The Top 50 Songs of 2023: A Megapost.
#50: Panic Attack — Judas Priest
Priest are on a run I’ve not really seen equaled — since Rob Halford returned for 2005’s ‘Angel of Retribution’ and even with many a subsequent line-up change, this band have put out an unending streak of rock-solid (‘Nostradamus’, ‘Redeemer of Souls’) to stunning (‘Firepower’) records. All three singles from the forthcoming ‘Invincible Shield’ have been stunners, but ‘Panic Attack’ is something else — how is this band still coming up with riffs, wails and energy this fearsome?!
(Genre: Heavy Metal) (Vibe: Epic)
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#49: Hot! Heat! Wow! Hot! — Psychedelic Porn Crumpets
One of those last minute finds that you fall in love with on first listen, the absurdly named PPC here turn out a noisy, energetic, and bitterly sarcastic indie punk belter.
(Genre: Punk) (Vibe: Hyperactive)
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#48: Feel Good — Slowthai
A track that came and went and came again onto this list, my ear for this song has been changeable over 2023, but in the end it was the Bloc Party-ness of it all that won me over — that rattling, stop-start bass riff, direct and simple and driving beat, and the punky snarl in Slowthai’s voice whether he’s hitting the high chorus or the deeper, coarser verses. It’s all pure Britpop; the snarkier, nastier, and indeed grimier end of that genre, and every bit as fun as the classics within it.
(Genre: Grime Rock) (Vibe: Sardonic)
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#47: Like A Saviour — Ellie Goulding
Goulding is a more limited performer than her many platinum records would have you believe — a Gaga-like to her bones, she simply doesn’t have the power in her voice to pull off what Gaga can do with a quarter of the same effort, and it’s always down to her music to elevate her. Luckily, this one’s an absolute banger.
(Genre: Pop) (Vibe: Elated)
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#46: Piece By Stinking Piece — Vomitory
Would you believe I like to jog with this disgusting little beast in my ears? Nothing drives you forward like music that practically coils inside you ready to spring out, and it simply wouldn’t be my annual list if there wasn’t at least one absolutely vicious ripper of an extreme metal track with a bad attitude and a loathsome guitar tone. Misery Index, Jungle Rot, Anaal Nathrakh and Lorna Shore hand their crowns to Vomitory, for their best and nastiest work since the 2000s.
(Genre: Death Metal) (Vibe: Vile)
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#45: City Boys — Burna Boy
Plenty of artists sing like Burna Boy, but no-one quite sings like Burna Boy. I’ve had an ear open for his work ever since his feature on a 2020 remix of Stormzy’s Own It (replacing Ed Sheeran) turned the worst song on that album into its bar-none best, and this is the track — and album — where Burna Boy himself truly owns it. There’s nothing on this song that isn’t just delicious to the ear — that fantastic beat, those tinkling synths opening the track, the perfect and perfectly uplifting back-up vocals in the chorus, and of course Burna Boy’s voice, describably only as rich.
(Genre: Afrobeats) (Vibe: Proud)
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#44: Between Death And Dreams — Brand of Sacrifice
I surely can’t be the only one who hears shades and touches of The Berzerker, tragically overlooked Aussie heroes of grindcore, in this song? The tightly controlled, ultra-fast drumming, electronic sound layering, shrieking and snarling lead vocals and grimy tone in the guitar; it’s all so Berzerker, with the gunk and grue cleaned off. BoS are much cleaner, less grotesque in production and presentation, but they know how to play fast and clear, and by god do they lay down a true monster of a chorus, slap-bang in the midst of the whirlwind of noise, that simply should not work as well as it does. And that’s before the breakdown tops it…
(Genre: Grindcore) (Vibe: Ferocious)
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#43: Sodom & Gomorrah — Dorian Electra
Dorian Electra is a mess, and that’s the whole appeal. There’s something so slapdash, so thrown-together and uncalculated, about their music, leaving it frequently messy and un-coordinated. Yet, who cares when their charisma (and thirst) carry us through? The associated record — Fanfare — doesn’t quite hit the heights of My Agenda, but on this track at least Dorian is hitting the spot every time, with a banger tune and an attitude that makes even the silliest lines (rhyming “Gomorrah” with “floor-ah”, which to an English person sounds like a margarine brand) work through swagger alone.
