AARP’s 12 Favorite Albums from 2023

Photo Collage: MOA; (Album Photo: Sue Tallon)

Paul Simon: Seven Psalms

It’s impossible not to compare the latest work by the very much alive Paul Simon to the final albums by David Bowie (Blackstar) and Leonard Cohen (You Want It Darker) before their deaths. All of them find great artists assessing life toward its end. Even so, Seven Psalms ultimately brings to mind a very different classic — Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks — by echoing its unbroken form and dreamy allure. For 33 seamless minutes, the album flows through a mystical stream of acoustic chords and ruminative melodies, which Simon delivers in a tone of wondrous pondering. In the music, he acts as both searcher and seer, facing death with humor and reverence, as well as fear and grace. His sojourn ends, perhaps in the only way it can — with a haunting, solemn amen.

Photo Collage: MOA; (Album Photo: Sue Tallon)

Squid: O Monolith

Fans of prog rock, rejoice! Rather than playing the same old Rush and Yes records for the zillionth time, you can dive into great new music from adventurous young bands such as black midi and Squid. The former created one of 2022’s most exciting releases, Hellfire. The latter, a post-punk band from Brighton, England, issued one of 2023’s most challenging works, O Monolith. It’s rife with the kind of tricky rhythms, extended song structures, virtuoso musicianship and baffling lyrics fans of the genre adore. Even nonprog listeners may find much here to admire.

AARP Membership— $12 for your first year when you sign up for Automatic Renewal

Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of discounts, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP the Magazine.

Join Now

Photo Collage: MOA; (Album Photo: Sue Tallon)

Bettye LaVette: LaVette!

Call Bettye LaVette the Grandma Moses of soul. The singer didn’t earn the recognition she was due until she was in her 60s. Now, at 77, she has created one of her most focused and forceful works. LaVette! — nominated for a Grammy — pairs her with drummer/producer Steve Jordan (who recently took over Charlie Watts’ spot in the Rolling Stones) and writer Randall Bramblett, who penned every track. LaVette’s no-nonsense delivery makes the most of the lyrics’ dry wit, while the music pushes her into fresh turf, including the Afrobeat of “Hard to Be a Human.” More than a singer, LaVette reasserts herself as a master interpreter.

Photo Collage: MOA; (Album Photo: Noah Willman)

Anohni and the Johnsons: My Back Was a Bridge for You to Cross

The English singer Anohni, 52, has one of the most ethereal voices in modern pop. But on her latest album — the first with her original band, the Johnsons, in 13 years — the sound couldn’t be more down-to-earth. It’s a collection of blue-eyed soul songs, though they conform only to the broadest definitions of the genre. The arrangements are far sparer than most soul songs, many of them centering on just a flinty guitar, and the vocals are more understated, with barely a shout in earshot. Yet the essence of the music shivers with raw emotion. The lyrics in the first track, “It Must Change,” take inspiration from socially conscious soul touchstones such as Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” and Curtis Mayfield’s “People Get Ready,” only to update the protest to the current state of climate change and the part we all play in it. To capture the urgency of the matter, Anohni’s bare vocals sound as if few production flourishes were added, creating a sound that makes the album’s theme heartbreakingly clear.

Cher: Christmas

Just what the world needs: another Christmas album. Before you roll your eyes too far, however, listen to the spin that Cher, 77, put on the season. Instead of the usual moldy odes to sleigh bells and silent nights, Cher’s salute boasts some zippy new holiday songs, including a dance-pop banger “DJ Play a Christmas Song” that’s her catchiest track since “Believe.” More, she included covers of nontraditional songs that suit the holiday theme, including the Zombies’ rapturous track from 1968 “This Will Be Our Year.” If that’s not enough, she also brought in special guest Stevie Wonder to sing with her and play harmonica on the under-exposed ’60s Motown gem “What Christmas Means to Me.” The emotional high comes in “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home),” which first appeared on Phil Spector’s classic 1963 holiday album. A 17-year-old Cher sang backup on the original recording behind a barreling lead from Darlene Love. Sixty years later, the two sing it as a duet, creating a performance that’s a gift to pop history itself.

Photo Collage: MOA; (Album Photo: Noah Willman)

The Rolling Stones: Hackney Diamonds

Eighteen years have elapsed since the Stones released an album of new material (2005’s A Bigger Bang) and, arguably, more than four decades have vanished since they released a new set of material hot enough to start you up. (1981’s Tattoo You). So it’s a welcome, but gob smacking, surprise that Hackney Diamonds finds the band’s two leads, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, in street fighting shape. Though the first single, “Angry,” sounded like an AI take on a Stones song, the other tracks feature riffs that fire and melodies that sing. For the occasion, Mick and Keith brought back for one track bassist Bill Wyman (who left the band 30 years ago), while two other recordings capture the last performances of Charlie Watts, who died in 2021. (The beat-perfect Steve Jordan fills in on the rest). To bring things full circle, the set ends with a grinding cover of the Muddy Waters song that gave the band their name. The result shows not a trace of moss.

Photo Collage: MOA; (Album Photo: Noah Willman)

Jeremy Dutcher: Motewolonuwok

The voice of Jeremy Dutcher, 33, sounds at once familiar and fresh, searching and sure. The singer has a quaver and pitch that can’t help but bring to mind Nina Simone, along with a solemnity that recalls Jeff Buckley at his most hallowed. At the same time, the viewpoint expressed in Dutcher’s lineage and lyrics brings something new to modern pop. Dutcher is a Wolastoqiyik member of the Tobique First Nation in New Brunswick, Canada, and you can hear that history in his voice and read it in his lyrics which, on the singer’s celebrated 2018 debut album, Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa, were sung entirely in the native language. For this follow-up, Dutcher delivers half the words in English and broadens the music to an equal degree to straddle folk ballads, classical chorales and art song. Those descriptions may sound arcane and specific on paper, but Dutcher’s rapturous delivery makes it all feel immediate and universal.

Photo Collage: MOA; (Album Photo: Noah Willman)

Semisonic: Little Bit of Sun

Most music fans know the Minneapolis rock band Semisonic from their inescapable ’90s hit “Closing Time,” but the group is far more than a one-hit wonder. A trio of albums showcased songs by band leader Dan Wilson that married tidy power pop melodies to positive-minded lyrics that never sounded pat. In 2001, the band went quiet to make way for a career Wilson pulled off in his mid-40s, as one of the most successful songwriting collaborators in pop. Over the past two decades, Wilson has helped pen songs by artists including Adele, Taylor Swift, Josh Groban and Chris Stapleton. This year, he and Semisonic produced a fourth full-length album, their first in 22 years, that displays the same keen feel for melodies as their classics but with a lyrical perspective that reflects their ages. The subtext is their relationship with each other, underscoring a stirring point: Our oldest friends often make our best witnesses. 

Love our picks? Think we missed something? Scroll down to the Conversation section and share your favorite music albums.