If you made it through the entirety of Part I, your dedication is admirable. Lotta tracks over there. Your reward? A bunch more.
This is the best of the best, essentially my "top" 50ish songs. Any complaints about these can be filed in your nearest sewer.
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The Fantastic
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▼ Samia, papa mbye "Mad At Me" | LISTEN
For my money, the best strictly pop song of the year. Pairing candy production with lovelorn questions and a screamer of a chorus, Samia finds the correct balance like a seasoned chemist. The guitars here? Rule. So do the staccato keys. Our heroine quarterbacks it all like Tommy Brady, and absolutely sticks the landing.
▼ BigXthaPlug "Rush Hour" | LISTEN
Big's baritone. The Rhyme sample behind. The bounce of the bass and keys. It's all worth your time, trust. A "No Notes" track.
▼ Jacques Greene "Believe" | LISTEN
If not apparent by now, '90s electronica is just my shit. Greene, who's been on fire the past few years, crafts something fit for Ministry of Sound in '95. With stuttered vocals, rave exclamation points, and a backing groove ready for the 2 AM dance floor. Bang-er.
▼ Kelela "Happy Ending" | LISTEN
Kelela taps LSDXOXO and Bambii for this example of her heated body R&B. A song for sideways glances on dancefloors to feuding partners. Teasing looks of "The lights are flashing/You're in the back of my mind, baby" and "We both know you wanna stay" answered by siren synths and breakbeat. Posing question of reunion with outcome in mind throughout. Camelot or disaster, it sounds good all the same.
▼ crushed "waterlily" | LISTEN
A woozy, trip-hop daydream. "waterlily" was one of the first songs in 2023 I could not stop listening to. The cement of said obsession dried the second these strings hit. Warm reverb and Morell's voice coming in like a long-lost friend, begging you to never leave. And, if it's your persuasion, why would you?
▼ yunè pinku "Sports" | LISTEN
Little experiment on this one. Give it a minute and then come back. Just let it flow for a bit. Go ahead, go for it. You're back? Nice, the world didn't end there. Okay but, you're moving aren't you? Couldn't help it? Little dance, little jig? Head nodding, hips swaying, mind shutting off. Hey, me too. Every damn time.
▼ Tzusing feat. Suda "Clout Tunnel" | LISTEN
Going out on a limb here, but this is the best video game-sampling song of the year. The tunnel in question Wraith's, although I'm unsure anyone's guessed her dimensional rift goes this hard. Although I do suppose it correctly captures the anxiety of a final circle. Tzusing's vertigo-inducing, siren-blaring, headbanger of industrial techno is a dance floor tornado warning. "Punching a tunnel", fuck yeah you are.
▼ Strange Ranger "She's on Fire" | LISTEN
Larger-than-life hook? Greatest night of your life energy? Eiger and Woodman's layered vocals built on synths and '80s guitar? The beginning and bridge of this are notes of rapture. Apparently shining so bright, the band couldn't maintain it and had to hang it up. Bar too high, perhaps.
▼ Overmono "Good Lies" | LISTEN
Entry #2 from the Welshmen is the title track from their May release. Another showcase of abilities to harmonize vocal and dance step. Like so much within the genre, this builds and builds to the midpoint, but it's the spiraling down second half that venerates the tune. With rave pulsing and now-drowning vocals steadied by high hats and snare. Just under three minutes of dance floor bliss.
▼ Peggy Gou "(It Goes Like) Nanana" | LISTEN
Let's just leave it to Gou herself to explain this one: "There’s a feeling we all know but is hard to describe, that feeling of love, warmth and excitement when you’re surrounded by friends and loved ones and the energy speaks for itself. It’s difficult to put into words but to me it goes ‘nanana!" Amen.
▼ Max Fry "zombie" | LISTEN
Our boy Max in the tank, feeling's love's push-pull at a level nearing panic attack. Buddy is falling in love on sight everywhere he looks. Emotions a hypnotic martini dizzying him and anyone who'll listen. His torment equals our pleasure on this thumping indie-goth groover.
