Lyndsey Parker is a veteran music journalist and the host of WMG’s successful podcast series and Roku television show Totally ’80s. 

Join us on Thursday, January 25, 2024 when Lyndsey Parker returns to host red carpet interviews during the 12th annual She Rocks Awards. More information at sherocksawards.com.

In her words – It’s the most magical time of the year, when we music journalists make our top 10 lists and check them twice (or in my obsessive case, about 87 times). I’ve finally come up with my top 10, plus many other LPs I couldn’t resist honorable mentioning. I’m including songs from my top 10 albums in the comments.
 
Gorillaz regularly appear in my year-end reviews, but this year, they’re my No. 1. I think because their album, Cracker Island came out so early (February), it got a bit lost in the shuffle — or maybe fans just took it for granted because every album by the cartoon concept band is a feel-good and far from two-dimensional event. But Damon Albarn (who had quite a fab year, also releasing an excellent comeback record with Blur) just might’ve outdone himself with his magical, mystical journey to Cracker Island. Bad Bunny, Tame Impala, Thundercat, and past collaborators De La Soul, Bootie Brown, and Adeleye Omotayo are all along for the ride, but the highlights are “Oil,” a transporting duet with witchy-woman Stevie Nicks that sounds like a great, long-lost Mirage outtake, and the pearly-gates ballad “Possession Island,” on which Damon and fellow ‘90s icon Beck capture all the goosebump-raising gorgeousness of Blur’s “The Universal” and Beck’s Sea Change era.
If Cracker Island were a real place, I’d pack some sunshine in a bag, buy a one-way ticket, and make this record my desert island disc. If you slept on this one, it’s worth a re-listen.
And with that, here’s the rest!
 
  1. Gorillaz – Cracker Island
  2. Cub Sport – Jesus at the Gay Bar
  3. Gabriels – Angels & Queens
  4. Miniature Tigers – Miniature Tigers
  5. Kylie Minogue – Tension
  6. The Drums – Jonny
  7. Dexys – The Feminine Divine
  8. The Dare – Sex EP
  9. Kim Petras – Problematique
  10. Billy Nomates – Cacti

Honorable mentions include:

Janelle Monáe (Photo by Rebecca Sapp/Getty Images for The Recording Academy)

Christine & the Queens – Paramoia, Angels, True Love Everything But the Girl – Fuse
Idina Menzel – Drama Queen
Janelle Monae – The Age of Pleasure
Juliana Hatfield – Juliana Hatfield Sings ELO
Maneskin – RUSH!
Miley Cyrus – Endless Summer Vacation
Nicky Wire – Intimism
Olivia Rodrigo – Guts
 

ABOUT LYNDSEY PARKER: Lyndsey Parker is a veteran music journalist and the host of WMG’s successful podcast series and Roku television show Totally ’80s. 

Considered an expert in music and pop culture, she is a She Rocks Awards honoree, four-time Southern California Journalism Awards winner and an Online Journalism Award and National A&E Journalism Awards nominee. Additionally, Lyndsey has served as the longtime music editor at Yahoo Entertainment and LAUNCH.com; is a recurring cast member of AXS TV’s The Top Ten Revealed and Music’s Greatest Mysteries; hosted the SiriusXM radio show “Volume West” from 2018 to 2022; is a regular moderator at the Grammy Museum; and has appeared in Netflix’s The Show Must Go On: The Queen + Adam Lambert Story, A&E’s  I Want My MTV, and various other documentaries. She is the co-author of the autobiography of legendary muse and former GTOs member Miss Mercy, Permanent Damage: Memoirs of an Outrageous Girl, and the author of Careless Memories of Strange Behavior: My Notorious Life as a Duran Duran Fan. Parker has also written for Elle, MOJO, Rolling Stone, NME, and Guitar, among other publications. In June 2022, we honored Parker with the Dreaming Out Loud Award at the She Rocks Awards in Anaheim, California. Visit her website at: Lyndsanity.

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