NEW MUSIC FOR OLDS #47
The 2023 (post) Holiday Listacular!
In the words of Jason Dean, greetings and salutations.
I hope you had a lovely holiday season. My dad came to town and we saw Spamalot!, watched my wife figure skate in Central Park and engaged in all of your traditional NYC tourist activities.
As promised, it’s now time to travel back in time, all the way to the year 2023.
Music publications traditionally issue their year-end wrap ups prior to, you know, the end of the year (funny how that works). Much like CVS holiday decorations, best-of lists are nudging earlier and earlier on the calendar, often as soon as as Thanksgiving. This practice should be banned by law. Won’t someone think about the poor early-December releases? I hereby decree: no year-end lists until 12/15. So let it be written, so let it be done.
Ever the iconoclast, I’ve managed to extend List Season into January. Before I get to my personal faves, a few thoughts on year-end lists, in general.
These goofy things are obviously meant to inspire debate. And, the internet being what it is, the debate itself becomes something to debate. Like a rhetorical MC Escher, I will take things one step further by debating the debate of the debate.
I love reading what other music fans are digging, especially when the writer isn’t overly beholden to The Narrative. By that, I mean music culture that isn’t literally about music. It’s fashion, it’s reinvention, it’s controversy—it’s the ongoing conversation about which artists are “vital” and for how long. It’s everything from Dylan going electric to Madonna and Britney kissing at the VMA’s.
I’m aware that I use “The Narrative” quite a bit, often as some sort of catch-all bogeyman. I do wish music writing focused more on songwriting, arrangement and performance, but it’s a package deal and that’s fine. My (repetitive?) complaint is that many contemporary music writers are too concerned with being in alignment with The Narrative, rather than shaping it by advocating for their own discoveries. It’s reactive and uncurious. And nowhere does this timidity rear its head more than in year-end lists.
This tweet caused as bit of defensive consternation among music writers I follow.
Twitter no longer makes it easy to embed tweets1, but the screenshots are of disparate year-end lists that miraculously settled on the same few songs as the year’s “best”—specifically, Lana Del Ray’s “A&W” and “Boy’s a liar Pt. 2” by Pink Pantheress and the ubiquitous Ice Spice. See for yourself.
SIDEBAR: Has there been a less charismatic megastar than Ice Spice? Bland, monotonous flow and the dead-eyes of a TSA agent at the end of a double shift.
To be fair, Lana Del Ray also sports a famously blank demeanor. Call it a cultural moment—Xanaxcore? But with Lana, the “world-weary ingenue” thing is well-crafted artistic persona. I quite like a few of her songs, but I’ve always maintained that LDR is more interesting to analyze than listen to—hence her elevated status among people who write for a living.
SIDEBAR OF SIDEBAR: I just sneered dismissively at two accomplished female artists. Have I earned my Whiny Middleaged Dude badge?
Anyhoooooo…
Music Twitter took issue with this overwrought but innocuous tweet in a variety of ways, which you can read for yourself by searching “cloying, suffocating monoculture” (my safewords btw). The primary argument seems to be “Well, those are the best songs of 2023,” which…okay. Obviously, this shit is subjective. But in this era of digital abundance, with an endless buffet of music at our fingertips, it seems odd that folks who consume far more music than the average bear would independently land on the same handful of songs. It tells me something else is at play.
By my estimation, most professional music writers are between the ages of 30 and 50, so they have at least some memory of a time when access to new music was funneled through MTV and terrestrial radio and Sam Goody. To my reading, the original tweet-er was observing a real phenomenon, but misinterpreting it. These “best of” redundancies are not proof of a monoculture, but of the Bloggerati’s romantic (but doomed) desire to recreate one.
It’s nice that an infinite jukebox is now available to each of us for a flat monthly fee, but the Streaming Era is isolating and lonely. Human beings crave community and, to an extent, direction. That’s what inspires “hives”, “stans” and various other forms toxic fandom. Well, that and everyone’s loathsome need to cultivate a personal brand—but that’s a subject for a different newsletter.
I’m boring myself. The point is, my year-end lists will do nothing to align you with any larger cultural phenomena. They’re just songs (and movies and TV shows) I stumbled across while scouring the never-ending digital coastline with my imaginary metal detector2. No “cred” will be awarded, for I have none to offer. And honestly, if you were hoping to get the inside scoop from a 50 year-old who adores Panera Bread and twice saw Starlight Express on Broadway, god help you.
In was about to type “without further ado”, but then I realized that there is, in fact, a bit more ado:
With that out of the way…
My Favorite Songs of 2023
As devoted NMFO readers, these songs will be familiar to you. Wait, you’re telling me you don’t download and obsess over every song I write about, as a matter of course?? Gotta say, that hurts.
