Part four of this endeavour is the light at the end of the tunnel, as it is the final one where I review the previous years rankings of albums for the previous 5 years. It is also, probably, the easiest one as the albums listed here were released last year, and a number of them have remained with me. I’ve re-listened to all of those in the previous top 20 (which, hey, you can read here) as well as a select few of the honourable mentions.
The original Top 20
1 Hundred Reasons - Glorious Sunset
2 Pupil Slicer - Blossom
3 Blackbraid - Blackbraid II
4 Olivia Rodrigo - GUTS
5 Green Lung - This Heathen Land
6 Urne - A Feast On Sorrow
7 Svalbard - The Weight of the Mask
8 Genesis Owusu - Struggler
9 Code Orange - The Above
10 Foo Fighters - But Here We Are
11 The Gaslight Anthem - History Books
12 GEL - Only Constant
13 The Lottery Winners - Anxiety Replacement Therapy
14 Pest Control - Don’t Test The Pest
15 Therapy? - Hard Cold Fire
16 Tigercub - The Perfume of Decay
17 Metallica - 72 Seasons
18 Burner - It All Returns To Nothing
19 The Ocean - Holocene
20 Carly Rae Jepson - The Loveliest Time
Honourable Mentions
100 gecs - 10,000 gecs
Baroness - Stone
Blood Command - World Domination
Bury Tomorrow - The Seventh Son
CVC - Get Real
Ellie Goulding - Higher Than Heaven
Fucked Up - One Day
Immortal - War Against All
Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit - Weathervanes
Militaire Gun - Life Under The Gun
The Dirty Nil - Free Rein To Passions
The St Pierre Snake Invasion - Gloria
WIll Haven - VII
Spanish Love Songs - No Joy
For consistency, how I am going to handle the next bit of this blog is the same way as I handled the last one (hell, even most of this is a copy and paste) - listing the honourable mentions in an A-Z list, but make a brief note against anything that fell out of the top 20 (or if there is anything else I want to note). Once that is done, I am going to treat the top 20 as though it is a new week of a chart and make notes about those that moved up and down on the list and why I thought this was. The final part will be the combined long list from 2020-2023. As a reminder, and for those who didn’t read the last part (and if you didn’t…rude!), the combined list will now be a top 50. The reason for that is because we will now be 4 years in and the list would be a top 80. A top 80 would be wild. What that meant for the last blog is that 10 of the albums that would have made the then top 60 dropped off. Adding another 20 to the long list will likely mean that some of those that make the below top 20 won’t make the top 50 of the decade so far.
100 gecs - 10,000 gecs
Blood Command - World Domination
Bury Tomorrow - The Seventh Son
Burner - It All Returns To Nothing - I remember really liking this at the time, and revisiting it, I still do like it. I had to ask myself if I still liked it as much as some of the others that did make the list, and concluded that I didn’t. Did I get this wrong 10 months ago? Maybe.
Ellie Goulding - Higher Than Heaven
Fucked Up - One Day
GEL - Only Constant - This is comfortably the biggest drop. I really like GEL, and really like this album. It is 16 minutes long, and 2 or so minutes are dedicated to fan voice notes. I remember that annoying me when I was first listening (and probably frequently skipped it).
Immortal - War Against All
Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit - Weathervanes
Militaire Gun - Life Under The Gun
Spanish Love Songs - No Joy
The Dirty Nil - Free Rein To Passions
The St Pierre Snake Invasion - Gloria
WIll Haven - VII
As you can see, there aren’t a whole lot of changes really. With that done, next is the revised top 20 for 2023.
- Hundred Reasons - Glorious Sunset (NON MOVE) - I bloody love this album. I didn’t think this would move from the top spot, and it didn’t.
- Olivia Rodrigo - GUTS (UP from 4) - I unashamedly love this album. Going back to it, I realised it wasn't a case of realising it was going up, but how much.
- Pupil Slicer - Blossom (DOWN from 2) - I still really love this album, but on the revisit, I realised I preferred GUTS (a debate between what would be in second and third between Pupil Slicer and Olivia Rodrigo is very funny to me)
- Green Lung - This Heathen Land (UP from 5) - Did seeing Green Lung live earlier this year influence the decision to move them up a place? Maybe slightly. The album is really bloody good though.
- Blackbraid - Blackbraid II (DOWN from 3) - Moving this down feels both wrong and right in a way I can’t fully explain, so I won’t try.
- Svalbard - The Weight of the Mask (UP from 7) - I can probably combine this comment with the one for Urne, seeing as they swapped places. Both albums are really bloody great. On the quick revisit, I preferred Svalbard’s album, but there is a cigarette paper between the two.
- Urne - A Feast On Sorrow (DOWN from 6) - See above!
- Foo Fighters - But Here We Are (UP from 10) - This is the best Foo Fighters album in a LONG time. Of course, it should be acknowledged this album probably came from a serious place of pain/grief etc for Dave Grohl. I did wonder, given the news about Dave Grohl that came around not long before I relistened to this, if that would impact my enjoyment at all. It went up in the list, so no. Can’t not think less of him though, which is a shame.
