Last year, +rcmndedlisten forewent its usual course of publishing a Best Songs of the Year list. It didn’t feel right. These pages write so much at length about songs in their own regard on a daily basis — hundreds a year, for that matter — that overlooking them individually on their own merits didn’t do that work service, seeing that a great song doesn’t always make for a great album, and a great album doesn’t always make for a singular standout.
Rather than whelming readers with a list of 100 songs, these pages are setting the threshold concisely at 30 tracks with the needle-shifters who created the greatest impact on the culture in 2023 on where music is and where it’s going as well as the alternative culture +rcmndedlisten champions. From perfectly crafted songwriting, finessed prose and futuristic beats, the cutting edge of pop, and a new class of alt-rock anthems, these are the 30 Best Songs of 2023.
30. Scowl – “Shot Down” [Flatspot Records]
“Shot Down” is a hardcore anthem for those who can be both their biggest champions and own worst enemies. As the highlight from Scowl’s latest extended play, Psychic Dance Routine, the track’s crafty duality brings out the best of both worlds from the Santa Cruz band, combating fast thrash and vocalist Kat Moss’ feral intensity against a melodic seismic shift in spiraled second-guessing. “I feel right now / Kill you right now / Hate you right now,” she scourges her doubts. “Walk out, wanna walk out on you / I’m getting shot down.” Fears unleashed, she and Scowl are out to prove something to themselves.
29. Full Blown Meltdown – “Nothing Matters Anymore” [Self-released]
You would hope that as you grow older and (hopefully) wiser, the self-hate and weight of the world would chill out, cut you some slack, and take a break from all the battles you’ve won over them at this point in life. Instead, they stay creeping, rent-free tenants in your brain poking holes through a sound mind. This makes Full Blown Meltdown, a.k.a. the DIY-championing punk songwriter moniker of reformed metalcore guitarist Will Green, the landlord to them all on “Nothing Matters Anyway”, a manic confessional that doubles as an elder emo ode to aging and growing tired of never getting your shit together. Here, Green’s ego and id barb against one another over spikes of punk-pop riffs, ultra-caffeinated to maximize the spiral and at least turn it into a joyride. “My brain’s a prison cell / I’ve made my own personal hell,” he quips. It’s not sunshine and rainbows optimism, but then again, it’s not toxic positivity either. Everything sucks, turned into a winning jam.
28. Sarah Mary Chadwick – “Shitty Town” [Kill Rock Stars]
The star of every Sarah Mary Chadwick song is always her personality in spite of whoever or whatever the Melbourne songwriter may be throwing more than several layers of quipped shade toward. “Shitty Town” is masterful at that in her singular, brutalist form. The church of Chadwick is in full regalia here – a bad breakup, a loser of an ex, and the place you both live that becomes all the more unbearable because every corner is a reminder. “You left me a widow in my life / Except not a widow, you’re alive / With your shitty car / And that shitty town / Sleep with shitty girls / ‘Cause they’re all around,” Chadwick’s voices barges through the barroom over a humbled piano and flute, as if to call out the object of discontent at the risk of her own public embarrassment. As much as this song may sound like it’s about him and that shitty town, however, Sarah Mary Chadwick is the only one you see.
27. Sweeping Promises – “Eraser” [Feel It Records / Sub Pop]
The Lawrence-based duo of Lira Mondal and Caufiel Schnug are an infectious energy instantaneously free-flowing through their style of flash punk moves and crude, new wave synths that both filled a hole where PRIESTS once strutted, but also make you hunger more. “Eraser”, off this year’s breakthrough sophomore follow-up, Good Living Is Coming For You, finds that the more life gives you, the more questions seem to pile-up in a head where imposter syndrome lives rent-free. “She’s there before I / Have a chance to stop it / How I want to stop her / Reappearing,” Mondal casts over its racing heartbeat of propellant drums and wiry synth-punk, disquiet rising. It’s only when she takes a step back, breathes in, and lets meditation guide her away from intrusive thinking where it disappears. “Erase it away,” she sings, again becoming master of her own mind’s domain.
