Illegal Foreign Object

I’m finishing out this multi-day list of 171 albums that grabbed me by my ears and slammed my face into the speakers with the weirdos — the ones that made me do a double take. Thanks for hanging in here with me. Read on!

The former couple gets crazy with the Cheez Whiz over nine tracks of noisy abstraction.

Required listening: “Barley”, “Out There”, “True Life”

10,000 gecs Frankensteins metal, techno, hip-hop, pop, and punk rock with stoner humor and what can only be described as Transformers fucking to create one of the wildest musical rides of the year.

Required listening: “Dumbest Girl Alive”, “757”, “Hollywood Baby”, “Billy Knows Jamie”

Experimentally wonderful, both in sound and scope. PARTY GATOR PURGATORY is a true blue pandemic album — the product of comedian (and hand on the helm) James Acaster’s cancelled, Louis Theroux production company-assisted, mockumentary. Turning lemons into lemonade, Acaster enlisted the help of 40 friends, acquaintances, and full-on strangers to create a chaotic, experimental piece of genre-vomiting avant-garde.

Required listening: “kept”, “no, no”, “partygatorpurgatory”, “partygatorresurrection”

Yves Tumor might currently be the most important person in rock music — an artist so captivating and interesting that the mainstream might be forced to pay attention.

Required listening: “God Is A Circle”, “Meteora Blues”, “Echolalia”, “Ebony Eye”

London’s Leevil is, well, it’s fuckin’ weird, man. No Sleep Til Pedro is a swirl of robotic chants, Casio-quality pre-programmed synths, and off-kilter drum machine. Oh, and Mike Watt plays on a few tracks.

Required listening: “Tick”, “Haunted Boogie”

Samuel Locke Ward and Mike Watt team up and get poetically psychedelic (WITH A DOO WOP TWIST)! A mix of ditties and spiels, Purple Pie Plow was recorded without band members ever being in the same room. Ward and Watt mailed each other ideas, and then demos were sent to the rest of the backing band (saxophonist Bob Bucko Jr., drummer Dean Clean, and Dead Milkmen guitarist Joe Jack Talcum) to add to the stew.

Required listening: “Be The Bones”, “Real Bleak”, “Here Comes The Flood”, “Pray”

A full review is found here. Enjoy!

Required listening: “Moi?”, “Harvest”, “Blusher”, “Sold!”

Multi-instrumentalist and singer Taja Cheek describes I Killed Your Dog as a conversation with her younger self while examining the highs and lows of previous relationships. Experimental and ethereal, I Killed Your Dog is introspectively rich.

Required listening: “Pet Rock”, “I Killed Your Dog”, “New Year’s UnResolution”

Have you ever thought about what it might sound like if The Meat Puppets were capable of going back in time and acting as backing band for The Mamas & the Papas? Well, wonder no longer!

Required listening: “The Great American Picnic”, “Muriel’s Big Day Off”, “Come On”

A full review is found here. Enjoy!

Required listening: “WILL U STILL U”, “HEAD”, “HEALMODE”

Driving techno marries overmodulated basslines and cacophonous carnival barking, birthing a sinister, urgent album.

Required listening: “Pinking Shears”, “Peach Fuzz”, “Sensitivity Training”

Marnie Stern is a shredder, and on her first album in a decade, she plugs in and steers her guitar headlong into audio chaos.

Required listening: “Plain Speak”, “Believing Is Seeing”, “Working Memory”

Goofy punk rock out of Nashville, Tennessee? Don’t mind if you do! Seriously, there’s nothing else to do besides put this album on and bounce off the walls.

Required listening: “Stretching”, “Fitness”, “Xerox”, “Running”

I owe my love for Sparks to Faith No More’s cover of “This Town Ain’t Big Enough For Both Of Us”. With The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte, the Mael brothers retain all their spirited mischievousness while getting uncharacteristically introspective.

Required listening: “The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte”, “Veronica Lake”, “Gee, That Was Fun”

I don’t know how you take drum & bass and neo-soul and mash it into something that sounds like a deep and meaningful ménage à trois between Prince, a synthesizer, and a pinball machine, but the results are outstanding.

Required listening: “Gardetto.”, “Lake Psilocybin”, “Find Out”, “Wild Animals”, “Glass Shadows”

I have loved the Dead Milkmen since I was 10 years old. I still remember the first time I heard “Bitchin’ Camaro” — it changed my life. I got into the Minutemen, Dead Kennedys, the Cramps, Fishbone, and many other amazing bands through them. Life is better with new Dead Milkmen tunes, and Quaker City Quiet Pills is a blast.

Required listening: “Grandpa’s Not A Racist (He Just Voted For One)”, “Philadelphia Femdom”, “God Wrote Cum Junkie”, “The New Guide To Art”

Well, that wraps things up, kids! 171 albums from 2023 that moved my needle. I hope you found a few that’ll stick with you over the years — I certainly did (and had a blast diggin’ for ’em). See y’all down the road a piece.