song that’s what the lyrics say “Throw the whole thing at it, throw the kitchen sink, never mind I take it back I was just kidding”
Honestly, it was tight competition—this song might not have earned top spot for 2023 if it wasn’t for its incredible lyrics. It’s funny, it’s honest, it’s heartfelt, it’s everything that Petey’s music is, I can’t recommend it enough.


And without further ado, my album of the year is: Ethan Tasch’s “Got Him!”
I’m not sure how to say it, should it be like a proper “Got Him!” Or like ‘goteem’? ...No definitely not that.
Where to begin in talking about this album…
There are albums that you listen to once and you’re hooked you just know you’re gonna love it.
And then there are albums that you listen to 50 times in one week and you realize you’re stuck. This album is now a part of you, and years from now it will be just as important to you as it is now.
This album is both of those things for me—there is just something about it. Each song is boiled down to its own essence, there is absolutely no fat to trim. It’s 10 songs at under 25 minutes 28 seconds, which is probably part of why it’s so re-listen-able. You get to the end and you’re itching for more, but even if I had the choice, I wouldn’t add any more songs to it.
The chord progressions are simple but not always self-evident. The melodies are catchy as all get-out but they don’t worm into your head and drive you insane. The production is honestly immaculate—it’s quirky, it’s varied, it can be soaring and energetic while also being intimate and personal.
This is such a beautiful self-portrait and it does exactly what a good self-portrait should do by the end, you know the person who created it. And a whole lot of that is done through the impeccable lyrics. After everything I’ve said about this album, I’ve said nothing if I haven’t praised the lyrics.
They always tell a compelling story, they fit the rhythm and contour of the melody lines so well that as soon as you know the lyrics or the melody, the other seems to just follow naturally.
The lyrics are relatable and vulnerable but they’re also funny. I said this too about the Petey album—these two artists especially do such a great job at being poignant and scathing and devastatingly honest, while still retaining that sense of absurd levity that kind of seems to be a response to the modern condition—but that’s a discussion for another day.
I’ve tried to pick a favorite song or two to talk about it’s truly too difficult to decide. I suppose if I had to pick just one song it would be “Whattaya Say”, which I actually mention during my recent video about Rascal Flatts. It’s such a sweet song but its still quirky, its loving without being saccharin which can be something that’s so difficult to do with a love song. The steel guitar really shines in this track, as it does throughout the rest of the album—its pretty easy to win me over with some steel guitar. But, I digress.
This album saw me through some big transitions—we played it in the car driving our new cat home from the shelter, I played it on the drive to see my grandfather for the last time. This music did for me what I’ve always hoped my music will do for people. It helped me through life and it made me feel less alone in my experience.
I could surely talk about this album all day but I want to keep this somewhat truncated, for my sake and for yours. Perhaps I will go in-depth on this album at some point in the far future, like discussing my favorite albums of all time, but I think that does it for now.