(Genre: Hyperpop) (Vibe: Astonishingly Horny)
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#42: Modern Jam — Travis Scott
Utopia’s no Sicko Mode. Bold takes only on this page, I know. It’s a rock-solid record in terms of performances, but compositionally, it’s as detached as it is strange, leaving me struggling to know what I even felt as I listened. Modern Jam left no such doubt — this is the song where Scott and featured artist Teezo Touchdown aren’t simply floating on the wafts of weirdness but actively going nuts , and the energy of the track is undeniable. Banger, through and through.
(Genre: Trap) (Vibe: Psychedelic)
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#41: Anarchy — Sadus
Sadus were an obscure curio even before they were leaving sixteen years between records, not least middling drivel like Out for Blood that gave thrash fans nothing but a sour aftertaste and a headache (though I still love the plodding goofiness of ‘Down’ — “Caaaaaan’t briiiing me DOWN!” — after all this time), so their inclusion here surprises me as much as it bewilders you, sensible person who has no time for obscure noise like this. Nonetheless, on this Medium page we know fire in the belly when we hear it, and this is fiery, fierce, fulsome thrash with a mean streak, many a fine riff, a drum sound so raw it’s a health violation and a slippery bass that comes alarmingly close to the fretless masterwork of long-departed Steve Di Giorgio.
(Genre: Thrash Metal) (Vibe: Anarchic lol)
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#40: Whispers in the Echo Chamber — Chelsea Wolfe
There’s a great many dark folk acts out there, and then there’s Chelsea Wolfe. The atmospheres she conjures are oppressive, a sinister leaden cloud settling over the ears and brain that threatens to block out all light, thought and hope. Lord knows why I love that sort of thing so much, but with a songwriter this good, I need not explain.
(Genre: Dark Folk) (Vibe: Bleak)
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#39: SkeeYee — Sexyy Redd
An absolute last-second addition, mostly kept off an early inclusion by Sexyy Redd’s inclusion much higher up the rankings (read on for more…), but a balanced playlist matters far less than acknowledging music as hopelessly filthy and fun as this. This is, down to its deepest core, stupid beyond description, and that’s its brilliance — it is completely, joyfully, blatantly itself and apologises to no-one for it, with a beat, flow and attitude that cannot be stopped.
(Genre: Hip-hop) (Vibe: Filthy)
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#38: ’Til The Flame Turns Blue — Paper Kites
As suggested above, I like to keep a variety of genres, moods and styles on these playlists each year, and I worried I was letting the melancholy take over the ’23 list a little. Not so here; this song, simple and sorrowful as it is, could never be kept off the list. I can’t exactly place what it is that’s hooked with me this one, but that refrain — “burn until the flame turns blue” — hasn’t failed to get me teary-eyed on any listen this year.
(Genre: Country Rock) (Vibe: Yearning)
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#37: The Tower — Future Islands
For an apparently ‘guitar-less’ band, Future Islands do wonderful things with a rock-oriented sound; that juddering bass, smooth keyboard licks and riffs, yelping vocals, its all got such power underneath the well-produced loveliness. I’ve been utterly ignorant of this band until this year — impressive, dare I say, given that they’re six albums and a huge fanbase deep by now — but this single’s glistening, yearning beauty might’ve made me an instant convert to the FI cult.
(Genre: Synth-Pop) (Vibe: Dreamy)
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#36: The Sensation — Night Flight Orchestra
The saddest song to sound utterly exuberant on this whole list, The Sensation is a fitting and uplifting tribute to their guitarist David Andersson (passed last year at the far-too young age of 47). Night Flight are wonderful at the best of times, and here they square off against Journey, Toto and the other titans of AOR with a real belter. This is a song I simply cannot wait to dance my butt off to in 2024; here’s hoping for ‘Aeromantic III’!
