This story was originally published in January 2024. It was republished here digitally in November 2024.
2023 was a year filled with great music, especially in the various pop genres. Here are the best pop albums of the year:
Number 5: Good Riddance, Gracie Abrams
The 24 year old’s debut album was a highlight in folk-pop this year. With the help of producer and The National lead singer, Aaron Dessner, Abrams creates an emotion-provoking environment with her melancholy and sometimes hopeful sound. The album was declared one of the best debuts of the year by Rolling Stone magazine with singles such as “Amelie,” “Where Do We Go Now?” and “I Know It Won’t Work”; the latter of which gained major commercial recognition and radio time.
Abrams explores themes relating to the complexity of growing up and the burden of self-doubt throughout the album, especially in the bonus track “Block Me Out” in which she expresses confusion about her own distrust in herself, singing “[I’m] feeling lost in every crowd… I wish that I could block me out.” In “I Know It Won’t Work” and “Where Do We Go Now?” Abrams deals with the complex nature of an ending relationship and not knowing what to do next. One reviewer for Pitchfork applauds “Where Do We Go Now?” writing, “in each verse, Abrams succinctly captures the guilt and confusion that comes with romantic uncertainty.”
Abrams’ ability to be vulnerable with her emotions is key to the creation of such a deeply touching album and hopefully much more music to come.
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Number 4: Mañana Será Bonito, Karol G
Colombian reggaeton singer Karol G celebrated the positive in 2023. With her highly anticipated Mañana Será Bonito, she shows that even in the worst of times finding good in the world is possible. After a very public break up in 2021, Karol G wrote her album –whose title translates to “tomorrow will be beautiful” in English– which encourages positive self-image and a positive outlook for the future.
One of the best tracks is the opener “Mientras Me Curo Del Cora” in which she sings, “I’m not at my best, but I improve little by little.” The unabashed optimism of the album presents a strong contrast to a year filled with conflict and uncertainty for many. The ability to look to the future and know that it will be better is one that can hardly be taken for granted at this time.
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Number 3: emails I Can’t Send [fwd], Sabrina Carpenter
The fifth studio album from Sabrina Carpenter is by far her best. With songs that dabble on serious heartbreak and lighthearted joy, Carpenter is able to create a cohesive work that makes for danceable listening.
Although she’s an excellent ballad writer, some of Carpenter’s best songs are the ones in which she doesn’t take anything seriously. On “Feather,” she sings about feeling lighter (as light as a feather, in fact) after a break-up and the bonus track single is accompanied by an even less serious music video in which Carpenter displays hilarious indifference to the men around her. Another favorite of the album is “nonsense”; a highly popular single with an upbeat melody and addictively catchy lyrics.
What’s perhaps more impressive about the album is Carpenter’s ability to experiment with sounds and storytelling. In “Emails I Can’t Send,” her title track, and “Because I Liked A Boy” she’s able to develop deep stories about her own life and in “Already Over” and “Vicious” she’s able to use rock, jazz, and folk sounds to add another layer to the album.
Even if not all the creative risks paid off, the result is still a lovely nuanced pop album that qualifies as one of the year’s best and a new frontier for Carpenter’s discography.
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Number 2: GUTS, Olivia Rodrigo
In January of 2021, pop met its newest star with the release of “driver’s license” by then teenager Olivia Rodrigo. With the later release of her debut album, SOUR (stylized in all caps), Rodrigo further proved herself as a growing pop figure. In September of 2023, Rodrigo released her second full album: GUTS.
GUTS finds Rodrigo on the end of a recent break up and at a major turning point in her life: the start of her 20s. While she shows a lot of majority in songs like “vampire” and “logical”, both of which discuss her recent heartbreak in a less than ideal relationship, the best of GUTS shows itself in the camp and lighthearted songs in which Rodrigo displays her own humor. In “bad idea, right?” she jokes about making continuous mistakes in a relationship even though she knows better. And in “get him back!” the emotional turmoil that an ending relationship brings is expressed with the lyrics “I want to key his car” followed directly by “I want to make him lunch” and later “I want sweet revenge” only to rhyme it with “I want him again.”
Rodrigo is able to explore themes common to many (maybe about the contrasting emotions felt after a break up) through her humorous lyrics.
The other side of the album gets back to the roots of Rodrigo’s fame: love ballads. “Vampire”, the first single released for the album, is arguably better than “driver’s license” both sonically and lyrically. “Lacy”, one of the album’s b-sides, is also a great display of Rodrigo’s maturing lyrical abilities since SOUR.
Overall, GUTS is an impressive sophomore album filled with humorous and sometimes heartbreaking songs.
Number 1: The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, Chappell Roan
Chappell Roan is not new to the music scene (in fact she’s been writing and performing music since 2017), but only this year did she release her first full album: The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess. The title pays homage to Roan’s small town upbringing in Willard, Missouri.
The album features some of Roan’s older singles (such as “Femininomenon” and “Casual”) and newer tracks written specifically for the album, which would seem like it might come out sounding choppy but it really works.
Most of Roan’s songs fit into one of two categories: lighthearted hyperpop or mellow heart wrenching ballads. In the former, “After Midnight” and “Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl” Roan expresses freedom and euphoria (two main themes of the album according to her interview with Rolling Stone).
In “Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl”, Roan proclaims that she’s no longer willing to settle for anyone not putting the same effort into a relationship that she is (“I’m through, With all these hyper mega bummer boys like you, I need a super graphic ultra modern girl like me”). It’s also a song in which Roan celebrates her queer identity, another one of the major themes in the album according to the Rolling Stone interview.
For the slower, more heartfelt songs on the album, “Kaleidoscope” and “California” hit the hardest. In “Kaleidoscope” Roan describes her own experiences with love, singing “Love is a kaleidoscope, how it works I’ll never know, and even all the change it’s somehow still the same.” And in “California” she sings about the initial failure she experienced at the start of her music career. Roan is able to be vulnerable as she describes not being sure of herself and homesickness in a track that also highlights her vocals very well.
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If music in 2023 was about finding the balance between sad and camp, then Roan’s album deserves the title of best pop album of the year for her impeccable ability to be singing about dancing until midnight one second and switch to crying out tears of heartbreak the next.