It’s time for Marshall’s 2023 honorable mentions! There were several albums this year that just barely missed the cut, and I also listened to a lot of music for the first time that wasn’t from 2023, so it’s time to remedy those careless snubs.
First off is Nickel Creek’s triumphant return to the studio, in “Celebrants”.
Its been about 10 years since the last Nickel Creek album, and 10 more years before that since the last-last album that saw the end of their quote-en-quote golden years. This group of incredible musicians is what led me to one of my now all-time favorite bands, the progressive-folk supergroup Punch Brothers, with mandolinist and general virtuoso Chris Thile as the groups’ connecting thread. The album features a fitting theme of long overdue reunions, and that weird, awkward familiarity that accompanies them. It also features a close runner-up for song of the year in “The Meadow”. This is just an incredibly written song. I love a good simple chord progression that you can understand at first listen, like that’s great. But I also love being absolutely confounded by what I’m hearing and loving it all the same, and that’s this track for sure. I’ll most likely be doing a breakdown of it at some point soon so keep an eye out for that.
The other runner-up album that I want to mention is Slow Pulp’s sophomore LP, “Yard”.
I was a big fan of their first full album “Moveys”, so I was excited when I saw this pop up on my Spotify home-page. It’s a great mix of that grungier side of indie with a little bit of slowcore energy mixed in there. It also features a runner-up for song of the year in “Carina Phone 1000”. Honestly, I’m not sure exactly what draws me to this song so much. It’s just beautiful and simple and the end of the refrain “that’s life, I guess”—that melody line gives me chills every single time. It also gets bonus points for featuring steel guitar on the excellent track “Broadview”. Especially in that song, I’m happy to see them doing the slow crawl toward post-country that the rest of the indie scene is rightfully doing, I truly believe post-country is the perfect, final form of any music genre, its like how convergent evolution makes everything eventually turn into a crab with a tiny cowboy hat on and a tear in its eye.
But on we go to my favorite albums of 2023 that have nothing to do with 2023 other than the fact that I listened to them during it.
I started the year off with Hailaker, another impeccable supergroup featuring the musical prowess of Jemima Coulter and Lowswimmer. Their album “Holding” is absolutely worth a listen particularly when paired with a hot cup of tea.
Lauren’s top pick and just an incredible album can be found in The Happy Fits’ “What Could Be Better”, featuring some of the most rockin’ bops this side of the Mississippi and some very surprising gut-wrenching moments of nostalgia for a time you’ve never visited.
As you could imagine, I also have to give honorable mention to Rascal Flatt’s “Melt”, an album I reconnected with after over a decade and a half—only to realize it’s straight bangers through and through. Thanks for that one, Dad.
And finally, my best album of 2023 that isn’t from 2023, the relatively little-known “National Parks” by Happy Belated. An album… that feels like playing Minecraft with your older brother, right before he moves away for college. And he drives you crazy, because he’s your brother, but you love him, and you’re terrified for him to leave, and you just want to keep playing Minecraft forever. I know it’s a very specific feeling, just trust me, listen to it and you’ll feel that exactly.
If you want to listen all of my favorite music from 2023 there’s a playlist featured on my Spotify artist page, just search my name. If you’ve made it this far, thank you so much for coming on this journey with me. I’ve always wanted to do a review of my favorite music from a calendar year, kind of as a time capsule of what that year was like in my brain, if only to understand it better myself.

on unknown grit

For as long as I can remember, I've had a recurring nightmare about being underwater.
It's not a typical drowning nightmare, though; I usually start out underwater, or I've at least chosen to be where I am. But as with most of my dreams, the most frustrating rules of the real world still apply, and before long I am dying to take a breath.
I hold out for as long as I can, but I start to lose grip as my muscles scream for oxygen. I give up. I suck in... air. I don't know how it's possible, but I haven't drowned. Fearing that this was a mistake gone unnoticed by the universe, I suck in only the tiniest of breaths to keep myself going. I don't dare breathe in fully.

Then I wake up. To that space immesurably more complex, more dangerous. More unknown.
Growing up, you steadily realize how much more unknown the world has in store for you. But the worst unknown, in my opinion, is whether or not you're capable.
Not just capable of a task, or a job, or of learning a new skill. Capable of taking what life has in store. Feeling like you're running out of air, and that if you stay underwater for one more second you'll drown. But then life throws another punch, and... you're okay.
You worried things would get worse, and they did. You worried you wouldn't be capable of dealing with it, but you were.
I don't know how much I can take, but I know it's more than I think. I guess I'll keep stealing sips of air--and hope the universe doesn't notice I'm underwater.

New Website!

My website has taken many forms over the short amount of time it has existed.
The first version was rushed and utilitarian; responding to a sudden and urgent need to have a website to represent my online presence. I did a small amount of research into website builders, and settled with Wix.
I had no real problem with Wix--it did most everything I needed it to. However, the amount of money those services tend to charge is quite a bit more than your typical "Oh, I'll just forget about this recurring payment" subscription.
So, I set my sights on the school of the modern layperson and watched a series of YouTube tutorials on basic HTML and CSS.

I'm a bit new to this, but this website is still utilitarian in nature, and so I am trying not to put too much thought into making things beautiful. However, I do want things to be accessible. If you have found something difficult to traverse on this website, please send me a note using the contact info on my about page.
I hope to utilize my journal page more on this version of the website, but I've learned now to avoid making promises in that regard. So, for now, it's until next time.

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