(Genre: AOR) (Vibe: Celebratory)
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#35: She Is A Fire — Cradle of Filth
The very definition of did-not-expect-this. An absolutely killer single from a gothic-oriented black metal band, old enough to be a legacy act, with an (undeserved) iffy reputation within the metal scene and no ability to retain the same personnel between albums? An absolutely killer single from a not-bad live record that seems to have been released purely on obligation? Yes, somehow. Despite all that, She Is A Fire is most certainly fire; this is one of the best and most beautiful songs Cradle have ever recorded, with a gorgeously produced and hauntingly fleeting piano line over the top of the raging metal that just works. Why the hell it’s been put on a live record — as the first track! — I will never understand.
(Genre: Black Metal) (Vibe: Gothic)
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#33: My Love Mine All Mine — Mitski
There’s plenty of good bars in most of the songs on this list, but none quite so simple and devastating as “Moon, tell me if I could / Send up my heart to you? So, when I die, which I must do / Could it shine down here with you?”. In barely 2 and a half minutes, off a calm and slightly frigid instrumentation, Mitski breaks your heart completely in half.
(Genre: Lounge) (Vibe: Vibin’)
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#32: How Did I Get So Calm — Dizzee Rascal
As verbal flexes go, this is top-tier. Grime rappers can spend a hundred bars convincing you they’re the best of the best — Dizzee Rascal gets it done in half the lines and double the repetition, all carried off by a dazzling and totally louche confidence — he knows, no matter how goofy he might be and has always been, that he’s one of the best, and that you’re still listening to ‘Bonkers’ all these years later. Here’s a track to put alongside it.
(Genre: Grime) (Vibe: Serene)
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#36: Champagne Shit — Janelle Monae
The Age of Pleasure wasn’t an album that much spoke to me, and against Dirty Computer it barely even registers, being oddly repetitive, stiff and flat where the previous record was adventurous, flexible and practically explosive. But Janelle was always going to hit pay dirt on at least one song, and ‘Champagne Shit’ is the gem in this album’s dirt — hot, smooth, and deliciously alive.
(Genre: R&B) (Vibe: Satisfied)
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#30: Anti-Fetish — Vexed
I fucking love this track. I love how the main riff is constantly dropping out but without the usual loss of momentum and energy common to djent songs. I love those weow-weow-weow squeals on the bridges. I love vocalist Megan Targett’s voice, switching from a ravenous snarl to a deep, monstrous roar and back in seconds, dancing across the entire song without ever feeling like they’re pulling focus from the punch of the instruments. And for once in a long while on a braggadocious metal record, I love the lyrics, which are a spine-crackingly vicious takedown of internet culture that the band actually manage to carry off all the way to the end.
(Genre: Djent) (Vibe: Ball-crushing)
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#29: bad idea right — Olivia Rodrigo
Even those of us without TikTok can’t escape the megastars it throws out here and there. Thankfully, she’s a better songwriter than most of the pan-flashes on that hellsite, and this is the best of a pretty good batch of snarky pop tracks about youthful folly, bad decisions, and vampires.
(Genre: Pop Rock)(Vibe: Self-destructive)
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#28: Oversized Sweater — Shamir
Shamir returns to this Top 50 list after the stellar ‘Cisgender’ off his 2021 near-masterwork Heterosexuality, and while this song isn’t quite at the level of any track off that record, ‘Oversized Sweater’ has a quality none of them did; sweetness. This is a surprisingly gentle, tender song from an artist unafraid to be abrasive and confrontational, a welcome change of pace, and hopefully a good indicator of an even more adventurous spirit for any records to come.
