Jim Carroll's top 23 albums of 2023

Back when I used to write about music for a living, I had a few quips I'd use again and again. Yes, I was into the auld recycling long before the Greens came along.

There were a few Jay Z quotes which were always useful for different occasions depending on the audience. A neat line about why festivals sucked involving fields, cows and hurling. That sort of thing.

One of the lines still cuts muster today. At some stage of the game, it became apparent to me that two skills all music writers needed to master (other than recycling their better lines) were the art of the obituary and an ability to count to 20. The former had to do with the amount of musicians who’d come to the end of their lives on our watch - and the latter had to do with the amount of lists music hacks found themselves compiling to fill space in papers and on websites.

My former colleagues had a lot of music-related obituaries to file in 2023. The deaths of Christy Dignam, Sinead O’Connor and Shane MacGowan led to days of headlines and coverage, an Irish version of 2016’s triple whammy of David Bowie, Prince and Leonard Cohen. In many ways, it truly felt like the end of an era in Irish music, three larger than life voices who defined a certain period and generation in Irish muic leaving the stage.

MacGowan’s death was the one which really margined the year in black. I was driving through north Tipperary when news of his death broke and the airwaves soon filled with songs and stories from the local lad.

Again and again, A Rainy Night In Soho was played. Again and again, you realised what a classic MacGowan had penned, a song where he almost casually throws away the keeper of a line at the very end before the song is nearly over.

But MacGowan penned many classics in that peerless period when he could just do wrong. Between the first three albums, he produced a run of work which still hits you square between the eyes with their power and blows your mind with their writerly craft.

Nick Cave told a story the other week about visiting MacGowan in his London flat at some stage after that golden period and asking him about other songs which had been penned but not recorded.

The Tippman produced a scrap of paper with a song called St John of Gods on it. No doubt, that was one of many yet to be heard. Perhaps it’s not meant to be heard…

But just as you can’t have an album of 2023 which was released in 2022 (take note Pitchfork and New York Times, you idiots), the song of the year can’t be one which was released in 1985 no matter how much we wish. There are newer artists to salute, newer works to laud, newer lands to see and hear.

Jim's list contains 'a 97-minute flute album by a lad I once talked to about
greyhounds on the London Eye while he was blitzed on absinthe' (Andre 3000)

The list below contains the albums which I spent a lot of the last 12 months listening to. These are records with vim and vigour, power and passion, stirring songs and sounds. They are in numerical order because anything else is a cop-out and the work of a lazy, cowardly, conservative mind.

This was a year when music had to work hard for its money. I don’t mean the usual run ins with Spotify, record labels, venue owners and the like, but the doom and gloom which coated 2023.

The role of music in a world of war and conflict and anger and strife home and away is a confused one. Are artists supposed to comment on all of this or do they leave well alone? Is music still a badge of identity (witness the number of Irish acts performing at aid concerts for Gaza in the last few months) or are musicians staying clear of pinning badges and flags for such causes? There’s certainly a proud tradition there which many are happy to support but which many others shun and avoid.

Here then is some of the music which sustained and soothed and energised me in 2023. For the trivia fans in the audience, it contains a 97-minute flute album by a lad I once talked to about greyhounds on the London Eye while he was blitzed on absinthe. It also contains an array of music which truly soundtracks all seasons. That was 2023 for you. The fact that it contains 23 albums and not the 20 I was asked to provide shows I didn't take my own advice and learn to count to 20. Lesson number three: always go beyond the stop sign.

THE TOP 10

(1) Caroline Polachek - Desire, I Want To Turn Into You

(2) Jessie Ware - That! Feels Good!

(3) John Francis Flynn - Look Over the Wall, See the Sky

We need your consent to load this Spotify contentWe use Spotify to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences

(4) Say She She - Silver

(5) Irreversible Entanglements - Protect Your Love

(6) Anohni and the Johnsons – My Back Was a Bridge for You to Cross

(7) Baby Rose - Through and Through

(8) Speakers Corner Quartet - Further Out Than The Edge

(9) Gabriels - Angels and Queens

(10) Lankum - False Lankum

(11) Noname - Sundial

(12) Mitski - The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We

(13) Loraine James - Gentle Confrontation

(14) ØXN - CYRM

(15) Cleo Sol - Heaven

(16) Overmono - Good Lies

(17) Sampha – Lahai

(18) Water From Your Eyes – Everyone’s Crushed

(19) Janelle Monáe – The Age of Pleasure

(20) Andre 3000 - New Blue Sun

(21) Eddie Chacon – Sundown

(22) Madison McFerrin - I Hope You Can Forgive Me

(23) Lonnie Holley - Oh Me Oh My

Jim Carroll's top 23 albums of 2023

More stories on

Read Next

More stories on

John Kelly's top 10 albums of 2023

Read Next