26. Mannequin Pussy – “I Got Heaven” [Epitaph Records]
Marisa Dabice, full of fury, the Lord is with thee. In the face of those who weaponize Christianity for the lesser of mankind, the true intentions of the Good Word can be heard more so — and in filthier words, at that — from the spirit to her lips on Mannequin Pussy’s “I Got Heaven”. “And what if we stopped spinning? / And what if we’re just flat? / And what if Jesus himself ate my fucking snatch?,” she bites back at modern religious rhetoric. With a candy-coated spite that positions the lush, Philly indie punks as an even less polite answer to Oliva Rodrigo’s alternative pop fuck-offs, hearing Dabici and company shove the Bible right down the throats of zealots and then some goes down hard, but it goes down well. No preached it better in 2023 than these phreaks, and if Jesus wept, then they were tears of joy over hearing someone get his message right.
25. Lifeguard – “17-18 Lovesong” [Matador Records]
The thing that appeals to your listening experience most when listening to Lifeguard, one of many bands at the forefront of Chicago’s next gen of rockists, is in each’s no-fear-no-rules approach to making music discordant and formless, which in turn has been rendering some of the more wilder moves in guitar rock in way too long of a time. “17-18 Lovesong”, from Lifeguard’s latest EP and Matador debut, Dressed In Trenches, is just that right kind of head boggling energy that proves why a fresh perspective from the trio of guitarist and vocalist Kai Slater, bassist and vocalist Asher Case, and drummer Isaac Lowenstein is the answer to breaking indie rock out of its monotonous, middling malaise. Lyrically obtuse in its seemingly teenage romance and sonically oblique in design, Lifeguard circle electrical currents with a pull and push intensity. “S-E-N-S-A,” Slater spells out and sparks thought, before clashing all instrumentally in delightful noise for anyone with an appreciation for a love song exploded.
24. Hannah Diamond – “Affirmations” [PC Music]
Hannah Diamond has been PC Music’s brightest pop purist to an unsung degree across the past several years, and as the storied experimental pop collective comes closer to writing its final chapter, it’s a promising sign that even when it does, Diamond is getting an even brighter shine moving forward. Refer to “Affirmations”, the highlight from the UK songwriter and visual artist’s sophomore album, Perfect Picture. “I am building my own world / I’m a business woman and my own CEO / I will always be enough / I mean a lot to all my friends and I will never give up,” she proclaims in a switch-up from the sad-girl-trapped-inside-her-phone aesthetic to the scribe of a self-love synth-pop anthem living her best life out loud independently. The listen’s sprites of bubblegum Europop production equally has the power to outlast any and all negative energy.
23. Ratboys – “The Window” [Topshelf Records]
“The Window” defines the purpose of a centerpiece and title track from Ratboys’ latest album of the same name. The pain and pane of “The Window” hears emotions wrought in arguably their most truest to life — and death — form. Many of the words here were culled from the final moments vocalist Julia Steiner’s grandfather spoke to her grandmother before her passing, albeit, through an open window in her nursing home room due to pandemic COVID restrictions. “So take this part of me / Carry it with you / Wherever it leads / Don’t be scared,” she sings, acoustic and twang swelling into a countryside field of electricity built around memory, with her voice being just the right warm comfort of lilted melancholia for these kind of really hard moments.” Sue, you’ll always be my girl.” If there were ever a love story to aspire to, Ratboys have given us a real one to feel, even when you close your eyes.
22. Mary Jane Dunphe – “Always Gonna Be The Same” [Pop Wig]
Mary Jane Dunphe is an artist of multitudes, having been the force behind the raw power punk of Vexx and Gen Pop, the outlines of dreams in CCFX and CC Dust, and the wandering post-country of the County Liners. On her own standing with her debut solo album, Stage of Love, she becomes something entirely else. “Once you know you’re in control” the experimental pop scene songwriter reminds us on “Always Gonna Be The Same”, you understand there are ways to release yourself from it all. In turn, the listen is a spectacular oddity of synth-pop in constant evolution where colors and shapes form, move, and burst in response to any stagnation. “It’s always gonna be the same / Until you let it go.” What is blocking your ability to do so may not be on board with that, but you don’t need its permission. Choosing freedom opens up an entirely new worldview, and in Dunphe’s case, a boundless sonic exploration with it.