(Genre: Noise Pop) (Vibe: Solicitous)
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#27: Too Close / Too Late — Spiritbox
Spiritbox have been the band I really needed this year; the band who forcibly reminded me that neither I nor they nor anyone else are so special that the world won’t go on spinning without us. Even as I age slowly out of the moshpit and take a more permanent seat on the balcony or at the bar, there will always be more youth behind me, creating this kind of music, equal parts fearsomely killer and heartbreakingly moving.
(Genre: Rock) (Vibe: Epic)
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#26: Houdini — Dua Lipa
2023 was a little rocky for Dua Lipa, opening the year alongside Megan Thee Stallion with the truly godawful single ‘Sweetest Pie’. But there’s no sense doubting the voice behind ‘Future Nostalgia’ for too long, and if ‘Houdini’ is any solid indication, we are in for another absolute banger of a pop record in 2024.
(Genre: Pop) (Vibe: Liberated)
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#25: Blood & Glitter — Lord of the Lost
The halfway mark always need an important song, and what better than the song that was ROBBED at Eurovision this year? Lord of the Lost seem to go barely a year without a new release, usually one overloaded with a few too many songs, but on this record the songwriting was on point time and again, especially here, with aglammed-up, glitzy track as daft as it’s thrilling.
(Genre: Glam Metal) (Vibe: Fabulous)
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#24: Song of the Stones — Green Lung
When they split in 2013, Cathedral left a hole in doom metal, and no band seemed able to fill it, until Green Lung. Their first two records are pretty good stuff, with plenty of solid (if occasionally samey) material and a few real standouts, but This Heathen Land is something else; an album with not a single wrong note and excellent song upon excellent song, all wrapped in a distinctly British sense of the wild old land. ‘Song of the Stones’, the only non-metal/rock track, is the most powerful summoning of that pagan atmosphere, a beautiful hymn to the animus in everything.
(Genre: Ambient Folk) (Vibe: Numinous)
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#23: Kiss Me — Empress Of (feat. Rina Sawayama)
Much as I love the sheer flagrance and hunger of a Sexxy Red or Dorian Electra, I’m just as easy a mark for something a little more bedroom-eyes and tenderness. ‘Kiss Me’ hits just right on that score — a lovely, shy, sexy track with kinky depths hidden just beneath the surface.
(Genre: Dance Pop) (Vibe: Romantic)
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#22: Pure Light of Mind — In Flames
Almost twenty years ago, In Flames released the title track from the album ‘Come Clarity’ as a single. A deeply emo, somewhat self-regarding power ballad, it’s a song about wanting to be led through the bewilderment of growing older, given guidance out of the endless dream of life. ‘Pure Light of Mind’, meanwhile — the best track on an album that’s a serious return to form for an often very complacent band — is almost an answer to that older, poorer song; less self-involved, full of gratitude to whomever helped the singer (and listener) through dark times, and keen to pay the kindness back tenfold. It’s emotionally vulnerable and completely sincere, but perhaps more shockingly for a band like this, it’s also emotionally mature and secure.
(Genre: Melodeath) (Vibe: Heartfelt)
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#21: Set Fazers — Skindred
So close to a number one album! Skindred have always been a little too in-between genres to really find an abiding fanbase, a fact not helped by their records being perpetually inconsistent even if there’s always a banger or three on each one. At last, here’s an album — Smile — that actually feels like a work of art rather than just exuberance, which has got more ideas on its mind than just a party, that looks a little harder at what Skindred’s stated goal — unity — might take. And yes, after all that, it’s churlish of me to pick the party anthem as the best song, but can I help it if this track absolutely slaps?
(Genre: Ragga) (Vibe: Party)
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#20: The Hillbillies — Baby Keem & Kendrick Lamarr
The dorkiest song on this entire list, which I have to say I enjoyed as a reprieve after Kendrick tore out my heart and toyed with it mercilessly on ‘The Heart Part 5’, last year’s number one track. The bars are frequently cringe, the energy is deeply stupid, and it’s nothing compared to most of ‘Mister Morale…’, and yet, I don’t know — it still hits well by virtue of its dorkiness (and the irrepressible skill of its performers).
