Katie's Favs of 2023
It's been a long December and there's reason to believe maybe this year will be better than the last (like... it HAS to be)
Howdy, and welcome to Good And Good For You, a newsletter about music and feelings. I’ve been a little quiet here because I’m busy with my job (gross) and have also been dedicating free time to my book proposal (less gross!) but I didn’t want to let December pass by without doing a little end-of-year roundup. Enjoy, and thanks for being here!
On May 1, the night Wednesday played at Mohawk in Austin, Texas, I saw a shooting star rip down the sky above the stage while the band played “Quarry.” I’ve never seen a shooting star from light-polluted downtown Austin and, frankly, didn’t know it was possible to. But there it was, searing the sky behind the band of the year, burning for one urgent moment, arching down toward the skyline. In the moment, I didn’t register it as ominous, but the next day was the worst day of my life. And that is why I don’t like listening to the band Wednesday or their acclaimed 2023 album Rat Saw God. But I’m really happy for all of you who have seemed to enjoy it a lot.
This year was awful for me. Through it all, music was the only thing that continued to make sense and give my world color.
I wanted to share this list less as less as commentary and more as curated recommendations - that’s what I typically look for in a list like this, anyway - so most everything is presented without specific comment. But please know that if I had unlimited time, brain power, screen real estate, and reader patience at my disposal, I’d have something lovely to say about every single artist, song, and album on all of these lists. Each of them played their own role in my survival and (relative) sanity in 2023.
But before we get into the lists of it all, here’s a little thing I wrote about my album of the year, originally published on Swim Into The Sound.
KT’s AOTY: Lucky For You, Bully
I am trying to wrangle this blurb into something that’s not jarringly tragic. And honestly, it might be a futile effort. After all, Lucky For You is about a dead dog, about breakups, about the end of the world as we know it. When you lose your dog, your marriage, or your career, there’s grief, of course, and also, there is rage. A sensation that resonates with hoarse yelps, the slamming of cymbals, chugging, distorted electric guitar chords. With Lucky For You, Alicia Bognanno of Bully has turned the shards of grief and anger into grunge-pop melodies that are as unflinching as their subject matter deserves: she lost her beloved dog Mezzi last year, after more than a decade together. These songs are the sound of her attempts to process life’s stock-in-trade heartbreaks—romantic wounds, crippling self-doubt, and the horrors of living in America—without her best friend by her side.
There have been days this year when singing along to “Days Move Slow” in my car at the top of my lungs has felt like a conversation with a friend who understands: a friend who’s a step ahead of me, who’s cracked the code of alchemizing despair into melody. Even before I knew that “A Wonderful Life” was about a pet’s death, I felt Bognanno’s warm, punchy words in my bones: “What a wonderful life / my heart’s breaking on the bathroom floor” quickly became the refrain, this last summer, for my own life falling apart in real-time.
Bognanno’s vocals have a retro quality, evoking charismatic pop-rock voices from the early 2000s, like Michelle Branch or Sheryl Crow in her louder moments. But she’s not content to cash in on basic pop blueprints: like its 2020 predecessor SUGAREGG, Lucky For You leans into distortion, thick bass riffs, and, at times, full-on yelling, like in the Bikini Kill-esque final track “All This Noise.” The last two songs of the album zoom out on the sociopolitical factors that tally among Bognanno’s sorrows: the latter torching the American government in a blaze of rage, the former, “Ms. America,” a soft, piercing reflection on the improbability of the dream of motherhood in a rotten country like ours, where there’s endless funding for weapons manufacturing and none for healthcare or schools or even clean water. I listened, a hundred times over, when she sings, “All I wanted was a daughter / try my best to raise her right / but the whole world’s caught on fire / and I don’t wanna teach a kid to fight.” All that we’ve lost this year, so many of us. All that 2023 unceremoniously stomped against the curb. I’ve watched it all slip through my fingers, and I’ve carried my dog’s old collar in my backpack when I’ve bounced between temporary homes, and I’ve listened to Bully like a prayer, knowing that despite how it sometimes feels, I’m never really alone.
