The 50 Best Albums of 2023

In certain Decembers, a list of the year's best albums feels like a fireworks display. 2023 may have been short on flashes and booms, but it was rich with smaller fires: no less intensely gorgeous, more approachable and built for heat, not spectacle. And while it might be tempting, as many have argued at many points in the format's history, to take this lack of consensus as proof of its diminished value as a popular art form, we look at things a different way. In a year short on albums that draw a mob, it's easier to see what might have otherwise been ignored for the treasure it is. (And at a moment when recordings lacking a critical mass of listeners have been deemed ineligible for royalties by a certain streaming service, that thought might be worth lingering on.)Here's our proof. In the following list, you'll find albums that have been celebrated widely, and others that we're pretty sure you won't see on any other year-end offering. Every single one of them is loved intensely by a m...