▼ IKIRU "Gymnopédie, n°1" | LISTEN
IKIRU's version of the Satie composition came like a seasonal-depression breaking sun in March. There is a lot of ambient on this list, and one could definitely say this classic is in the genre's vanguard. IKIRU's modern interpretation avoids approaching the wheel for reinvention. Instead: a simple jazz gloss and letting the standard be the standard. Musical melatonin.
▼ Aphex Twin "Blackbox Life Recorder 21f" | LISTEN
If Aphex Twin drops a track in a given year, it goes on this list. This rule was made long ago and it's ironclad. James' music definitely grades on the binary seesaw of love 'em or hate 'em, so results may vary. But one thing is for certain, there's nothing else quite like it.
▼ Natural Wonder Beauty Concept "Natural Wonder Beauty Concept" | LISTEN
Again, 2023, the year of the jungle renaissance. This hums along the first fifty seconds or so before the vocals tag in and it morphs into a blissful rocket. A fusion of drumming chaos and blurry melancholia. Also the only example I've ever seen of the song title being the same as the album title and the actual band itself. Some George Foreman stuff going on there.
▼ Earl Sweatshirt "Making The Band (Danity Kane)" | LISTEN
One of the first tunes in ages that justifies Earl's prince that was promised-reputation. A late-career Oscar for someone like Macaulay Culkin, so to speak. Hyperbolic analogy, but this is a different Earl. A fresh stepping stone in his career, where seriousness and age-ruled anxieties ghost his expectation for midlife. Young Earl done grown up.
▼ NewJeans "Super Shy" | LISTEN
I mostly try to avoid making these lists just a personal re-ordering of the consensus tracks that litter all year end things. That is unless the song in question is an undeniable force of nature. Enter NewJeans.
▼ Julie Byrne "Moonless" | LISTEN
There is a scene near the end of Return to Seoul where our lead Park finally gets the meeting she's been waiting her entire life for. The skeleton key to an understanding of herself and the world. An anticipated sense of closure on a door she never opened and feels she'll never close alone. And in that moment of catharsis, the camera sits on Park and doesn't move. A close up of a wounded woman as she meets the only person in the universe she isn't supposed to be strangers with. Byrne's lyric "What does it matter to the story/If your absence remains" is the brand of idiom she'll need in due time. Maybe when she's searching for a subject line.
▼ 1017 ALYX 9SM, Ethel Cain "Famous Last Words (An Ode to Eaters)" | LISTEN
A strumming guitar and the steady hum of a spiritual force sitting right behind it. Something heard and read divine or infernal, depending on the beholder. This is the crashpoint Cain loves operating in. A place where love feels so intense it's read violent. Where devotion takes on its biblical definition.
▼ Lost Girls "With the Other Hand" | LISTEN
This chorus is a brain virus. The up-pitched drum machine. The vocals reverbed and layered. The light and constant guitar in the background. Adding "With the other hand I open rooms" to that? It drips into your head and sticks like honey on a summer's day.
▼ Dusky "Free Your Mind" | LISTEN
If you close your eyes, you can actually see the glowsticks. The brightly dyed hair and night driving lenses. Dusky's house pounder declares the titular statement not as Morpheus, but as a benevolent bouncer handing out E.
▼ yeule "dazies" | LISTEN
My goodness, these guitars. Inescapable. A slasher villain brand of inevitability via strummed distortion.
▼ HEALTH "HATEFUL" | LISTEN
The noise boys do darkwave, with interjections of screeching industrial. This video is apt considering, with it's social media and video game bricolage. All over the place like a mind's pot overboiling with anxiety. Which, if you like the band, is sort of what you paid admission for.
▼ O. "Atm" | LISTEN
...but if you want to hear some chaos. This is order put through language translators again and again until each element's spit out in a different dialect. The sum? Acid-trip carnival music that goes so very hard. In the best way possible, it's the weird music your out of touch parents thought you were headphones-cranking as a moody teenager. You should be so lucky.
