This was a great year for music in terms of my personal taste. I spent a lot less time listening to my favorites (Pink Floyd, Third Eye Blind, U2, Quinn XCII, Snail Mail, etc.) and a lot more time listening to some new discoveries. Don’t get me wrong, I definitely still devoted my fair share of listening time to those I already knew I loved, but I divided my time pretty evenly between old and new as far as my music repertoire goes.

I have mostly Spotify to thank; this year is the first year I think I really started to take the app’s suggestions based on my listening history seriously, and it’s a damn good thing I did. Thanks to Spotify, I discovered what may possibly be one of my new all time favorites, right up there with Pink Floyd, 3eb, and U2. They don’t get all the credit, but as anyone who knows me knows, I will die on the hill of Spotify > Apple Music. But, I digress; in no particular order, here are five incredible albums I discovered this year.

1. The Record by Boygenius (2023)

I don’t know that saying I ‘discovered’ this album is entirely appropriate considering how hard the supergroup took the world by storm with this one, but I’m counting it. Not only do I love Boygenius because I’m gay (which is an impossible reason to deny) but I love them even more just as a fan of rock ‘n roll. Watching Lucy Dacus, Phoebe Bridgers, and Julien Baker (if you’re reading this Julien my dms are always open) rocking out on the SNL stage last month was fucking awesome to see. I don’t know that there’s really been any iconic female rock groups in the 21st century, at least not ones that are as notable as Heart, The Go-Go’s, Fleetwood Mac, etc, and it should also be noted that a lot of these groups are not all female. Boygenius is, though, and they’re just as awesome as any of their influences. This album doesn’t have a single miss, but the track that really stands out to me is “True Blue.” For the last ten-ish years, I’ve been compiling, editing, and rearranging a comprehensive list of my favorite songs in order. It’s up to about 500 songs at this point, but the top 25 has HARDLY changed since the list’s conception. Upon hearing this album for the first time, “True Blue” instantly staked its claim as #4. I won’t say the top five on this list has never changed, but I will say that I can count the number of times it has on one hand. Simply put, if you haven’t heard this album yet, you’re seriously missing out.

2. Cuts & Bruises by Inhaler (2023)

My brother loves to make fun of me for how much I love Bono, and what I’m pretty sure he doesn’t realize, is that that isn’t the insult he thinks it is. I have, as I’m sure anyone who had an iPhone in 2014 also has, a lot of opinions about U2, but one of the most unwavering of those opinions is that Bono is a fucking legend. So it’s no surprise to me that his son Elijah is a force to be reckoned with in and of himself. Elijah is my age, only a month and a half younger than me, and he formed his band Inhaler in 2012. I wanna give you just a second to let that sink in. In 2012, we were 13 years old. When your dad is Bono, it does make sense that you would “form a band” in your early years. But Elijah Hewson didn’t “form a band,” he formed a band. Fast forward a decade and Inhaler is pumping out some pretty fantastic music. Cuts & Bruises is their most recent album, and it also does not contain a single miss. Some notable tracks are “Love Will Get You There,” “These Are The Days,” and, my favorite, “If You’re Gonna Break My Heart.” This is a band that just seems cool, and who I would honestly love to be friends with. Their sound isn’t exactly like U2’s, but you can tell Elijah—obviously—drew some inspiration from his dad, and they are definitely a unique band with a unique sound; there isn’t an artist today quite like Inhaler.

3. A Brief History of Amazing Letdowns by Lilys (1993)

The new favorite band I was referring to up there? Lilys. I’ve always been a little jealous, for lack of a better word, of the fact that my dad is Facebook friends and relatively in touch with Steve Kilby, the front man for one of his favorite bands, The Church. When I first got into Lilys, it was because I was listening to a Jesus and Mary Chain album which ended, and Spotify went in to a suggested track before I could queue up another album. Instead of turning it off like I normally would do, I listened to the track, primarily because it was titled “Ycjcyaqftj.” It’s a short track, only a minute and 41 seconds long, so the amount of time it took for me to contemplate the title was about long enough for me to finish the song. I was intrigued, to say the least, by the melodic shoegaze, so I went to the full album and put it on. And the rest was history. I listened to the album nonstop for like a week, and I tried to find the band’s social media profiles to learn a little more about them, and I couldn’t find shit. Instead, I found the personal profile of frontman (and only consistent band member) Kurt Heasley, and the guy was on private. I figured, fuck it, I’ll just request to follow him, it can’t hurt. He not only accepted my follow request, but he requested to follow me back, and when I posted my Spotify Wrapped (of which Lilys was my top artist and probably at least 40% of my top songs being Lilys’ songs) and tagged him. Long story short, he dm’ed me, we got to talking, and he made a promise to come play a show in Brooklyn at some point this coming year which I will absolutely be holding him to.

4. French Exit by TV Girl (2014)

Admittedly, I don’t know a ton about this band or album just yet; I found this album last week. That said, I’ve been listening to this album, and TV Girl’s other discography, all week. They’re not a band whose sound I would normally be drawn to, but for some reason, I am. I’m pretty sure this album was a Spotify find, too, but honestly I don’t remember. And I don’t really care. Because when a good thing falls in your lap, the reason why doesn’t particularly matter does it? The album opens with my favorite track “Pantyhose,” and closes with probably my second favorite track “Anjela,” but that’s not to discount all of the stuff in between. This album is just pure fun. If I were asked to recommend a mood-booster of an album, this would probably be the first to come to mind. The vocals aren’t exactly upbeat, and I think if you were to strip the music and isolate the vocals, mood-booster would definitely not be a term I’d use to describe this album. The vocals paired with the music, though… I don’t really know what I would categorize the album as in terms of genre, but sometimes I think that’s a hallmark of a great record. In the case of French Exit, I think it’s exactly that.

5. Tim by The Replacements (1985)

The Replacements were a band that I was vaguely familiar with, solely because of the feature of the track “Alex Chilton” in the early 2000s video game Rock Band. I naively thought they were a one hit wonder, until last year(?) when I was trying my hardest to get into podcasts. I stumbled upon the podcast “BandSplained” and I was looking for a relatively short episode just to get my feet wet, when I found one on The Replacements. I don’t think it was short, and I didn’t listen to the whole thing, but I was intrigued enough to start it, because what could possibly warrant an entire episode of a podcast devoted to a one hit wonder? That was when I discovered that The Replacements, and frontman Paul Westerberg, were far from a one hit wonder. I listened to the album Pleased to Meet Me after the podcast, but that was really it. Fast forward to this year, and I’m watching some random cartoon—I don’t even remember what—and a song came on that I genuinely had a visceral reaction to. That has only happened to me upon hearing a song for the first time two other times in my life, and those are the top two songs on my list of favorites. I Shazam’d the song, and to my serendipitous surprise, it was by The Replacements. So I decided to check out this other Replacements album, Tim. The Replacements have now found themselves a solid member of my regular band rotation. The whole album is fantastic, but “Here Comes a Regular” is the one that caused me to have a visceral reaction, and some other notable tracks include “Little Mascara,” and “Bastards of Young,” but this entire album is absolutely fantastic, and criminally underrated.

The cool thing about all of these albums are that they are all my first exposure to their respective artists, and I now consider myself a fan of all five artists. All five of these albums are seriously worth listening to, and I hope some of them can find their way into more people’s libraries, they certainly deserve to. If you do listen to any of them, I’d love to hear what you think, and if you think I got my reviews of them right!