It's that time of the year again when critics try to think of every record they heard in the previous 11 months and determine their favorites. Steven and Ian are up to the challenge in this week's episode. But first they talk about the stock albums that seem to populate these lists — the "arty" and "obscure" hip-hop record with an unpronounceable name, the near-unlistenable "acclaimed" death-metal record, the "accessible" jazz album with indie cred. etc.From there they do a quick Sportscast about Steven's recent love of college football (13:12). They also discuss Taylor Swift being named Person Of The Year by Time magazine and how the media was weirdly in the tank for her all throughout this past year (20:39). Finally, Steven and Ian each pick their five favorite albums of the year, and hash out the trends that defined 2023 (29:16).New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 167 and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can submit questions for Steve and Ian at indiecastmailbag@gmail.com, and make sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter for all the latest news. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.