“River” by Miley Cyrus + Top 10 Albums of 2023 (numbers 1 + 2), Friday, April 26, 2024

Last month, I started listing my top albums of 2023. Today, I’m going to reveal my top two albums of last year. #2 is Miley Cyrus’s Endless Summer Vacation. I never thought that there would be a day when Hannah Montana would claim the number two best album of the year in my taste. But Endless Summer Vacation was an incredible album. The album departs from her trip into rock music from 2020’s Plastic Hearts into country-flavored pop. I’ve talked about how the single “Flowers” overshadowed the album. The song serves as a thesis statement to the breakup album, but the other songs emphasize the process of breaking up and the happy memories of a relationship. The songwriting is excellent, and the instrumentation on the album is superb. Cyrus’s old-soul lullaby-like post-album addition “Use to Be Young” pair nicely with her smoky mezzo-soprano vocals. But the album’s charm is mostly in the songs that got minimal attention, from the summer-by-the-pool guitar track two “Jaded” to the sexy-sticky “Rose Colored Lenses.” Today’s song, “River,” is a simple song about dancing in the rain, and as Cyrus alludes to in Endless Summer Vacation (Backyard Sessions), the song is about (censored) “It’s nasty,” Cyrus says. I’m planning to do a deep dive on the album later. 

 

#1 This Is Why by Paramore. Their 2017 record After Laughter ventured into pop- accessibility, which made sense given their success on their self-titled record. But This Is Why is an unexpected rocker. Many of us thought Paramore was done when lead singer Haley Williams released two solo albums in 2020 and 2021. But it turns out that the three remaining members of Paramore (Williams, Taylor York, and Zach Farro) are compelled to make music together. The year of 2023 was filled with all kinds of ups and downs for the band’s tour dates canceled due to Williams coming down with a lung infection, the ending of an exploitative 20-year contract which was followed by social media deletion and canceled tour dates. But the biggest news in the band had to be the revelation of the reason why for the album. The band explained on their episode of the Song Exploder podcast for the song “Liar” that Williams and York started a relationship was the undeniable chemistry that brought the band back together. But the backstory only enriches an already incredible album. Williams’ vocal performance is always on point for every record. The instrumentation on This Is Why makes the album great. York’s guitar work and Farro’s drums create a punk rock sound unfamiliar to the Emo/pop band. This leads Williams to sing with punk-rock conviction. It’s simultaneously raw and refined. The songs have breathing space. I’ve talked about the title track, “The News,” and “C’est Comme Ça.” But the other songs deserve discussion, too, from the airy “Running Out of Time” to hilarious “Big Man, Little Dignity.” And there’s also a remix album to get into. Paramore, you win 2023, and working with Talking Heads in 2024, you’re off to a pretty good start.