21. Mitski – “Heaven” [Dead Oceans]
At this stage, we need not Mitski to astound us with grand gestures of festival-sized art pop ambition to win our love. She has been to that mountain, and her humble finesse in songwriting will do as much gazing wonder. With “Heaven”, the non-viral highlight from The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We, the fault is in her stars in this simple swoon of country balladeering that compliments match the album’s very American motif. Adorned in twanging guitars and a twilight waltz, simple elegance comes easy even when love’s radical nature makes a mess out of you. “Now I bend like a willow / Thinkin’ of you / Like a murmurin’ brook / Curvin’ about you,” she sings. “As I sip on the rest of the coffee you left / A kiss left of you.” Its taste is bitter but sweet, but not yet cold.
20. Mandy, Indiana – “Pinking Shears” [Fire Talk]
Pinking shears are the altered beast of the scissor world, created not with a straight-edge design but rather saw-toothed blades that create jagged patterns in whatever they cut. “Pinking Shears” is the sonic manifestation of this sharpened device through Mandy, Indiana’s industrial noise-punk as the Manchester band contends with the apocalyptic futility of our current existence. In one direction, there are varying electrical currents running errant in their incongruent paths, and in others, guitars grating in rash while rhythm attempts to stabilize amid the chaos. Valentine Caulfield, in her French frustration, speaks as the voice of the world, spinning out as disarray hastens in momentum. “J’suis fatiguée tu sais pas c’que j’suis fatiguée / Ce monde de merde m’a épuisée.” Fuck, we’re all tired with her.
19. Armand Hammer – “Woke Up and Asked Siri How I’m Gonna Die” [Fat Possum]
When we talk about Armand Hammer, there’s the natural inclination to talk about how Elucid and billy woods are masters of their respective flows. “Woke Up and Asked Siri How I’m Gonna Die” doesn’t deny that fact. In fact, it only reinforces that argument, because really, how can these two keep twisting and contorting words bar after bar to effortless effect with that song title as your foundational thesis. This does go a few dimensions further, however, between their respective rhymes and its woozy, free-floating production from JPEGMAFIA creating an other-worldly kind of chemistry that only the right elements mixing together can concoct in a beat with nothing else around to catch up to it. Levitating from death, Armand Hammer are far out there.
18. MSPAINT – “Titan of Hope” [Convulse Records]
“We’re not scared anymore!,” proclaims Deedee on MSPAINT’s “Titan of Hope”. As the centerpiece call to action from the band’s debut LP, Post American, the Hattiesberg cyborgcore band bring a full arsenal to take on societal damnation on this one: A big bassline, synthetic electrical charge, blast anthem drums and breakdown, and driving the point home through a big bar-heavy hook. “Let your mind out / Just might find out / My mind set is a titan of hope.” In their path to a higher energy, you’ll connect to everything within the realization of the self.
17. Shamir – “Oversized Sweater” [Kill Rock Stars]
The songwriting polymath prowess of Shamir knows no bounds and you have to respect the audacity in it all. “Oversized Sweater” is as lived in and welcoming as its name would suggest, and discovers a newfound sense of pop grounding in his creative path after many transitional phases in a multiverse of genres, genders, and getting unstuck from life itself. Lyrically, it’s perhaps one of Shamir’s most relatable breakups to date, right down to the sound of a soon-to-be-ex drowning out the sound of his Peacock subscription. “Some people last a week / Last a month or last a lifetime / And you never know how long / They’ll stay till the end.” Total downer there that justifies getting higher than Mariah’s head, but knit between it is a comforting feel for modern alternative pop-rock aesthetics that hit just right.