FAV fav albums
(More or less in order)
Lucky For You - Bully
The Land, The Water, The Sky - Black Belt Eagle Scout
This Is Why - Paramore
Javelin - Sufjan Stevens
Desire, I Want To Turn Into You - Caroline Polachek
Why Does The Earth Give Us People To Love? - Kara Jackson
Cartwheel - Hotline TNT
Jaguar II - Victoria Monét
Paint My Bedroom Black - Holly Humberstone
The Window - Ratboys
Time Ain’t Accidental - Jess Williamson
Weathervanes - Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit
A Cat In The Rain - Turnpike Troubadours
I Don’t Know - bdrmm
Bad Dream Jaguar - Sun June
All Around You - Subsonic Eye
The Greater Wings - Julie Byrne
Rabbit Rabbit - Speedy Ortiz
Zach Bryan - Zach Bryan
Heater - Phony
Familiar folks I enjoyed spending time with
(Alphabetical by artist)
boygenius - the record
Gregory Alan Isakov - Appaloosa Bones
Jorja Smith - falling or flying
KC Rae - Think I’m Gonna Die
MJ Lenderman - And The Wind (Live and Loose!)
Mitski - The Land Is Inhospitable And So Are We
Miya Folick - ROACH
Palehound - Eye On The Bat
Squirrel Flower - Tomorrow’s Fire
New friends that won me over
(Alphabetical by artist)
Abby Hamilton - #1 Zookeeper (of the San Diego Zoo)
billy woods & Kenny Segal - Maps
Broken Record - Nothing Moves Me
cero - e o
Golden Apples - Bananasugarfire
Greg Mendez - Greg Mendez
Hello Mary - Hello Mary
Josaleigh Pollett - In The Garden, By The Weeds
Kate Davis - Fish Bowl
L’Rain - I Killed Your Dog
Mali Velasquez - I’m Green
McKinley Dixon - Beloved! Paradise! Jazz?!
ML Buch - Suntub
Parannoul - After The Magic
Star 99 - Bitch Unlimited
Steve Marino - Too Late To Start Again
Vagabon - Sorry I Haven’t Called
yeule - softscars
Yo La Tengo - This Stupid World
Bangers/heaters/rippers (individual songs of note), complete with my favorite lyric/aspect of each (where applicable)
(In order of personal significance to me)
“Lucky” - Abby Hamilton
“Don’t drop me on a limb just to watch me break / oh, for heaven’s sake”
“The Window” - Ratboys
The whole fucking thing idk
“Not Strong Enough” - boygenius
The part from the bridge into Lucy’s chorus
“Unknown / Nth” - Hozier
"Do you know I could break beneath the weight / of the goodness, love, I still carry for you? That I’d walk through fire just to take the injury of finally knowing you”
“Cubic Zirconia” - Katy Kirby
The way her voice lifts me up like a late spring breeze and makes me feel like my sadness or mania might not be so ugly after all
“One for sorrow, two for Joni Jones” - The Japanese House
"No one’s ever gonna love me / like this dog lying in my lap… Sometimes I think without you life would lose its bones / But really, day to day I’ll still just be walking in the park / with my little Joni Jones”
“Lagunita” - Lizzie No
The guitar parts and the melodies and every lyric but especially “And I’ve come to love / the sinner and the sin / see the brush in the painting / taste the calf in the gelatin”
“Independence Day” - Palehound
The whole first two verses before the chorus
“The Beginning” - Shamir
The fact that it makes me feel like I’m in an early 2000s rom-com
“get him back!” - Olivia Rodrigo
The part where she says she wants to tell his mom that her son sucks
“Kill Me” - Al Menne
"Kill me now, please, please, please”
“Leaving The Light” - Genesis Owusu
Prob the chorus I guess - just in general I will always associate this song with hyping myself up for shenanigans while meandering the streets of Lisbon
“Bang Bang” - Momma
"Press My Luck” - Blake Mills
“Touched You With My Chaos” - Cherry Glazerr
“enknee1” - hemlocke springs
“MINE” - SUSU
“Little Faith” - Ryan Beatty
“Psychic Dance Routine” - Scowl
“The Freedom To Fuck Off” - Petey
“Dumbest Girl Alive” - 100 gecs
If you made it this far (whether in the email or just like, in general, as a subscriber to this newsletter): THANK YOU, from the bottom of my heart. I feel honored that you entrust me with your eyeballs and attention.
Love you all. I see the way forward dimly, as if through a dark tunnel. I hope you will accompany me.
Katie
Katie, I am sorry this has been a terrible year for you. One thing that I have looked forward to over the year has been your posts on here. Excellent work, and money well spent. Best to you in 2024.
hello from philly. love your choices. between bully and boygenious, i couldn't get enough of either. looking forward to digging into some new names on this list. here's to the music and the light it radiates.