Nevertheless:
Genesis Owusu, “Leaving the Light”
The Lemon Twigs, “What You Were Doing”
Young Fathers, “I Saw”
Califone, “Villagers”
dd Toby Leaman, “Military Applications”
Corook, “CGI”
Jeremy Dutcher, “Take My Hand”
Howling Giant, “Siren Song”
Youth Lagoon, “Rabbit”
Tor, “emily i’ll do it tonight”
Jesus Piece, “FTBS”
Descartes A Kant, “After Destruction”
Harp, “I Am the Seed”
Say She She, “Forget Me Not”
Jeff Rosenstock, “Future is Dumb”
HEALTH, “HATEFUL” [Feat. Sierra]
Olivia Rodrigo, “Vampire”
July Talk, “Hold”
100 Gecs, “The Most Wanted Person in the United States”
Jobi Riccio, “For Me it’s You”
This playlist on Apple Music // This playlist on Amazon Music
My Favorite Albums of 2023
Tor, tor tape — Song-wise, Tor barely cracked my top ten. But this entire album (released on 12/1, ahem!) is “a mood”, as the kids say. It quiets my brain while also engaging it. A perfect “set it and forget it” album.
The Lemon Twigs, Everything Harmony — My personal connection to this band notwithstanding, indie rock thought leaders agree that Everything Harmony is the sunniest album of 2023!
Califone, Villagers — An all-time top ten artist for me. An acquired taste I highly recommend acquiring.
Arc Iris, We Found Home — Like Califone, a band with its own musical language. Best enjoyed in album form.
Young Fathers, Heavy Heavy — An artist seemingly unconstrained by traditional notions of what a “band” is supposed to look/sound like. One of one.
Wilco, Cousin — More of this, Mr. Tweedy, please and thank you.
River Tiber, Dreaming Eyes — Groovy and hallucinogenic.
Olivia Rodrigo, Guts — I really like this album. Does that make me a creep?
HEALTH, Rat Wars — Break out the rubber pants and nipple clamps!
Youth Lagoon, Heaven is a Junkyard — You want intimacy? I got yer intimacy…right here!
Given the amount of crossover, this playlist is comprised of different songs than those I wrote about in NMFO.
This playlist on Apple Music // This playlist on Amazon Music
Did you know I do things other than listen to music? It’s true!
My Favorite Films of 2023
I didn’t see as many new movies in 2023 as in years past—around twenty-five, by my estimate. I was tempted to insert Poor Things as my #1, despite not yet having seen it—I’m just that confident. What can I say, I have Yorgos Lanthimos fever!
Other films I’ll be getting around to sooner or later: Oppenheimer, Beau is Afraid, The Holdovers, The Iron Claw
Dream Scenario
Across the Spiderverse
Asteroid City
Barbie
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
Leave the World Behind*
Killers of the Flower Moon
Air
Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning, Pt. 1
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
ADDENDUM: I struggle with my feelings about Leave the World Behind. I almost turned it off within five minutes, the dialogue was so ham-fisted. Then I was absolutely riveted for two hours. There are a few scenes that are as tense as anything since Children of Men. By the end, I was back to rolling my eyes and, a full week later, I can’t stop picking it apart. For better or worse, it’s the 2023 movie that will stick with me the longest.
My Favorite TV of 2023
Slightly embarrassed by the amount of television I watched this year. And if I was being completely honest, “Survivor” would be somewhere on this list. But if you were making a list of the best meals you had in 2023, would you include the time you got super high and rapturously devoured a Popeyes three-piece combo?
“The Great”
“Succession”
“Barry”
“Fargo”
“The Last of Us”
“Silo”
“Slow Horses”
“Poker Face”
“The Diplomat”
“The Righteous Gemstones”
“Party Down”
“Only Murders in the Building”
“Lockwood & Co.”
“Monarch: A Legacy of Monsters”
“Cunk on Earth”
The Substack bot just informed me that I’m “near email length limit”, so let’s wrap this up. Free subscribers, I’ll be back next week with a few songs I discovered by scouring other people’s year-end lists. Turns out I missed some great stuff! The rest of youse, I’ll see in two weeks, with three brand new songs (and some assorted jibber-jabber) in tow.
ONWARD INTO 2024 (shudder)!
Always “Twitter”, always “tweets”
Strained metaphor alert!
I didn’t do my own list this year - other than a sort of best of my weekly playlists - because I’m not sure that these lists mean anything. You’ve put your finger on the problem - lists can be hive mind, follow the pack, listings of what marketing have decided we’re supposed to like this year.
Yet there is value in your own music list - several songs there I want to follow up on, so there is value when we can move beyond being a human algorithm.
I often fall into writing about matters other than the music, the performance, the song. There’s a place for considering wider personal and cultural issues, but the bedrock is music and a challenge for me - us as writers - this year is to focus more on Music with a capital ‘M’.
Great post, thank you.
This year Spotify gave me the "compliment" that I only listen to my own playlists "because they're great!" Hmmm. I think they're mad I don't listen to what they want me to listen to.
Last year, I figured out a few things about Spotify's algorithm and how popular things are popular because they are popular. I bet that Lana del Ray song is "the best" because it was popular. I wrote a thing about how my top artist last year was not someone I ever chose to listen to. https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2023/03/20/how-to-be-a-spotify-top-artist/
Anyway - thanks for your (actually meaningful) lists!