16. Kelela – “Contact” [Warp Records]
In the opening moments of “Contact”, Kelela sets not only the scene but the vibe you’ll be experiencing from every second thereout. “We’re taking a ride, 405 through the west side / We’re party to party, it’s late but we’re wide awake / The bass in my body, I’m sinking it’s so wide / Time is surreal, now I’m floating in outer space.” As the centripetal highlight off her second studio album, RAVEN, the physical emotions her breath induces over a high-speed trance-built beat is as every bit as critical an element as the motion itself, moving fast and freely through the sauna heat its skin-on-skin friction produces.
15. Big Thief – “Vampire Empire” [4AD]
“Vampire Empire” originally premiered on national television, since becoming a live favorite among Big Thief’s cult of fans, and officially enters our realm by way of the experimental indie-folk rockers’ ongoing creative metamorphosis which has rendered prolificity as their consistent strength. It’s also a listen which continues to result in tiny details in their sound becoming all the more fixating by way of embracing unkempt corners, mirroring the very unkempt corners of Adrienne Lenker’s relational frustrations. “You give me chills / I’ve had it with the drills / I am nothing, you are nothing, we are nothing with the pills,” her voice frays at the nerves from the friction, and the music itself — a slow, rickety stomp where every passing moment applies pressure onto its nuts and bolts, becomes increasingly more loosened — leading to its eventual collapse and fall. A magnetic one at that.
14. Sufjan Stevens – “Will Anybody Ever Love Me?” [Asthmatic Kitty]
Saint Sufjan of the Eternal Flame of Sorrow doesn’t soften evidently no matter how much wisdom one acquires over age, and on “Will Anybody Ever Love?”, the heart is a burning pyre the songwriter continues searching an extinguish from. “Tie me to a tiny wooden raft / Burn my body, point me to the undertow / Push me off into the void at last,” he sings, near-defeated and desperate for an answer. Finger-plucked acoustic mind-spindling is a thing of muscle memory weaving familiar introspections of youthful desires, and the grandeur of synthetic orchestration with vocalists adrienne maree brown, Hannah Cohen, and Megan Lu entering its view is that imagined moment of his fire meeting the cool of water’s embrace. “Will anybody ever love me? / In every season / Pledge allegiance to my heart.” Alas, the dream is not reality — made all the more stark by Stevens’ dedication of Javelin to his late partner — but still, he burns brightly as a single flame in the dark.
13. L’Rain – “Pet Rock” [Mexican Summer]
Taja Cheek is really saying the part out loud about modern guitar music that too many are cowardly to admit: There’s a lot of rock music out there but that it “kind of all sounds the same.” Going one level deeper, L’Rain is taking that on as a creative challenge with “Pet Rock”, a standout from her faceted third LP, I Killed Your Dog, where the Brooklyn multi-instrumentalist asserts that if she’s going to being throwing shade, she’s going to show the rest of the music world just how it’s done. The listen is a mind-warp while continuing to excavate the pop delirium of 2021’s breakthrough effort, Fatigue, and emotional vacancies. What begins with a sunrise of psychedelic pop-rock turns into something more macabre, like watching your flesh melt from bone as she turns up the heat on where her electrical waves. “Like a dead girl with shades on propped up by captors / I’m fire,” she sings in its outro. “I’ve got no one to talk to / It’s all my fault I know.” But being different never guaranteed anyone good company, anyhow.
12. Yaeji – “For Granted” [XL Recordings]
It’s taken a few years for it to fully hit Yaeji’s greater energy, but her new reality as one of electronic music’s most constructive sounds finally sinks in on “For Granted”. “When I think about it / I don’t even know / How it got to be this way / How it got to be so good,” she muses in its opening moments, a slow kinesis of minimalist beat production moving through a cooler airstream. It’s a more tempered pace from the Brooklyn-based Korean-American songwriter and producer who previously has set particles in motion without hesitation. “Am I saying thank you? / Am I enjoying it too? / Am I taking it for granted?,” she wonders, only to release the pressure building. “Let it go.” And with that, Yaeji gives herself permission to move with that fast energy.
