My top 50 albums of 2023 (2024)

Here ends another year of musical wonders and my Top 50 albums. A strange year, mixing some deeply psychedelic, earthy and folky music, (see PJ Harvey, Lankum, Moundabout, Goat, Johnny Flynn, The Coral) alongside some downright dance floor classics (see The Orb, Everything But The Girl, HiFi Sean). With Iraina Mancini managing to fill the dance floor with soul and psychedelia.

This year’s chart is topped by A Certain Ratio – their album 1982 found its place in my ears on release and never left the turntable. Cemented by an amazing gig in Manchester in December – celebrating 45 years – playing from their first single on Factory right up to the new album. ACR are still ‘the’ Manchester cult band, 45 years into their career. Their status, always slightly under the radar, but always unique, with an ear to the contemporary, gives them freedom to flow where the groove takes them.

1982 is post-punk, electro-pop, funky, with a foot on the New York dance floor, latin rhythms, washes of kraftwerkian synths and afro beat drums. This heady brew has bubbled to perfection in 1982, which sounds both new and old at the same time.

Opener Samo sets us off on a magnificently funky electro pop ride, with a chorus to die for. The album’s single, Afro Dizzy, their tribute to the late Tony Allen, is based around a looped drum sample of the Afrobeat legend. They have a new soul voice in the mix from latest arrival Ellen Beth Ambdi, who replaced Denise Johnson, who sadly died in 2020 after 30 years with the band. Ellen’s voice striking a gorgeously slow soul groove on Afro Dizzy and Waiting On A Train, with Manchester rapper Chunky weaving in and pout on ‘Train. 1982 is a trance-mancunian-express delight, just the right side of mining their electro pop roots, looking back through the Manchester rain. Ballad of ACR closes off, telling the tale of where they’ve been and where they came back to, some post punk guitar, segueing into jazz and back again. A musical journey from Manchester to New York and back, with friends lost along the way. The jazz fades us out and the album is done.

They also throw in an effortlessly cool artwork to boot. While Manchester endlessly plays New Order’s Blue Monday as its soundtrack to the recent Chanel Catwalk event in the Northern Quarter, ACR’s groove still remains just below the radar of any Mancunian greatest hits, meaning they sound this fresh 45 years on.

1. A Certain Ratio – 1982

2. PJ Harvey – I inside the old year dying

2. Lankum – False lankum

4. Grian Chatten – Chaos for the fly

5. Everything But The Girl – Fuse

6. Witch – Zango

7. The Coral – Sea of mirrors

8. Steven Wilson – The Harmony codex

9. Moundabout – An Cnoc Mor

10. James Holden – Imagine this is a high dimensional space of all possibilities

11. Slowdive – Everything is alive

12. The Orb – Prism

13. Young Fathers – Heavy heavy

14. Johnny Flynn and Robert Mcfarlane – The moon also rises

15. Iraina Mancini – Undo the blue

16. HiFi Sean and David McAlmont – Happy ending

17. Gaz Coombes – Turn the car around

18. Julian Cope – Modern Antiquarian 25 years

19. Blur – Ballad of Darren

20. Goat – Medicine

21. David Best – Message -Send-Failure

22. Dot Alison – Conciousology

23. David Holmes – Blind on a galloping horse

24. Sundial – Messages from the mothership

25. Third Mind – Third Mind 2

26. OXN – CYRM

27. Emma Anderson – Pearlies

28. Cat Power – plays Bob Dylan at the Royal Albert Hall

29. Firestations – Thick Terrain

30. James Redmond – Video City 2

31. Holy Wave – Five of cups

32. Say She She – Silver

33. Creation Rebel – Hostile environment

34. Beatowls – Marma

35. Corrine Bailey Rae – Black Rainbows

36. Chemical Brothers – For that beautiful feeling

37. All-Lahs – Zuma 85

38. OMD – Bauhaus Staircase

39. Beach Fossils – Bunny

40. Roisin Murphy – Hit Parade

41. Baxter Dury -I though I was better than you

42. Django Django – Off planet

43. BC Camplight – The last rotation of earth

44. Order of the 12 – Lore of the land

45. Lisa ONeill – All of this is chance

46. Black Pumas – Chronicles of a diamond

47. Tinawarin – Amatssou

48. Fatoumata Diawara – London Ko

49. Depeche Mode – Memento Mori

50. Peter Gabriel- I/O

My top 50 albums of 2023 (2024)
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