Happy New Year! Starting off the new calendar year with our best foot forward, here is WDIY's very first most-played albums list for 2023. If you want to see your favorites on one of our personal top 10 chart, feel free to call WDIY's studio line with a request at 610-694-8100 x1 or leave your picks on our Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram pages to tell us what songs and albums you want us to play.
#10
She & Him
Melt Away: A Tribute To Brian Wilson
Fantasy Records
July 22, 2022
Melt Away: A Tribute to Brian Wilson is the seventh studio album by American musical duo She & Him, a collaboration between Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward. It is a tribute to what the duo considered to be one of the greatest living American songwriters and singers Brian Wilson, co-founder of the Beach Boys. The record is composed of covers of Beach Boys songs written by Wilson, in addition to featuring Brian Wilson on the track "Do It Again."
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#9
Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever
Endless Rooms
Sub Pop
May 6, 2022
Written amid the pandemic and the devastating Australian wildfires, this band’s newest album fixates on class disparities, environmental destruction, and other political statements. However, their musicality has not changed since their origins, so the statements are paired with the usual 1980’s college rock vibes. Most of the album was written in quarantine, but they quickly isolated themselves in a house in Melbourne and started recording as soon as it was deemed safe. While they may not step on the soapbox with this newest work, they do make a well-appreciated effort to make a statement while maintaining their sound.
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#8
Soccer Mommy
Sometimes, Forever
Loma Vista Recordings
June 24, 2022
Even though this album gained in popularity at WDIY in the fall, Sometimes, Forever is the perfect anti-summer album; Soccer Mommy's third album is drowning in melancholy, introspection, and doubt that suffocates like hot, endless summer days. The Nashville-native Sophie Allison has channeled quintessential 1990s indie rock and blended it with modern internet-driven shoegaze similarly to how other twentysomething femme musicians have (think Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus, but each with their own twist on it).
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#7
Arctic Monkeys
The Car
Domino Recording Company
October 21, 2022
The Car is the seventh studio album from British rockers Arctic Monkeys. It was written by the frontman Alex Turner while traveling between his homes in Los Angeles and Paris with help from James Ford, Tom Rowley, Loren Humphrey and Tyler Parkford. The Car is a thematic continuation of 2018’s Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino. Turner has been applauded with this album by how far he pushed the genres he works within; he has been compared to and quantified with art rock, orchestral rock, lounge pop, baroque pop, and funk, as well as elements of jazz. Turner has said he wanted to create something polarizing and fresh for listeners, returning to the musicality of his hit fifth album, AM, from 2013. Critically, his newest work has awarded him many accolades along with a Grammy nomination for Best Alternative Music Performance at the 65th award ceremony. However, Turner still fell victim and kneeled at the feet of Taylor Swift’s prowess. Because of Swift's Midnights drop, The Car became Arctic Monkeys' first album to not reach the top spot of the UK Albums Chart.
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#6
Tedeschi Trucks Band
I Am the Moon: I. Crescent
Swamp Family Music LLC
June 3, 2022
The fifth studio release by Tedeschi Trucks Band is considered by many to be the most ambitious and yet somehow intimate work that rock and roll big band has ever made. It embodies an old-world epic in size and scale; this series contains four albums and 24 original songs inspired by classical literature of days old and the drama, isolation, and pain of the modern pandemic era. In May, 2020, two months after the band was forced off the road by lockdown, vocalist Mike Mattison sent an email to the rest of the band with some pandemic reading assignments. The poems and stories became the foundation of the lyricism for this record series.
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#5
The Sadies
Colder Streams
Yep Roc Records
July 22, 2022
The 11th full-length studio album for the Canadian alt-country band The Sadies was produced by Arcade Fire's Richard Reed Parry and was the final album with guitarist Dallas Good, who passed away in February, 2022. With Dallas’ tragic passing from heart complications, it was unclear if the band would ever record again. However, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, Colder Streams is already being pegged as potentially the best album they’ve ever written. Sounding better than a live performance and lyrically profound, and acting as a goodbye letter to a paramount band member, this album will stand as a love letter to their friends from the dearly missed Dallas Good.
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#4
Charley Crockett
The Man from Waco
Son of Davy
September 9, 2022
Charley Crockett refuses to be put inside a genre box, and his newest album helps to reinforce that idea. He is often called the “last bastion of traditional country music,” but he prefers to experiment with blues, soul, and other Americana musical elements to craft his own unique sound. In terms of "Man From Waco," this is the second time in three albums that he's honored Wacoborn honky-tonk country music legend James "Slim" Hand. Crockett met and played with Hand numerous times before the performer's June 2020 death. Their brief but impactful friendship has only contributed to Crockett’s mindset to stand out and beat against the current of trends, creating his own corner of the country music world to inhabit.
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#3
The Jorgensens
Americana Soul
Paramour Records
November 4, 2022
Led by dual vocalists and married couple Kurt and Brianna Jorgensen, The Jorgensens have been blending blues, folk, and jazz since they met in 2014. Kurt’s impeccable musicality combined with Brianna’s classically trained multi-instrumental resumé has created a band with the warmth and depth to attract the most loyal fanbase. With this newest album, they push the boundaries of tradition within these genres and show how compelling and relevant contemporary blues can be. The content of this album in particular shows how these two are truly soulmates, as well as highlights how interconnected the entire band is with their energy and music-making.
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#2
Spoon
Lucifer on the Sofa
Matador Records
February 11, 2022
Lucifer on the Sofa is the 10th studio album by the Austin, Texas-based rock band Spoon, which started production in 2018 shortly after touring. Production continued until pandemic disruptions in 2020, but resumed and resulted in a finished album by 2021. A huge reason as to why the band couldn’t finish the album in quarantine like other bands during the pandemic was how they were choosing to orchestrate it; the band members realized they prefer the sound of recording as a live band versus recording separately. They then made that the focus of the new album.
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#1
Freedy Johnston
Back on the Road to You
Forty Below
September 9th, 2022
Back on the Road to You is Freedy Johnston’s ninth album of new material and first since 2015’s Neon Repairman. This newest album started as a Kickstarter-financed project from the New York City-based artist who is originally from Kinsley, Kansas. It features Freedy Johnston backed by a four-piece band with added vocal support in key places from pals like Susan Cowsill, Aimee Mann, and Susanna Hoffs. As is his standard practice, Johnston wrote all ten of the tunes on Back on the Road to You. They encompass and embody the same witty lyricism and genre-bending tunes and melodies that his other albums have, keeping it consistent within his body of work.