11. SZA – “Kill Bill” [Top Dawg Entertainment / RCA Records]
If it were any other person, we might be questioning the sanity of the person who could put to pen and into one of the year’s biggest hits the murder fantasy that is “Kill Bill”. It’s SZA, though, and in all of the obsessive details surrounding her channeling of Tarantino in this jilted-lover-gone-revenge-mode lullaby, there’s just the right amount of swagger and grace in her song to disarm you at the front door as she waltzes right through to carry out the mission. The listen itself is a clinic in meeting the mood in its equally off-balance detuning of an R&B ballad that wraps itself right around SZA’s warped murderous thoughts. “I might kill my ex, I still love him though / Rather be in jail than alone,” she sings. In her defense, he made her do it, and do it in flawless style execution she did.
10. Militarie Gun – “Very High” [Loma Vista Recordings]
It’s doesn’t have to be 4/20 somewhere in order to get that limitless feeling that hits whenever Militarie Gun breaks through yours speakers. The band has been chasing that feeling through the daily horror shows of life in extended play form, and ultimately arrives at a chillout point tempering existentialism on “Very High”, the standout from the Los Angeles quintet’s debut LP, Life Under The Gun. This isn’t an instance of self-pep talk that’ll just lead to toxic positivity down the line, though. Though it’s sun-lit punk-pop riffs cranking their way through the rough of subliminal hardcore angst (add in a signature “OoH! OoH!”,) Ian Shelton’s way of lifting himself up from the lows is escapism that sets the world out of view entirely. “I’ve been feeling pretty down / So I get very high,” he sings. Maybe it isn’t the answer, but it sure as makes for a great imitation of life that gets you through the day unscathed.
9. Hotline TNT – “I Thought You’d Change” [Third Man Records]
Will Anderson can’t just get over it. He needs to work through his emotions and write a great song where his feelings from the experience can stick before moving on. “I Thought You’d Change Your Mind” can be filed under the category of “situationships,” with Anderson’s thoughts bouncing back and forth between knowing what he wants and questioning if it’s the right call. “Cartwheel / We’re riding on our heels / No deal / A kiss would make it real,” his mixed signals sing out. The only sure thing for him to grab onto are the listen’s hook before landing on a cushioned swirl of lo-fi-drenched guitar pop. It feels like the natural landing spot for a head perpetually spinning in itself.
8. boygenius – “Not Strong Enough” [Interscope Records]
When boygenius’ name popped on this past year’s Coachella poster in big font days before the songwriting supergroup would even announce the arrival of their long-anticipated debut album, you had to wonder how the respective insular styles of Julien Baker, Lucy Dacus, and Phoebe Bridgers would translate onto an entire polo field of devout worshippers. “Not Strong Enough”, the absolute standout from the record, is where the trio meet the moment with the best of their dynamics converging into a perfect pop-rock song, collecting their answers to Sheryl Crow’s question with their own takes on what it is to fall short in love. It’s those little details that make up for it, down to Julien singing about listening to the Cure and the way guitars blend the referential post-punk sounds beautifully into their timeless alternative pop, proving boygenius have always been up to the task.
7. Olivia Rodrigo – “get him back!” [Geffen Records]
Not to overlook the fetes of when Olivia Rodrigo writes one of her signature bloodsucker power ballads or gets deprecatingly fun with falling back into bad habits, but it’s starting to become more obvious that the alternative pop-star’s ultimate standouts are the ones where she bites back hardest. “get him back!” is GUTS‘ answer to the vengeance anthem by way of song à la SOUR‘s “good 4 u” which Rodrigo can only twist around her finger in a case of an ex in double entendre and a perfection of genre cross-pollination. Lip-smacked punk-pop meets Beastie Boys bombast gets bridged with the cool head of Lou Reed in this well-spotted uppercut from Rodrigo that leaves whoever the loser is that led her on regretting the play, and then some.
