As 2023 winds down and 2024 looms on the horizon, it’s time to look back at the year that was in pop culture. We asked our staff to pick their favorite movies, music and television from the past year, and now we are sharing it with you.
The rules are pretty simple: it had to have released in the calendar year 2023. For television, just one episode had to air for the first time over the last year. To be clear, this list isn’t necessarily the best of the year, it’s our favorites.
MORE: Best of 2023: Why we loved these 20 movies, from Asteroid City to Oppenheimer
MORE: Best Television of 2023: Why we loved these 21 shows from Lessons in Chemistry to Succession
The year in music was an impressive one as mega stars Taylor Swift and Beyoncé executed awe-inspiring world tours and long time stars like Andre 3000 dropped some atypical albums. There were several albums that stood out to us in 2023, so let’s get to it.
Let's Start Here. by Lil Yachty
Lil Yachty completely flipped the script with his Tame Impala-infused rock album, and it turned out to be one of the most startlingly great transitions of the decade so far. He’s just supremely talented in so many ways, and this might be his masterpiece. — Cory Woodruff
Rat Saw God by Wednesday
This indie rock band from North Carolina may have put out the best album of the year and that was clear to me the moment I heard the first few notes of “Hot Rotten Grass Smell” as the first track on the release. From the moment I picked this thing up, I couldn’t put it down. I found myself fully addicted to their singularity, vivid descriptions and occasionally bizarre world-building. The production here is top notch and there’s something here for everyone. — Bryan Kalbrosky
Weathervanes by Jason Isbell
There’s a lot of country music out there that feels like it’s made in a lab, where the product is often an empty and disingenuous dog whistle for a specific demographic of listeners. You know which songs I’m talking about. Luckily, Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit have not succumbed to the Nashville machine in this way. Isbell and his band’s latest record, Weathervanes, feels both current and evergreen. The songs are deep and raw, but also fully realized with a real sense of storytelling coming straight from Isbell’s pen through his voice and guitar. The songs are about topics that, unfortunately, a whole lot of Americans can relate too. “King of Oklahoma” is both a rock ballad about the opioid epidemic and a story about pain and love. “Save the World” taps into the inescapable anxiety and helplessness that parents feel every time they hear about a school shooting. “White Beretta” is a personal song about abortion, misunderstanding and guilt. “Middle of the Morning” features an amazing vocal performance. “Strawberry Woman” is incredibly detailed. It’s an album that is brutal and beautiful, calm and unsettling, and its songs often feel like clear-eyed anthems of the modern South. Simply put: It’s awesome, and it earned him three Grammy nominations. We can debate whether Isbell’s music is country or rock, or southern rock or alt country or whatever. Does his music sound more like John Prine, Bruce Springsteen or Van Morrison? It doesn’t matter. What is inarguable is that the man makes damn good songs. — Mitchell Northam
1989 (Taylor's Version) by Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift has been on a mission to re-record all of the music that she lost ownership of to Scooter Braun and Big Machine Records. What started as a personal project has become something much, much bigger, and the release of 1989 (Taylor’s Version) was worth the wait. The sounds are crisp and do the originals justice, and the vault tracks — especially “Now That We Don’t Talk” and “Is It Over Now?” — are top-tier additions to the legendary Taylor catalog. — Caroline Darney
Zach Bryan by Zach Bryan
I didn’t grow up with country music but flash forward and now, Zach Bryan has become a go-to artist for me this year. The superstar sells out stadiums with a certain authenticity in his songwriting that transports me to a place that I’ve never personally lived. It’s the simplicity of a guy with his guitar talking about sunsets and cars and The South and heartbreak. His self-titled LP has a particularly great song featuring Kacey Musgraves but this dude is prolific and I was also a fan of his EP, which featured a great title track with Bon Iver. — Bryan Kalbrosky
"The Second Arrangement" by Steely Dan
