Top 23 of 2023: Part 1
Hello Heathens,
Okay this is going to be a rather short blogpost as I want to spend more time thinking about the order of the top 10. I had a new method to track albums and rank them this year in an attempt to make charting a little easier so I don’t have to spend 2 weeks relistening to albums to determine a top rank of the year. I am not 100% sure how much I like this method as it does have some issues, but it did save a lot of time this year which was nice.
The method involves me using the Spotify API and some code so I can download the tracklists from two playlists. The first playlist is just a playlist of 2023 albums that I’ve listened to, and the second playlist is the tracks from the first playlist that I liked. This is fairly easy to manage as I just click the ‘like’ button on Spotify to add it to the second playlist. Then I download the two playlists and add a score to each album based on the number of tracks I liked divided by the total number of tracks. This tells me the percent of the album that I enjoyed. I also calculate a percent of length I enjoyed by summing the total seconds of tracks I liked and dividing by the total length of the album. Then I take the average of those two scores to generate a composite score.
Is this method perfect? No. Does this help me filter out albums that only had 1-2 songs that I liked in their hour long runtime? Yes. I’ve said it in earlier blog posts, but I am going to move away from Spotify for 2023, and I am going to focus more on listening to music that I “own” a copy of. I am going to try out PlexAmp since I already pay for a Plex media server. If it sucks I’ll come back to Spotify or something I don’t know. I just fucking hate the weird bullshit changes that app companies feel like they have to make to their software. Just give me a fucking open source front end so I can change features that I want. It is crazy to me how fucking bad the Spotify UI is compared to Foobar 2000, a 20 year old music player.
- Blackbraid II by Blackbraid
Great album, I recommended it to many people this year. You should listen to it as well.
- Zwielicht by Mental Cruelty
Pretty much everything about this album rules. The album art is fucking dope, tracks like “Forgotten Kings” fucking SLAM, and I did a lot of workouts to this album. My only complaint is that there are some weird audio mixing issues at points in the album.
- Om hundrede år by Afsky
Big fan of this band, it was probably clear to any fans of the show that this one would make it on to my top album list of the year
- End by Explosions In The Sky
I don’t care if they are crescendo-core, this is a good ass album. It’s post-metal and probably the lightest album on the list, but insanely good. If you have friends that don’t love metal, this is a good curveball to throw at them. Great at parties, great at work where you want to focus, but not have anything too crazy on.
- A Journey told through Fire by Sworn
Not going to lie, I didn’t remember a lot about this album and was surprised when it popped up on my list of highest scored albums. Did a relisten and yeah past me was making good calls. The vocals are insanely gruff but also super clear. This album checks a lot of boxes, and the title track being a closer track is a great idea. Really love the overall sonic soundscape that this album puts you through.
- In Black Ashes by Onheil
It’s good. Album opens up with a fantastic track Night Terror and maintains a quality listening experience with few low points.
- The Storm Within by Saturnus
Very big fan of this band, and I had a friend ask me if I liked this album. I replied by sending her a screenshot of my recently liked tracks so she could see that I enjoyed this album greatly.
- Autumn’s Dawn, Winter’s Darkness by Fathomage
I told myself that I was done listening to new albums for the year last week, but this album dropped, and I saw enough hype around it that I had to listen to it. I am really fucking glad that I did. This album is everything that I love about the new wave of Agalloch infused black metal that is coming out. 2023 was a fantastic year for black metal, and this album really highlights how despite the genre focusing on lo-fi sound it can still have music that sounds great.
Keep Heavy The Sabbath Day
Playlist tracks in order of play
Sadness and the Passage of Time and Memory by Blackbraid
Symphony of a Dying Star by Mental Cruelty
Stormfulde hav by Afsky
All Mountains by Explosions In The Sky
A Journey told through Fire by Sworn
Like Shadows in the Night by Onheil
Breathe New Life by Saturnus
A Dawnfire of Old by Fathomage