(Genre: Drill) (Vibe: Dorky)
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#19: Mother Nature — MGMT
Didn’t MGMT sound like an 80s post-punk electronic act a couple of years ago? Once again, they pivot hard and they pivot strong, from offbeat electronica into a folksy, cheerful style that belies some of the darkest, most sour lyrics on any song released in ’23. ‘Bubblegum Dog’ was a good ‘un, but this is the really good stuff from MGMT this year.
(Genre: Alt-rock) (Vibe: Bittersweet)
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#18: The Better Me — Beartooth feat. HARDY
I’m such an easy mark for this crap — Caleb yells “hit ’em with the riff!”, the guitar drops in, and I giggle like an idiot each time and keep on running, because ohhhh yes, this motivational cat poster of a song has most definitely been on my exercise playlist for weeks now. Beartooth are simple creatures, satisfied with meaty riffs, big booming production, even bigger emotions and a dumb, grinning earnestness. I too am a simple creature, and I’m charmed again at every listen.
(Genre: Emo) (Vibe: Driven)
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#17: ECSTASY — Chaosbay
Similar to Beartooth in giddy feeling, Chaosbay are a German underground rock band well worth discovering for their genre blending, epic-scale songwriting and sheer smiling exuberance. It’s not exactly the most technical work a band’s put in on this list, but it’s got all the best qualities of a 2000’s metalcore act, not least the joy that fills every syllable of the chorus, plus with a nasty edge in the drops to top it all off.
(Genre: Screamo) (Vibe: Ecstatic lol)
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#16: Dancing Shoes (Take Me Higher) — LF SYSTEM
Two years in a row for LF SYSTEM after ‘Afraid To Feel’ last year, sterling work indeed! As with most dance DJs this is less to do with musical originality than a good choice of samples, but LF really know their samples; the basis here, Plaza’s ‘(Got My) Dancing Shoes’ is expertly chopped and changed to create a pulsing, pounding and bangin’ house-funk hybrid.
(Genre: Funk) (Vibe: Sweaty)
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#15: know that you’re not alone — Cat Burns
With just the slightest twist in my mood, this could’ve ended up on a Worst List. Musically it has nothing to worry about as a solid, exuberant, entertaining folk pop track in the Sheeran mold, with an excellent, easily lovable lead vocalist with a husky, ever-so-slightly androgynous voice. It’s the bluntness in the lyrics were Burns walks on a knife-edge; these aren’t exactly platitudes, but they are plain, bald, simple lyrics about self-love, self-worth and self-care, and if you’re not in a good mood, they might come off as obvious. What can I say? Sometimes I love to hear the obvious stated, especially when it might not even be so obvious — when Burns sings “the years are catching up on me / I’m almost twenty-three”, I can’t help, with my ten years on her, brooding or smiling on all I’ve done in that time. Sometimes even the simplest line can be strikingly drawn.
(Genre: Folk Pop) (Vibe: Sincere)
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#14: Cobra — Megan Thee Stallion
The surprise of ‘Cobra’ is, supposedly, that it’s largely about depression, despair and darkness. Fair enough, that’s not what Megan “Step On Thee” Stallion is usually all about, but at the same time, all that business is as deeply human as her usual drives and subjects. For me, the real delights here are the rock influences in the music — the beat that shifts around a simple, crunchy, two-note riff, the heavily synthesised guitar licks on the melody lines, and that shredding solo to play us out at the end. I was ambivalent on the Spiritbox reworking of this song, but knowing that Megan, who’s appeared on all of my Best Of lists this decade bar 2021, is so willing to pull from so many sources makes me giddy for whatever she might do next.
(Genre: Crossover) (Vibe: Despairing)
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#13: Bogus Operandi — The Hives
The friggin’ Hives! I haven’t spared a thought for this band since the days of ‘Walk Idiot Walk’ back in 2004, much less expected them to get so high on my (or anyone’s!) year-end list in the 2020s. Yet here they are, every bit as loud, noisome and fun as on ‘Hate To Say I Told You So’ back in the day. Hell of a good surprise.
