Music guide: 10 best albums of 2023 include Childers, Stapleton, Bela Fleck

Two wildly different pop veterans from England, an orchestrator from New Zealand, a sagely folk ambassador from Canada, a soul adventure linking Detroit to the deep South, an acoustic journey from bluegrass tradition to the heart of India and, to bring it back all home, two sublime storytellers from Eastern Kentucky.

Those are the players behind some of the finest popular music of 2023. We’ll change the theme of this annual round-up from the usual “Best Of” platitude as these selections are purely subjective choices based on nothing other than opinion. Instead, I’ll simply refer to them as my favorite recordings of the past year. Per usual, the choices in the guide are not ranked. All are equals.

So, climb aboard. This year in music is taking us around the globe.

Peter Gabriel: “i/o”

What has emerged in the 21 years since Peter Gabriel’s last record of new songs is a work as expansive thematically as it is sonically. In its more outward moments, “i/o” (standing for “input/output”) speaks to awakenings and interconnectedness, be it between two souls or entire worlds linked by limitless information. Such tunes burst forth with a jubilance seldom summoned before by the veteran British song stylist. In instances where the intent is more inward, the music becomes incantatory as mortality and loss play out. Add in stunning production clarity peppered with orchestral and world music accents and you have a recording with an overflowing sense of self-discovery.

Corinne Bailey Rae: “Black Rainbows”

“Black Rainbows” is as musically revelatory to British songstress Corinne Bailey Rae as the pop/worldbeat fusion of “Graceland” was to Paul Simon. Traces of the summery R&B strains that established her career over 15 years ago are still present, but they exist mostly as echoes for a record that bounces like a pinball between jagged electronica, glam-rock vibrancy and fuzzed out guitar/vocal outbursts. Underneath such thrill-seeking is an artist embracing and upholding her cultural heritage. “We make a spell, a prayer for you,” Rae sings as an electric séance swirls around her like cyclone. “We long to arc our arm through history.”

Bruce Cockburn: “O Sun O Moon”

Now in his late 70s, it’s understandable Canadian folk hero Bruce Cockburn reflects a bit on mortality. Luckily, he declares his resiliency with stately frankness at the onset of “O Sun O Moon.” “Time takes its toll,” he sings, “but in my soul, I’m on a roll.” Further temporal reflection, some of its less assuring, unfolds from there, whether Cockburn is bemoaning climate change under the roots-savvy clarion call of dulcimer or celebrating the awakening of the dead (and “semi dead”) with jazzy comfort. “Breakfast was Mahler and coffee, dinner’s Lightnin’ Hopkins and rye. Everything you say comes back to bite you. These days only beauty makes you cry.”

Tyler Childers: “Rustin’ in the Rain”

Less than a year after a wild three-record set of cross-generational gospel-infused music, Lawrence County country renegade Tyler Childers reins things in with a brisk, 28-minute, seven-song serenade. The Childers originals maintain the homebrewed imagery of his best work, from tunes championing a bluegrass/Cajun brand of farmland faith to sprees of swift organic country gusto, all as vivid in detail as they are unspoiled in their rural sentiment. Then Childers winds it all up with a cover of fellow Kentuckian S.G. Goodman’s “Space and Time” that rattles the rafters enough to remind us Childers is every bit as commanding a singer as he is a song scribe.

boygenius: “the record”

Who could have imagined the return of three famed indie songstresses, a trio with only a three-year old EP to their collective name, would become one of the breakout pop sensations of 2023? But that’s what boygenius — the troika of Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus — has accomplished with “the record.” Conveying a folk-pop sensibility that shifts from the fragile to the unexpectedly pragmatic before erupting into fits of ragged pop abandon, “the record” is also a work where harmonies twist and expand with the same lyrical flexibility as the frayed musical atmospheres that surround them. A grand pop adventure for uncertain times.

John Metcalfe: “Tree”

New Zealand violist John Metcalfe has collaborated and orchestrated over the years on projects for U2, George Michael and Coldplay, among many others. On “Tree,” his seventh solo album, the composer has designed a sublimely intimate communion with nature. The eight-piece suite was designed as a meditation on the day in the life of a tree. If that premise seems too esoteric, then simply soak in the sometimes subtle, often dramatic instrumentation of winds, strings and keys that falls between the great divide of classical and modern ambient music. A chill-out record of remarkable depth and beauty.

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit: “Weathervanes”

By now, an album of literate, mature Southern reflection/confession from Jason Isbell seems almost expected. Suffice to say, “Weathervanes” delivers the goods — again. Its songs regularly paint portraits of loss — be it personal, spiritual, cultural or familial — by either wrapping sentiments in warm, folk-colored confidence or letting them burst into flames within fits of gallant rock ‘n’ roll authority. Throughout, warmth is balanced by unease, both traits of a folk warrior. But Isbell is no revivalist. He remains one of the foremost Southern songsmiths of his generation.

Bettye LaVette: “LaVette!”

Star power again surrounds veteran soul vocalist Bettye LaVette on the summertime release that bears her name. Steve Jordan, Steve Winwood, John Mayer and Jon Batiste are all in the mix here. But the true catalyst for LaVette’s new music is a less familiar name - veteran song stylist Randall Bramblett. Pairing the serene and gritty extremes of LaVette’s vocals with 11 Southern soaked songs by Bramblett is a multi-cultural feast - a blend of a vocal sound born out of Detroit tradition and compositions that groove and meditate with august Georgia inspiration.

Chris Stapleton: “Higher”

While “Higher” will likely get pitched to the country crowd, its scope, much like Tyler Childers’ “Rustin’ in the Rain,” has little interest in the spit, polish and predictability of modern Nashville machinery. Sharing production duties with longtime studio pal Dave Cobb and wife Morgane, Stapleton has summoned songs that empower every soul-forged crease of his voice, be it through love songs reflecting vintage R&B accents, works as dark a winter storm at midnight or, at its peak, a solo acoustic confession of quietly epic emotive proportions.

Bela Fleck/Zakir Hussain/Edgar Meyer: “As We Speak”

While the West-meets-Far East summit between banjo pioneer Bela Fleck, Indian tabla master Zakir Hussain and bassist/classical stylist Edgar Meyer isn’t entirely new, the music on their second album together could not sound fresher. With Rakesh Chaurasia on the flute-like bansuri serving as an equal fourth voice, “As We Speak” hails from a richly playful musical outpost. Bluegrass and Indian classical finesse mingle, but this isn’t some mismatched cultural novelty. “As We Speak” is an engaging and immensely enjoyable world music mash-up.