Below you’ll find many of the usual suspects when it comes to my favorite albums of the year (so far): Jessie Ware’s looser, wilder (and perhaps slapdash by design) follow-up to the best album of 2020, Robert Forster’s song cycle about aging and resilience, Emm Gryner’s triumphant yacht rock-influenced return and Alex Lahey’s long-awaited third full-length. Others I couldn’t have predicted a year ago: Sparks’ most compelling release since 2006’s Hello Young Lovers, Jake Shears back in action with a second solo album that nearly ranks with the best of his former band Scissor Sisters, supergroup Boygenius reemerging with a record that sounds better with each spin and most of all, a reformed Everything But The Girl, 24 years on from Temperamental and it’s like they haven’t missed a day (or a beat.)

New to me is Yves Tumor’s unclassifiable art-pop, their laboriously-titled fifth album stuffed with vivid neo-psychedelia and chewy (if twisted) hooks (see onomatopoeic earworm “Echolalia”.) Nowhere near ready to claim a favorite of these twelve yet, but Christine and the Queens’ ultra-recent triple(!) album is the one I feel has the most room for exploration and growth.

Favorite 2023 Albums So Far (in alphabetical order by artist):

Alex Lahey, The Answer Is Always Yes

Boygenius, The Record

Christine and The Queens, Paranoia, Angels, True Love

Emm Gryner, Business & Pleasure

Everything But The Girl, Fuse

Fever Ray, Radical Romantics

Jake Shears, Last Man Dancing

Jessie Ware, That! Feels Good!

The National, First Two Pages of Frankenstein

Robert Forster, The Candle and The Flame

Sparks, The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte

Yves Tumor, Praise a Lord Who Chews but Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds) 

So many movies I have yet to see (Asteroid City and Past Lives among them) and a good chunk below are technically 2022 titles that didn’t play Boston or hit streaming until this year (Laura Poitras’ best film to date and Jafar Panahi’s most accomplished in years) or titles I saw at IFF Boston (watch out for Christian Petzold’s amazing Afire.) Perhaps the most obscure title below, Give Me Pity! is the one I’d most encourage people to see, although British rom-com Rye Lane is right there on Hulu and a exquisite way to spend 82 minutes.

Favorite 2023 Films So Far (Alphabetical by title):

Afire

All That Breathes

All The Beauty and the Bloodshed

Give Me Pity!

Godland

Hummingbirds

No Bears

Of An Age

Pacifiction

The Quiet Girl

Return to Seoul

Rye Lane