(Genre: Garage Rock) (Vibe: Boisterous)
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#12: labour — Paris Paloma
I was fond of ‘the fruits’ last year, but I’m a full-bore fan of ‘labour’ in ’23. There’s a great deal of modern folk on this list, more so than in most other years, and while only one other artist tops Paloma (see the upcoming Top 10) this is probably the acoustic song that gave me the most joy this year, and that’s because it’s sharp. In every aspect — the jaggedly-plucked chords, Paloma’s clear voice, the dark ironies in the chorus, those stellar lyrics and their target — this song cuts clean and deep.
(Genre: Acoustic Rock) (Vibe: Sarcastic)
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#11: Terms & Conditions — Mahalia
Thanks to FLO and ‘Not My Job’, it turns out I’ve got a real thing for 90s-style R&B, which is no doubt a surprise to even the nine-year-old me who would’ve protested more than a little too much. That pretense having longer since been shed, I can love it freely, and hell yes do I love this. I love the strut and the swagger of it all, the delicious switch-ups between rapping and singing, the excellent gang vocals and most of all, the growing power in Mahalia’s voice.
(Genre: R&B) (Vibe: Self-Empowered)
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#10: Rich Baby Daddy — Drake (feat. Sexyy Red & SZA)
Straight up; turn this song off at exactly 4:00, because that’s where it absolutely should end. The remaining 1:19 is a waste of time that should’ve been used as an interlude, or cut entirely given that the interpolation of ‘Dog Days Are Over’ by Florence & The Machine is badly sung and just awful in conception (and I’m convinced it’s only there thanks to that song’s inclusion in ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’). I wish that this obvious stand-out track — the shining light on a deeply flawed record — had been treated as a full single, because trim that tail and this song is stunning. Drake’s verses? Good stuff, high energy, no bad bars to speak of; frankly, the bare minimum and practically a mercy given bad memories of Honestly, Nevermind. It’s the instrumentation, and more importantly his co-stars, that rocketed this song so high on this list for me, because holy shit are those two guests on fire all through this thing. Sexyy Redd makes her second appearance on this list for the chorus alone, which she dominates and burns into my brain; that she follows it up with such a fire verse just seems unfair to everyone else. SZA (herself having a pretty good 2023) won’t and can’t be outdone though; she sings the lead melody like her entire body and soul are behind it. All of this comes on the back of the hardest and frankly happiest beat on a Drake record since ‘Nice For What’; sparse, crisp, high-tempo and backed by rich and delicious synth passages like rivers of sound flowing over jagged rocks. Absolutely fantastic from start to finish, if only the starring artist had the sense to stop when the damn song was actually over.
(Genre: Miami Bass) (Vibe: Alive)
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#09: Shit Talk — Sufjan Stevens
Sufjan Stevens, for me until this year, practically started and ended at ‘Mystery of Love’ from the Call Me By Your Name soundtrack. I knew his name, loved that one song, but for whatever reason (music’s a big and broad space and very easy to get lost in) never heard anything else. Just my luck to properly discover Stevens again when he’s at his most heartbreaking and difficult to handle; much more just my luck when he’s also at his most rewarding and beautiful. Plenty has already been written about the personal circumstances behind the record and those I am not even going to touch, let alone speak on. All I can say is that this is some of the most extraordinary compositional work an artist like Stevens has pulled off, married seamlessly to some of the most painful yet cathartic emotion I’ve heard all year in a song. It hurts, every time.