▼ Memphis LK "Black and Blue" | LISTEN
This is a kind of...techno hoedown? Less square dance and more LED paneled floor covered in confetti. The spinning dance number finds Memphis lovesick and conflicted. From 1:58 to 2:40 like a panicked crowd scan for her object of affection in the club. And the final crescendo a multi-colored joy, but is it in finding them? Or in the acceptance you don't want to?
▼ MSPAINT feat. Militarie Gun "Delete It" | LISTEN
"I, I, I, I just wanna feel it, not delete it". Alright, yes, love that sentiment. "Something realer and distinguished". Goddamn, brother. Yes, absolutely.
▼ JPEGMAFIA, Danny Brown feat. redveil "Kingdom Hearts Key" | LISTEN
"Just one time, bitch think", and that is where they got me. Considering the state of things, that line should be on bumper stickers across the world. JPEG's clarion call is merely the appetizer to his best showcase on SCARING THE HOES, both in rhyme and production. An haywire glitch fest of J-pop, acoustic guitar, and punched bass while JPEG waxes about everything from his hairline to politics. It's an amazing showcase, if you can keep up. And also, another name check for Danity Kane? What the hell was going on last year?
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The Faultless
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▼ Everything But the Girl "Nothing Left To Lose" | LISTEN
Growing up in a cynical generation degrades explanation on the things that make you happy. Online environments are built for rebuttals, not agreements, so your mind stockpiles ammunition accordingly. A war chest of negative bile stolen from the stomachs of Reddit's finest. We're fully equipped to say what bothers us about, say, prestige cinema, while offering little analysis about the merits of superhero stuff. Those "good" arguments can be cribbed too, but it's never the part shouted, right? And this isn't an audit from a self-appointed throne, either. I'm also a lab rat in the malevolent Silicon Valley maze from hell. So I guess what I'm getting at here is, please ignore the lack of analysis and enjoy this song with me while we chase some cheese. The chemists are already preparing the next batch of social cosmetics.
▼ crushed "milksugar" | LISTEN
I know I said the rankings are arbitrary, I know I said that. But if you were to put a gun to my head and force a decision, this might be my track of the year. The siren song of "waterlily" with amplified emotion by every musical metric. A purpose to it. This production is relatively sparse, there's a total of twelve bars to the lyrics, and yet somehow the compound feels huge. A musical urgency as Morell's search for her yang comes to an end. With fireworks.
▼ 100 gecs "Hollywood Baby" | LISTEN
Who is doing maximalism better than the gecs? All qualified please submit application in blood. Then get in the car and turn this all the way up, bloody fingers or not. And then reconsider your initial evaluation. And then also, fuck off. There's no way.
▼ Divorce Court "140" | LISTEN
Last year I mentioned Midwife and her ability to throw out a forlorn destroyer every few years. Something that brings you to your emotional knees. With "Brenna" in 2020 and now "140", Williams may be on that same list (with an added dance step). That outcome probably required somewhere in the small print when you name yourself Divorce Court, but lord almighty does he make it pretty. On "140", his chillwave synths and repetitions ring the trauma bell like Will Hunting in his therapist's office. Pleaing for his audience to dismiss blame and love thyself. First at a whisper, but finishing at a mountaintop shout. Melancholy broke by cathartic crescendo.
▼ Nation of Language "Sole Obsession" | LISTEN
An oil painting of analog synths. They take off from 0:00 and remain at altitude, hitting peaks so lofty they envelope the entire chorus (and song, really). Wave after wave of frequency and sequence. Noell's skill the star shining brightest, but quieter moments provide a dance floor for the bass, and Devaney hits the high vocal notes required while the drum machine plays its steadying part. The elements mixed? Perfecto. An undeniable new wave dance party.
