Hump Day News helps the 2023 Boston Music Awards do Best Album/EP better.

Didja see? The Boston Music Awards nominations started rolling out in September.

What are the BMAs? Well, the annual music awards ceremony is presented by the whiskey drink Jack Daniels. It’s held at Big Night Live on December 20th. Tickets are sold for seats you sit in. And the logo looks like Paul Revere on a horse, carrying a boombox?

The website says the nominations were pinned down by September 18th.

If you have the time and prolific output, do what Pile did this year: release a killer album (All Fiction) earlier in the year, reap the extra attention won in a relatively quiet time of the year for album announcements, then drop a short & sweet EP (Hot Air Balloon) in the last quarter to remind everyone that you’re still alive and you’re awesome.

Evil genius!

If you want to vote, vote here.

ALBUM/EP OF THE YEAR

There’s going to be some repetitiveness in listing the new artist nominees and the best album/EP nominees. Naturally. The latter is proof of the former in the mind of the music critic and fan alike.

Here’s the list of BMA nominees:

Cape Crush’s San Souci, Clark D’s Propaganda, Gollylagging, Dino Gala, going222jail’s fauna, Little Fuss’ Girls At Parties, Malik Elijah’s Smoke Signal, Mark Erelli’s Lay Your Darkness Down, Nay $peaks’ Nayborhood Healer, The True Faith’s Go To Ground, ToriTori’s Pocket Knife, Winkler’s For You, Now.

Hump Day News has reported on a few of these artists. Cape Crush and Little Fuss find their way onto this list as well as Best New Artist. We’ve written up Winkler’s excellent For You, Now. And plenty of live coverage of the bands behind the three-way split fauna. A three-fer! Almost feels like cheating, but who would call the shout out undeserving?

Let’s improve the list with a few adds. Most of these releases are from 2023, we think?

How about Sailor Down’s Lookout Park?

A pretty flawless collection of spare bedroom pop from Chloe Deeley. Northampton’s Chloe Deeley. Again, who cares whether an artist pretends they’re “Boston-based?” Western Mass rocks, let’s celebrate it. The album is available via Relief Map Records.

How about Miss Bones’ Grey Lady?

The EP is an indie rock n roll jammer. Goes quiet, goes loud, goes wherever it wants to. An album with thoughtful lyrics, probing the imponderables of pop music, while never straying too far from a tasty hook or a juicy “McRib.”

How about Bong Wish’s Hazy Road?

This is a beautiful slice of psych pop, and a good example of a quality local release that might not get the awards consideration it deserves because the artist isn’t brand spanking new on the scene. There’s a perverse kind of penalty incurred by artists who win a little longevity by doing what they do well. Check out this album. Available via Feeding Tube Records. Shades of MMOSS, Doug Tuttle, and Colleen Green.

How about Pink Navel’s How To Capture Playful?

Speaking of perverse penalties, there’s one associated with dropping albums late in the calendar year. A lot of writers have gone into “Year End Review” mode by the fall. The BMAs have their nominees fixed by mid-September. What’s a Q4 motherfucker to do? Rapper and beat stylist Pink Navel has been killing it all year long, building up to the release of his latest full-length How To Capture Playful. Don’t sleep on it.

How about Constant Smile’s Kenneth Anger?

Is it a concept album about the auteur director? We’re not saying it’s not. Constant Smiles shifts into the mode of synth driven pop that will drop you down a decade-mashing New Wave rabbit hole. Impeccable and absolutely fucking immaculate production. Shades of a less authoritarian John Maus. Available via Sacred Bones.

How about Slow Quit’s Slow Quit?

It’s their self-titled EP. Why the hell not? This category feels like it’s really a stealth “Best Album/EP from Best New Artist.” So round up and review the new acts who put out one or the other, and see how they stack up. We’re saying the hazy, gazy self-titled EP from Slow Quit stacks up pretty well.

How about Main Era’s Dreamer EP?

Sure, this is a cusping 2022/2023 release. But ironically the year of release feels like the least important criterion of Best Album/EP of the Year. There are a few songs on here that are absolute pop gold. The floor on the rest of the EP is high. Conceived and recorded under favorable astrological conditions. Does just what a great EP is supposed to do… whets your appetite for more.

Finally, how about Otis Shanty’s Early Bird?

Early bird, late bloomer, having bloomed after the BMA nominations were already submitted to the heads of state in Davos. Shades of neu-soft rocker Madeline Kenney and 10,000 Maniacs. A golden nugget. Too late for the BMAs, but right on time for Hump Day News.

Music Publication Of The Year