(Genre: Experimental Folk) (Vibe: Grieving)
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#08: Chokehold — Sleep Token
There’s no form of popular media today that isn’t trying to sweep you away on what’s promised to be a tidal wave of hype but which, most of the time, can’t crash you against the shore so much as it drifts you gently and anticlimactically into the tepid shallows. It’s everywhere, and most of the time, it’s exhausting. But sometimes, just sometimes, it’s fun, and the hype Sleep Token managed to inexplicably conjure for ‘Take Me Back To Eden’ was truly something to experience at the beginning of the year (even if by ‘Vore’ and ‘DYWTYLM’ they were definitely releasing too many singles). And the song itself? Yeah, it’s not ‘The Summoning’, but I don’t care what you say — ‘The Summoning’ doesn’t even come close to ‘Chokehold’ in my ears. I love every part of this song; the crashing, grinding guitars, gentle contrasting plucks on the piano, wailing choral vocals, Vessel’s best performance as a singer, those clutching, desperate (kinda hot) lyrics and particularly that fantastic second verse (“beneath the stormy seas/above the mountain peaks/it’s all the same to me/it makes no difference”). This first single and first album track is, down to that rising ambient drone that opens it, an aural sun rising on something very messy, full of vibrant clashes and so very much life. What a joy to have found this all so very, very exciting.
(Genre: Metal) (Vibe: Cataclysmic)
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#07: The Matrix — Mother Mother
This might be the dumbest song (barring Drake) on the Top 10, at least in terms of how I appreciate it. It’s not Mother Mother’s most complex song musically, nor their most affecting emotionally (thinking of you, ‘It’s Alright’); hell, as as someone who hasn’t actually dug that deep into their catalogue, who knows what I might be missing about Mother Mother. I only know that I love this song because it’s so basic it’s impossible not to love it. It is, in a phrase, blunt as a brick, an excellent Pixies song that Pixies themselves would never write (to steal/re-word a sentiment from my long-suffering partner), a great big adolescent howl against ‘living in the matrix’ that on paper would’ve read as old hat and corny in 2006, but is somehow just carried off by the sheer bombast of the song. Fuck no indeed.
(Genre: Indie Rock) (Vibe: Fuck No)
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#06: Leaving the Light — Genesis Owusu
I am all-in for Genesis Owusu. Last year’s single ‘GTFO’, my first exposure to him, was a fairly standard dark and downbeat hip-hop track that had an indefinable something about it that would just not leave my head; I knew there was something to this guy, and I was proved comprehensively right on Struggler, one of the best albums of the year. I’m fascinated by Owusu less for how he branches out then for how he circles around and around. How he seems to corner a musical idea until it’s given everything it has to give, how he seems to be carried off by bizarre fixations (how many times are roaches mentioned on how many songs on Struggler?), how his beats have so much life despite their deep, deep darkness and how, in the midst of all that, he still manages to write banger after banger after banger.
(Genre: Mash-Up) (Vibe: Blood-pumping)
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#05: Moonlight — Kali Uchis
As I detailed in a post earlier this year, Red Moon in Venus was a bitter disappointment. On the basis of this song alone, I was hyped for the record, and the album isn’t exactly bad by any means; simply a little too myopic and downbeat lyrically, and one-track musically, to be as interesting as this song promised it could’ve been. How lovely, though, that the disappointment never soured ‘Moonlight’ itself; indeed my love of this wonderful song has only grown throughout ’23. There’s plenty of reasons why, not least that musically this is lush work; that slippery bass and the almost warbling, bubbling chord progression are some of the loveliest sounds for their own sake, from a aesthetics point of view, on any song in this Top 10. It’s excellently written and well-performed, but above all I’d credit its achievement to it being one of the few songs on Red Moon… where Uchis lets go of the cynical hectoring that runs all through the record and practically sinks into vulnerability and, in consequence, lets herself (and us) open up to sensuality and delight. It’s the one place on the record that she’s completely free, and it’s one of the true musical triumphs of ‘23.
