2023 was weaker than I would have liked for music but the singles list is as strong as any and astonishingly varied. The final five that I brought it down to are not content merely to differ from each other but each cover vast swathes of ground individually. Any one of these songs is a journey, together they suffice to represent a year that never seemed to end.
5. Käärijä – Cha Cha Cha
It’s only fitting then that the first song comes from the start of the year. Not to relitigate the past but Käärijä was robbed at Eurovision. Firstly, this song is everything you want from Eurovision. I don’t watch it for generic ballads, I watch it for the experience and “Cha Cha Cha” is certainly an experience.
It’s not just the breaking open the box or the silhouette with the tongue though. The best thing about the song is the tone shift two thirds in. That’s what takes this song from Eurovision meme to something special. It’s unexpected but seamless and adds dimension to the dancing man, taking him from insubstantial to resonant and the song from joke to banger.
4. Esparanza Spalding and Fred Hersch – Girl Talk
I have never seen a cover so completely devour the original as this version of “Girl Talk.” Spalding and Hersch take a rather flimsy standard from the 60s and consume the misogyny of the original to create something subversive and feminist.
Spalding is friendly and conversational throughout this and her humor is absurdly effective. She’s too sharp to need blunt force and each of her dagger points slip in with ease. This is the most relaxed dismemberment that I’ve ever seen.
3. 100 gecs – Dumbest Girl Alive
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the alternative rock of the 00s is a cultural wasteland. It constantly shocks me then how much material current musicians are able to draw from it. Of course, there are no rules for 100 gecs. They take what they want and they do what they want and make music their forebears could never have dreamed of.
They’re also just much funnier than they have any right to be. “Put emojis on my grave / I’m the dumbest girl alive” is excellent set-up and the eventual pay-off of “Text, text, text, text like you’re tryna start a fight / Yeah, I’ll fucking text you back, I’m the dumbest girl alive” kills every time.
2. Peso Pluma – LADY GAGA
Peso Pluma is easily the most exciting sound of 2023 and “LADY GAGA” is where you should start with them. This is Mexican regional music for the current moment. It’s so deeply rooted in corridos and yet sounds so modern. There’s no confusing it for reggaeton or trap but there’s also no way to confuse Peso Plume with a mariachi band either. This sound could only have come in 2023 and Peso Pluma himself is very much a child of the present day. It’s what makes it so exciting to see what he does next.
1. Sufjan Stevens – Shit Talk
“Shit Talk” is the culmination of a career and heartbreak at its most visceral. I’ve heard it countless times over the past year and it still breaks me every time. Great art resists the flattening of human experience so natural to the prosaic concerns of daily life. It complicates and textures experiences that would otherwise collapse into trope. “Shit Talk” is beautiful and crushing and quite easily the best music of 2023.
Top Five Records 