▼ Rob Grant feat. Lana Del Rey "Lost at Sea" | LISTEN
While "A&W" made almost every best of list you could find, Lana and daddy Grant's collab track came and went unheralded. A relative footnote to a year featuring numerous accolades for her own album and music. But "Lost at Sea" taps into a familiar limerence: the patriarch's somber piano table setting while strings yo-yo and Lana remains static at low register. She is technically the "featuring" artist, but let's not kid ourselves. Her voice is a harrowing black hole to Grant's musical cosmos, and the space they're all playing in is her playground. Her arena. While everyone is in lockstep and the tune is in dad's name, this is as much a Rob Grant song as the 2015 Broncos were Peyton Manning's team.
▼ Christine and the Queens "Tears can be so soft" | LISTEN
Bold — bold — to sample Marvin Gaye. But Chris, with producers Mike Dean and Sarah Schachner, gets it right by introducing Gaye early and layering above. The hollow drums and electronic warbles tertiary to the core of sample and lyric, as Chris embraces the pain of loss and longing. The human and necessary act of shedding. A therapeutic arousal to the mind and spirit. A call to living as a present action.
▼ Body Horror "Bedwetter" | LISTEN
David Cronenberg once said: "When we talk about violence, we're talking about the destruction of the human body, and I don't lose sight of that. In general, my filmmaking is fairly body-oriented, because what you're photographing is people, bodies. You can't really photograph an abstract concept, whereas a novelist can write about that. You have to photograph something physical. So that combination of things suggests to me a particular way to deal with violence. And it's not a bad thing that people really understand what violence is. It's not, however, a politically correct thing I do. I'm not a big fan of political correctness. It's very detrimental to art in general. An artist's responsibility is to be irresponsible. As soon as you start to think about social or political responsibility, you've amputated the best limbs you've got as an artist. You are plugging into a very restrictive system that is going to push and mold you, and is going to make your art totally useless and ineffective." Body Horror's call to effective art: a dance party at the scene of a car crash.
▼ Cole Pulice "If I Don't See You in the Future, I'll See You in the Pasture" | LISTEN
I challenge you — no, I beg you — to carve out a small portion of your day and listen to this sans distraction. On a walk, in a dark room, on a night's drive home. However you want to do it, I beg of you to just try. Pulice's 20+ minute reverie is not for multi-task living. It requires attention and time for the warm oil slick of jazz ambient to permeate. When it does, and when the actual saxophone kicks in, Pulice transcends. A languid body high of staccato brass and hypnosis. While the track begins unhurried, you have now become just the same. The body a soporific statue as Pulice nutures the mind to celestial meadows. Tranquilized, but in the best way possible.
▼ Angel Du$t "Space Jam" | LISTEN
Having returned to Earth after such an odyssey, could I interest you in a sub-two minute karate kick of adrenaline? The Du$t boys somehow pack into that timeframe: a lightning-strike opening salvo of voice and punk, a bouncing mosh pit middle bridge, and a middle-fingered guitar solo at the caboose. There is little to unpack when a song simply takes over your entire body. "Never going back!" and I don't want to, either.
▼ Mother Tongues "Only You" | LISTEN
Mother Tongues visualize "Only You" with an arcade Dance Dance Revolution party. Arrowed directions and perfect attacks an interesting filter considering the song is less "PARANOiA" or "B4U", and more Give You the Ghost through a Y2K filter. The danceable, exhilarated chorus is there across all parties, but "Only You" hides something underneath. Crunchy drums and Aragoza's strained delivery non-diegetic to the LED lights and boards stomped by clunky shoe. The visuals real, the sound a memory.
▼ HAAi "ZiGGY (DJ - Kicks)" | LISTEN
If you're one of those who skipped to the bottom, welcome to the dance party! If not, then you've already been here for some time. And also if you again grabbed that gun to force a decision, HAAi's track has to be the dance anthem of the year. Fresh off the luminous Baby, We're Ascending in 2022, she didn't sacrifice an ounce of momentum into the new year. Remaining at altitude with "Ziggy (DJ - Kicks)", the four-on-the-floor pulser that's fit for a party in Zion. It's relentless. A raving spectrum from bliss to anxiety to exhilaration. Something equally effective for a celebration at the end of the world, or one in your shower. Dance away.