We all would love to get in a time machine and hear our favorite band or singer perform music we’ve never heard before, right? That’s what Steely Dan fans got earlier this year, when an unreleased song from their 1980 masterpiece Gaucho resurfaced. The song was accidentally erased in 1979 after the band recorded it, but when the Donald Fagen and Co. tried to do it all over again, Fagen didn’t approve and stopped attempting to get it back. Various versions of the song lived on bootlegs for so many years, with hissing and unfinished part making it a great “what if” for fans. That is, until the daughters of Steely Dan’s engineer Roger Nichols discovered a mix of the song in a drawer and helped get it released in 2023. What a gift it was, to fans and the Nichols family, and various remixes (and some AI help, in one case) turned it into a complete tune. There it is, Fagen and Walter Becker, finishing out an all-time great run (until Two Against Nature in 2000), at their jazzy-rockiest, with a song about complicated relationships – “reckless lovers” – and a complex main character. Getting a song we all thought was lost back? And one that’s really, really good? That’s why it belongs on this list. — Charles Curtis
Stick Season by Noah Kahan
Brilliant folk rocker Noah Kahan expanded his 2022 album Stick Season with some of his best songs yet, further cementing him as your favorite musician’s favorite musician. Not having “Dial Drunk,” “Paul Revere” and “You’re Gonna Go Far” as a Kahan fan would just feel wrong. — Cory Woodruff
New Blue Sun by Andre 3000
After not releasing new an album in well over a decade Andre 3000 returned in 2023 with *checks notes* a flute album. Yeah, a flute album. I’m not going to lie, it was a totally on brand move for Andre who always been eccentric, but as a huge Outkast fan, I felt robbed. (He’d only done features on other artists songs before New Blue Sun arrived, practically making those of us who go hard for Andre content writhe in pain every time a false rumor would start swirling about a new album.) But, New Blue Sun is refreshing and sneaky good. It’s so good that now I listen to it every day. The music has infusions of musical patterns that just make you want to be peaceful and at one with yourself. Trippy stuff. I’m not sure what sort of voodoo he put into this soul of this album, but it worked. New Blue Sun is tremendous content. — Meghan Hall
10000 Gecs by 100 gecs
Of all the albums on this list, only one of them turns the old THX logo sound into the most electric song intro of the year. 100 gecs can seemingly do anything, but their techno-punk rock showstopper 10000 gecs proves why the genre is very alive and well. — Cory Woodruff
This Is Why by Paramore
Paramore’s first album in six years is a perfect showcase of their evolution as a band. The heavy-hitting pop punk songs that catapulted them to stardom feel fresh, yet familiar, while they continue to evolve alongside this new, funky sound of theirs. Plus, Hayley Williams has never sounded more relatable than singing about aging, chiropractic appointments, and hitting the snooze alarm to her older millennial fans. Mood girl. — Mary Clarke
Heaven is a Junkyard by Youth Lagoon
The first time I listened to Heaven is a Junkyard by Youth Lagoon, I was incredibly moved and I found myself expecting something entirely different. I had already heard about the intense medical reaction frontman Trevor Powers experienced that left him unable to sing (or speak) for eight months and I thought this album would be his response to that traumatic experience. Instead, this is its own story backed with catchy melodies and groovy samples that get stuck in my head every time I press play. — Bryan Kalbrosky
Cracker Island by Gorillaz
Gorillaz has mantained an awesome consistenty all these years later, and Cracker Island brought forth plenty of fantastic collaborations that the band has become synonymous with over the years. There’s not a miss on here. — Cory Woodruff
GUTS by Olivia Rodrigo
By the time you’re finished with the opening track of GUTS, “All-American B****”, it’s immediately obvious that there’s something unique and different about Olivia Rodrigo’s songwriting and performance style. As evidenced by the fact that this blurb is being written by a 40-year-old dad, Rodrigo hits for Millennials and it’s because she not only taps into the angst of early 2000s pop-punk but recognizes how fun and light-hearted that kind of music should be, despite the angsty lyrical content. Songs like “Get Him Back” and “Bad Idea, Right?” simply don’t sound like anything else being produced right now and for those of us who gets tired of the constant deluge of same-sounding pop-rock, it’s incredibly refreshing to hear someone leaning into what makes her different rather than what reminds people of other huge stars of the day. — Matt Scalici
Michael by Killer Mike
Killer Mike is one of rap’s most polarizing figures, but his great solo effort Michael showed a more vulnerable side to pair with his fiery individualism. Plus, we got a new Andre 3000 verse out of this one, so that’s always a cause for celebration. — Cory Woodruff
