songs 2023
A sizable chunk of the history of recorded music sits in your pocket. while utterly baffling to unpack, i do know that this has expedited music’s ability to latch itself onto key moments in our lives (celebrations, mourning and our walk to get our takeout order). it’s the theme of frictionless access to music that as I look back at the year; moments colored by specific songs, memories triggered within moments of the intro playing (i’m looking at you “vampire” by olivia). a link that bonds nostalgia, emotions and recollection.
This is less a discussion of the best songs, but rather my attempt to make sense of what I pressed play on the most and why. I always hope that when folks take a look at their own most played songs they appear as a reflection of what we needed and sought in the last calendar year.
I thought about what angle to use to retrospectively back at my year with music. From No Bells’ THE LIST OF LISTS (yo — it’s mad fun), or @Marg.MP3’s multi- installment Best Of- (her ability to curate different sounds/textures remains inspiring to me). This year I’ve decided to give into the data. In past when creating this list, I’ve attempted to make sense of the year through a purely editorial lens; digging back through the songs I’ve saved to unearth what I think is emblematic. In a way, this approach allowed me to take control of my ego, and put my most blushing, critics-hat on for where I think music is going. I think there is definitely room for that. There are so many amazing songs that I haven’t listened to. (And maybe I will participate if you ask me IRL), but I think the data of what I’ve listened to tells a much more interesting story for what I’ve listened to, gravitated towards, and think is important. After all, music is personal, and I’d rather be able to share my story through songs that have defined it in the last year.
For this list, I’ll write a blurb about the top 10 songs on my “Your Top Songs of 2023” list + about some honorable mentions from the remaining list that I feel captured a real moment in my psyche. Top Songs tend to over-index recent catalogs (6–18 months), with releases in the latter of 2022 that finally found their focus for me in early 2023. I found that a few songs also appear in my Live 2023 list.
Disclosure: the below is not a representation of my employer nor reflective of any opinion that the company may take any of these creative works. Aight. Let’s cook.I’ll link and reference each where appropriate :) (Apple Music users ;)
Three Drums — Four Tet (April 2023)
Few songs broke through as hard as this one did.
It was the closing act of Four Tet’s SQUIDSOUP show in May 2023. Lush FM Trance Fingers had come to a glitchy close. Beeps, boops, and sputtering glitchy clicks had subsided to the gentle roar of the satisfied crowd. A collective deep breath followed, and out of the sound system’s stasis came the thumping drum pattern: Two kick drums, a ride cymbal carrying a splashy eighth-note saunter and a fat backbeat snare clap providing bounce and swagger to the foundation. boom boom ka repeating over and over again (i presume this is where the track got its namesake).
From this bed, the listener is rapidly cocooned in a warm bath of sound. Layers of glittery pads, and cascading synths sparkle around the soundscape. Each playback revealing a new, distinct sonic veneer with a melody and personality that weaves and snakes around the thumping percussive bed. A snug sub-zero bassline glides beneath the shifting shimmering synths creating a listening experince that’s equally guided as it is aimless. Around the track’s midpoint, the auditory deluge reaches its crest, and what follows is a descent as gentle as a leaf falling from a tree’s highest branch: swaying side-to-side towards the earth, twisting and turning in favor with the wind, pulled by earth’s gravity, but unhurried in its journey.
The last part of the description is what I think made this song resonate so much for me this year. I’ve held myself to expectations that have begun to bear signs of burnout. Each time I played this track, a sense of ease, compassion, and forgiveness filled my heart and mind. Looking in retrospect, this song functioned as a daily meditation to be easy on myself. Something that I know I’ll keep close as the new year gets underway.
Not Strong Enough — boygenius (March 2023)
IMO — this is the track for this group (so far!). One of the aspects of the record (no pun intended) that left me perplexed and challenged was how the voices of each individual songwriter shone. Starting from the first slew of singles ($20, True Blue, and Emily I’m Sorry), each track felt to have a unique identity from one particular songwriter. This left me without a clear vision of what boygenius (as a sum of its parts) sounded like. “Not Strong Enough” felt like a forthright answer to this. From the first reverb-y laced strums, the track (the apex of the live show) shows the group as a cohesive, propulsive force. (also forever always waiting to belt with Lucy’s during the last chorus).