- Genesis Owusu - Struggler (DOWN from 8) - Down 1 place from the original list, basically as a result of how much I realised I liked the Foo Fighters album.
- Code Orange - The Above (DOWN from 9) - See above. I wondered about whether this being in 9th originally felt too low, so the fact it is lower now suggests not. As I write these words, Underneath is still in the top 10 of the decade so far (I haven’t yet added the 2023 albums so that could change). This not being in contention for that is a damn shame, and yet it still has a good place.
- The Gaslight Anthem - History Books (NON MOVE) - Damn fine album this. The song with Springsteen is one of the finest of 2023 and I won’t hear otherwise (that said, I haven’t heard anyone say it is bad).
- The Lottery Winners - Anxiety Replacement Therapy (UP from 13) - This was absolutely influenced by seeing them live twice since the original list went up and thinking they were bloody great both times. It was also influenced by it being a great album.
- Pest Control - Don’t Test The Pest (UP from 13) - Good album this! I need to listen to their 2024 EP to see if their good form has continued into this year in terms of output.
- Therapy? - Hard Cold Fire (UP from 15) - This, Tigercub and Metallica all moving up a place is basically a direct result of GEL moving out the list. I enjoyed them as much as I did last year.
- Tigercub - The Perfume of Decay (UP from 16) - See above
- Metallica - 72 Seasons (UP from 17) - Still see above
- Baroness - Stone (NEW ENTRY) - This not being in the list last time was wrong. Two albums dropped out and this album was part of the reason. This probably could have been higher, but I unashamedly love Metallica, and like that album more (even if it isn’t one of their best).
- The Ocean - Holocene (UP from 19) - Burner fell out, The Ocean benefited. Kinda see above for Therapy and GEL really.
- CVC - Get Real (NEW ENTRY) - Yeah this should have been on the list last time. Correcting an error!
- Carly Rae Jepson - The Loveliest Time (NON MOVE) - This almost fell out! There was a moment when I was going to put GEL in at 20 as a nod to the fact that I do still like the album but acknowledging I enjoyed it less. When I did so, and was typing it all up, I thought “why should that be at CRJ’s expense?” and I couldn’t answer that, so here we are. Side note, do people refer to Carly Rae Jepson as CRJ? If not, I doubt this will be the start of that particular movement.
And so, the penultimate combined list. Whilst this has previously been done strictly on vibes, that happened for the most part this time until a vibe placement felt immediately wrong, leading to a slight reordering of some of the other entries on the list.
- Biffy Clyro - A Celebration of Endings
- Zeal & Ardor - Zeal & Ardor
- Run The Jewels - RTJ4
- Halsey - If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power
- Gojira - Fortitude
- Frank Turner - FTHC
- Hundred Reasons - Glorious Sunset
- Olivia Rodrigo - GUTS
- Code Orange - Underneath
- Employed To Serve - Conquering
- Pupil Slicer - Blossom
- Dua Lipa - Future Nostalgia
- Ithaca - They Fear Us
- Green Lung - This Heathen Land
- Blackbraid - Blackbraid II
- Olivia Rodrigo - SOUR
- Idles - Ultra Mono
- Svalbard - When I Die, Will I Get Better?
- Svalbard - The Weight of the Mask
- Urne - A Feast On Sorrow
- Creeper - Sex Death and The Infinte Void
- Trivium - What The Dead Men Say
- Loathe - I Let It In and It Took Everything
- Urne - Serpent & Spirit
- Bob Vylan - Bob Vylan Presents The Price Of Life
- Palm Reader - Sleepless
- Wolf Alice - Blue Weekend
- Taylor Swift - Folklore
- Pupil Slicer - Mirrors
- Turnstile - GLOW ON
- The Dirty Nil - Fuck Art
- Spanish Love Songs - Brave Faces Everyone
- Martha - Please Don't Take Me Back
- Orville Peck - Bronco
- Idles - Crawler
- Rina Sawayama - Hold The Girl
- Jamie Lenman - The Atheist
- Every Time I Die - Radical
- Bury Tomorrow – Cannibal
- Taylor Swift - Evermore
- Trivium - In The Court Of The Dragon
- Carcass - Torn Arteries
- KT Tunstall - NUT
- Pet Needs - Fractured Party Music
- Foo Fighters - But Here We Are
- Green Lung - Black Harvest
- Soul Glo - Diaspora Problems
- Genesis Owusu - Struggler
- Conjurer - Páthos
- Avantasia - A Paranormal Evening With The Moonflower Society
What remains is the final part of this task. What will happen is two separate album posts - my top 20 albums for 2024 (alongside favourite EPs as well) and then the final post of this series, which effectively will be me reposting the top 20 of 2024 and then going for the final combined list and seeing where the top 20 of 2024 slot in. Looking at the bottom of that current top 50 always says to me this is going to be a tough task.
(No, I won’t be doing this in 5 years time for the full decade!)