▼ Joy Guidry feat. Scott Li, Diego Gaeta "Day by Day" | LISTEN
There is a bizarre online movement circulating. Wherein folks are crying for films to be shorter. They've made hats, and even recruited the likes of Hollywood A-listers. In their crusade against, which movies exactly? With the middle class of films completely destroyed by the DVD market's collapse, aren't prestige films the only long ones anyway? What purpose would those being shorter serve? Were they ever short? Who are we to tell artists how long their art should be? Does everything need to be easily digestible and unchallenging? Does everything need to be a product? Does it, Rian?! That being said, this song is tortuously too short. An ensconced micro-dose. The most sublime cat nap one could ever imagine.
▼ Indigo De Souza "Younger & Dumber" | LISTEN
Another huge emotional crescendo, and this one might be the best of the lot. De Souza reflects on the snakeskin of her former self with soft strums and stretched piano. Attacking the faults she sees with eyes of glassy hindsight. What begins as judgement in "Sometimes I just don't wanna be alone/And it's not cause I'm lonely" morphs — via steel guitar and a self-love war (bass) drum — into "When I was younger/Young and dumber/I didn't know better". A crying cowboy finale of simply letting go.
▼ Fat Dog "King of the Slugs" | LISTEN
Fat Dog: the deliverers of a seven-minute greasy melting pot of distorted guitar, Middle Eastern dance, doomy synths, and operatic intermissions. "King of the Slugs" is an overload. It does not relent. Excessive and also perfectly befitting the band's energy, with a sound fully formed and unique. Like slipping the plastic off a new Lego set, opening the box up, and pulling out the bricks fully built. Except with a prismatic colorway and covered in Fat Dog stickers. Oh, and, it is inexplicably a debut single...
▼ The Last Dinner Party "Nothing Matters" | LISTEN
...to pair with this one. Like the all-girls school rebuttal to Fat Dog's craziness. The answer? Nostalgic sophistication. If the lads school pranking involved spray paint and party drugs, The Last Dinner Party's would be to cover the mascot's statue in gown and lipstick. Also debut, also fully formed sonically, but with an additive: this is big. A sound of heard aspirations. While "Nothing Matters" deals in the universal dirt of failed relationships, the band itself has bigger dreams. How to get over heartbreak? How about by becoming a goddamn rockstar.
▼ Drain "Devil's Itch" | LISTEN
Okay, maybe get that gun back in here...and not for reasons Tipper Gore would approve. Listen count on this song? Very high. Opinion of this song? Clearly, very high. Opinion of those who find nothing in this song? Do the math. That Santa Cruz dune buggy returns for a final lap. The "Devil's Itch" recipe calling for non-stop thrash, guttural bridges atop harsh critiques from Ciaramitaro's vocals, and a level of holistic propulsion unseen in the year 2023. Will that propulsion bring you through a wall like the Kool-Aid man? Perchance. You'll have your answer when you hear: "Everybody wants to put you down until they've got something to gain/Fuck you!"
▼ George Clanton "I Been Young" | LISTEN
Life is complicated. Career and money, bills and taxes, growing up and searching for what that actually means. Mistakes and misbehaviors climb as forgiveness descends. Clanton's mid-life crisis of self and age is a tenderness for himself and anyone else going through it. The ebbing and flowing keys and strings a gentle wake up to the listener. The muffled drums a hand to hold. The scratched guitar a serenade of understanding. Kitsch? Sure. But in a time of unrelenting online snark and a distanced meta-ness to everyone and everything, sentimentality is in short supply. Either way you read it, it matters little to Clanton. He's just growing old.
Part I | Part II