ceilings — Lizzy McAlpine (April 2022)
“ceilings” had a second, third, and fourth life. A testament to what Will Page mentioned when thinking of how we should expand the definition of frontline catalog. Lizzy released Five Seconds Flat in Q2 of 2022. While it had already begun to amass a steady stream of dedicated fans from fellow musicians and tapped-in acousto-pop enthusiasts, multiple songs from this project received singular pushes. “all my ghosts”, and “reckless driving”, “doomsday” all burned as heaters around the fandom; “all my ghosts” was a groovy, candied pop gem, and “doomsday” a utterly fantastic and dramatic lyrical display. However, for me, it was January 2023 when ‘ceilings’ hit. Early in this year, I had gone on a few dates which energized me with feelings of romantic love and renewal. That said, they were also feelings tinged with melancholy and heaviness thinking of how that situation-ships ended and the longing for a relationship that could have lasted longer. “ceilings” was the perfect antidote for explaining that feeling. The track would go on to get a late-night television debut and gave Lizzy’s “End Of The Movie” 2023 tour a sizable boost.
Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd? — Lana Del Rey (March 2023)
Lana Lana Lana. I was a big fan of the 2019’s NFR. A record that mixed detailed imagery (“bartender”), grandiose (“Venice Bitch”), and intimacy (“the greatest”) into a swirl of overtly orchestral, art-pop-sounding records about both the stately and bijou. 2023’s There’s a tunnel under ocean boulevard (and its title track featured in this blurb), captures a similar concoction of imagery, symbolism, and microscopic second-by-second unfurling of love, relationships, and observations of the “mundane” modern existence. Part of what always interests me in Lana’s work is the resolution she finds against all of these arguably weighty themes. I feel she does so here with a heavy wink at the absurdity of attempting to grapple with these conflicting emotions and experiences and giving into the solace that accompanies it. It’s a wink that says “jesus, fuck this, amiright” or “i get it, I can’t deal with ‘all of this’ all of the time”. I think Apple Music’s editorial blurb of LDR put it well: “Part of the fun of listening to Lana Del Rey’s ethereal lullabies is the sly sense of humor that brings them back down to earth”. It’s reactionary to our modern day ilks and in the most relatable way.
I got the chance to see Lana live this last October, and while the performance spread across multiple eras and albums, the chants of “Mother Lana!” affirmed to me that there is still much to the Lana myth I haven’t explored.
The title track on this latest album surrounds me with vibrant strings, repetitive, hypnotic chants of the track’s title, and a vibe that allows me to surrender to the solace that I was afraid of before hitting the green play arrow.
Fly To You (feat. Grimes and Dido) — Caroline Polachek (February 2023)
A zippy, slick, and decadent ride. On an album that stood with a handful of sturdy, and firmly structured pop songs (“Bunny is a Rider”, “Welcome To My Island”), “Fly To You” packages smoothed, post-90s revival drum n bass rhymic sensibilities with the sheeny gloss of Caroline’s elastic vocal performance. Punctuated by syncopated stabs in the chorus melody, the track buzzes with urgency and longing swept in flamenco guitar strums. In the doldrums of February in New York (Grey, wet, grey), this track offered me shotgun in an intergalactic getaway car. Pedal to the metal, Caroline.
Cloudy (Kelbin Remix) — Daphni (January 2023)
I first heard this remix teased in Four Tet’s Dec 2022 Lot Radio set (~36min). Daphni’s 2022 album Cherry was a grab bag of explosive, juicy, and groovy dance bops (Daphni is the dance-floor-focused side project of Caribou). The story of this remix is told as Kelbin cold-calling Dan, and after some back and forth, the realized track emerges, takes the bounce, and groove of the original, sets it on a lowered chassis, locks cruise control, and punches the accelerator. Spacetime warps as the track’s almost 5-and-a-half minute run time elapses in something that feels too short, but equally long enough. As mentioned with the Caroline track, I found this as a sister track to “Fly To You” as something which in the middle of January, gave some needed respite, and snapped the streak of a sleepy month with a high-speed knocker from start to finish.
Hard Times — Ethel Cain (Oct 2022)
Something that my Wrapped exposed to me in 2023 was a sonic and emotional thread of “longing”. Hard Times hums with a glaze of nostalgia, honey, and spacious echoing. Sitting with difficult feelings is a lesson that I find myself learning over and over again. I find myself getting into patterns of trying to identify, and “fix” uncomfortable emotional experiences with rational logical application. What this occasionally deprives me of is the depth, nuance, and knowledge of my own internal world. The nooks and crannies of where I store my memories, and how they come up for me in day-to-day life. I find similarities in the lyrical themes of “Hard Times”, but also in the practice of listening to this track. Its repetition, and layers of sonic candy (twinkling guitars, backing vocals, and drum fills) reveal new aspects with each solitary listen. Maybe something that I did, and hope to continue to do with my own emotions in the upcoming year.