(Genre: Neo-Soul) (Vibe: Sexy AF)
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#04: ASHAMED — HEALTH
Two songs in a row in the Top 5 from albums that are, as wholes, a little shaky, slapdash and slipshod, but their individual parts practically shine they’re so lovingly assembled. Industrial music, classic style, has always been something of a bête noire for this writer, not for its abrasiveness (which I love) but for a repetitiveness that can sometimes get past meandering and up to the point of outright grating in all the worst, least appealing ways even for an extremehead who loves their harsh noise. HEALTH here strike, for me, that perfect balance only the best industrial achieves. Not even the frankly dumb video of bassist John Famiglietti bewilderedly wandering a con hall dressed as Asuka from Neon Genesis Evangelion spoils the mood of this piece; a song that seems in the verses to coil around its despair, and in the choruses unleashes it all over a pummeling run of synth chords so crushing and stunning at once that it simply floors me every time. Vocalist BJ Miller, whose delicate, androgynous voice evokes Cigarettes After Sex if that shoegaze band were less about low-key horniness and more about gazing straight down into a bottomless abyss, gets so much from that single, flat refrain ‘I’m ashamed of being born’. Simply gorgeous despair.
(Genre: Industrial) (Vibe: Throbbing)
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#03: Drum — Young Fathers
From repetitive despair we jump to absolute joy. Equally repetitive, mind you; this song never gets off its single, constantly looping riff and basic but urgent beats, but it somehow contrives to sound like a constant, impossible ascent, like a mountain being scaled and the climber gaining, not losing, speed with every foot higher. It’s all down to the Young Fathers themselves, a trio who compliment and bounce off and contrast and uplift each almost perfectly. There’s many a cut on Heavy Heavy that could’ve been here instead — this is an irresistible record almost throughout and ‘I Saw’ came so close to taking this spot — but in the end, I fell in love hardest with ‘Drum’, not because it’s an electrifying song (and it is), but because it is itself full of such obvious, urgent love.
(Genre: Art Pop) (Vibe: Soaring)
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#02: He’s A Man — Bob Vylan
Do not, whatever you do, sleep on Bob Vylan. The Price of Life was one of the best albums of ’22 and one of the best punk records released for a generation, one that threw a few dozen influences — not least grime, hip-hop and a streak of pisstakes of folk-pop for good measure — on top of the noise and still managed to make an excellent song out of every single track (bar none). Growing up as I did in the 2000s and the age of Blink-182, punk had become an almost purely bubblegum affair, still snot-nosed but only in affect, the music having let go of its abrasions. Yeah, there was still punk out there, but mostly only if you were willing to go digging through the alarmingly small catalogues of band who, 20 years earlier, had formed and dissolved practically simultaneously. A punk act that sounds like this — raw as peeled peppers — with a frontman who sounds like this — loud, harsh, unprocessed and enraged — getting a shot at a big audience would’ve seemed like a dream back then, and now here’s Bobby Vylan and Bobbie Vylan, maybe making that dream come true off the back of songs like this; loud, harsh, raw, viciously sarcastic, very funny, and brutally, rightfully honest.
(Genre: Punk) (Vibe: Crass)
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#01: Hello Love — Jessie Ware
As with any Best Of list out there in the aether of the internet, there’s no absolute criteria on what gets the thing to the top of the arbitrary ranking, except maybe one — how much you couldn’t stop replaying it in your head, your heart, and in this case on your speakers. ‘Hello Love’ is my passion, obsession and joy for most of 2023, the song I cannot and don’t want to escape, a luscious, gorgeous, delicious soul song with a top-flight singer at the microphone and a golden songwriting and musical team at her back. And why this track when there’s so much good stuff on this record? ‘Hello Love’ isn’t half so flashy as ‘Free Yourself’ or a tenth as energetic as ‘Pearls’, and believe me it was a close thing between that track and this one for a little while. All I can say is that this is the one that grabbed me hardest and spoke softest; a sweet, sensual, and utterly serene song about being surprised by love at every turn. Songs like this — and at least six other songs in this Top 10 alone, the artists behind which I’d hardly heard of a year and a half ago — are why I still fall in love to, and with, music; because “I didn’t expect to see ya.”
(Genre: Neo-Soul) (Vibe: Beautiful)
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© Sam Iona Burgess, 2023-2024