Part Of The Band — The 1975 (Oct 2022)
I proclaimed to a close friend after seeing The 1975 in early Nov 2023 that I finally “figured out” The 1975. The mystic, the allure, and the juxtaposition that this pop-rock leaning ensemble commands. They fill arenas and sell out tours with a rabidness, and dedication that resembles Dead & Co., or jam bands of the current day. The specific show that the frontman delivered, the specific cadence of the lyrics on this song, or outrageous sound bite (or steak bite in some cases). It all feels to coalesce in this live show which they, in 2023, dubbed themselves as performing “Still at their very best”. For me, “Part of the Band” was the apex of the album which arrived in 2022. Catchy melodies, hyper-specific dangerous imagery of navigating relations with another human. For reasons I still can’t explain (almost 18 months after the release of the track midsummer in 2022), the track bubbles this sense of hope. I distinctly remember standing on the bow of a boat in the middle of Lake Superior with the soft, bumping orchestral stabs and Matty’s opening murmurs “She was part of the air force, I was part of the band” as this self-assured proclamation. Similar to a way where you have an inside joke with a friend which out-of-context means shit, but when it’s the two of you together tightens the bond. I don’t know why she was part of the air force, nor why I am part of the band, but I do know that in the times this year (mid-spring and early summer) when I was feeling pangs of loneliness, the opening lines bobbed through my head, and a glowing sense of knowing flooded my system.
Forbidden Doors — Tennis (February 2023)
Tennis has a rich history in Colorado. Lol not the sport tho, but the band, duo of musicians, songwriters, and producers, Tennis played a part in breaking the Colorado indie scene to a national audience in the 2010s, and their 2023 effort Pollen with opening track “Forbidden Doors” floored me this year, and reminded me of the emergent days of early spring. When winter’s frost melts away to midday sunshine, my natural, vitamin D-enriched energy levels begin to return after long burrowed winter months. Sonically, the steady shuffle of the drum pattern, and mellow, knocking of the bass line laid underneath a playful call and response between the vocalist and riffing piano licks which answered each sensual, flirty plea. This track came into focus for me when I visited Colorado in early 2023 (the first time for me since leaving in 2020), and the warmth of Colorado in early spring bathed me in nostalgia and reminded me of the distance between when I left, and where I am now. It makes sense this song cracked the top of my 2023 plays. I felt I played it as a way to remind myself and relive the washing sensations of nostalgia for a place I had called home for many of my young, formative years.
CSI: Petralona — Westerman (May 2023)
Westerman is a sonic painter. He plays in textures; from his unique vocal delivery, his eclectic mix of synths (atmospheric, melodic, fuzzy), percussion (hand claps, slippery, rough surfaces, deep cavernous booms, tiny snaps), and bass (serpent-like) which bounces and slithers around the melodies to find spaces to introduce groove and pace to the composition. Truthfully, I am not super sure what the lyrics are. In the effort of being transparent about how this track found me, I confess and respect that my ear gravitates to sonic structure, and for lack of a better phrase, my ear ate this shit up. Many of his songs came into my rotation this year around the time of his live performance in May 2023 where he performed songs from both his 2020, and his 2023 albums. The show was a rich, dynamic acoustic performance, and reminded me of the elements of live music where I surrender my own interpretation to the organic swings of how the music hits me at that moment. Westerman delivered a deluxe version later in 2023 which supplied some of that same feeling.
I tried not to be overly concerned about what Westerman was saying, but want to be highly moved by the feeling his vocal delivery gave. The lightness is grounded, while suspended in zero gravity.
Honorable Mentions
A Little Bit Further — Tourist (July 2023)
Astrology Poisoning — Avalon Emerson (April 2023)
vampire — Olivia Rodrigo (Sept 2023)
Back Then — Toro y Moi (July 2023)
Rumble — Skrillex, Fred Again.., Flowdan (January 2023)
Why (Spare Me Tears) — Elmiene (Nov 2022)
Stay For Something — CMAT (Sept 2023)