6. Strange Ranger – “She’s On Fire” [Fire Talk Records]
Amorphous in their designs of alternative rock and experimental electronic departures of physical matter, Strange Ranger are fully engulfed by their own desires to be of a sensation beyond what they’ve already created with “She’s On Fire”. Vocalist and guitarist Isaac Eiger, vocalist and synthesist Fiona Woodman, bassist Nathan Tucker, and drummer Fred Nixon form as one bond of electricity that burns to its hottest point, metaphorically doubling as the embodiment of a common perception we have in this lifetime: That enlightenment is a due given, eventually. The source of ignition is surely there, with its early chemical reaction — an arpeggio synthesis of cosmic energy — converges to create one surprising galaxy brain realization upon reaching climax. “I would have thought the rhythm of the club might lead me somewhere.” It’s a new level, but only one that begets the knowledge that there will always been another one to come.
5. crushed – “waterlily” [The Funeral Party]
crushed coalesces together Shaun Durkan, frontperson and guitarist of the late Aughts-era post-shoegazeers Weekend, with Bre Morell, vocalist of rising dream-pop-rockers Temple of Angels. Together on extra life highlight, “waterlily”, the pair break open a new portal in the atmosphere where forward experimentation dips trip-hop and glossed dubbed alterna-pop production into the sweet tastes of a lovers’ euphoria, pulling the feeling close to this earth. “Glowing in the center of the darkest pond / You’re all I’ve ever wanted,” Morell’s vocals whisper over a cascading sky before its outro breaks into fragments. They’re creating a space that promises to keep you and you alone close, and you can trust in that feeling.
4. Lana Del Rey – “A&W” [Interscope / Polydor Records]
Lana Del Rey’s best work has always been that which casually toes her own explicit edgelord status. Throw in the self-mythology the songwriter has written chapters on end about throughout her career, and “A&W” serves as the most profound rendering of her id. The soundboard conflates her career-arch as well, lyrically evolving its way from an innocent ingénue into the strong sex positive woman with a lust for life and getting laid. “Call him up, come into my bedroom / Ended up, we fuck on the hotel floor / It’s not about having someone to love me anymorе / This is the experiеnce of bein’ an American whore,” she crassly professes through deafening echoes. As the listen moves through a warped, two-part psych-folk-tronic journey that hears her breathe its chorus vividly to life before meeting up with Jimmy, you’d be fucking up big time not to acknowledge this as Lana at her best.
3. Water From Your Eyes – “Barley” [Matador Records]
Water From Your Eyes’ rise as one of Brooklyn’s most uncanny experimental art pop acts from tiny independent labels like Exploding In Sound and Wharf Cat Records to mega indie Matador Records is without a doubt giving the masses something to ponder more carefully the next time they put their ear up to the stereo with “Barley”. It’s the duo of Rachel Brown and Nate Amos’ closest attempt to meet them in the middle with everything that they’ve done yet, interloping the spirit of Kim Gordon in lyric, pop tropes, rock culture deconstructed, and their own fingerprints of sonic collages that rearrange the shape of rhythm. Though assembled from particle matter, the listen captures modern media, alternative subversions, and being advantageously capitalistic within the same atom, imploded.
2. Caroline Polachek – “Welcome To My Island” [Perpetual Novice]
Caroline Polachek was made for warm weather climates on the destination escape “Welcome To My Island”, the opening climax from the art-pop enigma’s sophomore solo effort, Desire, I Want To Turn Into You. Working alongside Olivia Rodrigo’s right-hand, Dan Nigro, as well as Danny L Harle, A. G. Cook, and Jim E-Stack, her sound here percolates millennium-era pop-rock, the euphoric ecstasy of her Chairlift past, and as always, a future only invented in her vision. “You gotta go somewhere where you can’t pretend / Forget the rules, forget your friends / Just you and your reflection / ‘Cause nothing’s gonna be the same again.” Nor will pop music ever be.
1. billy woods & Kenny Segal feat. Samuel T. Herring – “Facetime” [Backwoodz Studioz]
Listeners idealize tour life as being something of a luxury. The destinations it brings our favs seem like they would be just that, but the realities are more like a gradual drain on the brain and the body. New York City underground’s finest flow finesser and one half of Armand Hammer, billy woods, alongside producer Kenny Segal, sketch it all out on “Facetime”. The miasma of touring is focalized in its bars and soundscape, a necessary juxtaposition of disorientating play-by-plays of a day in the life. Segal’s beats create a blanket of blinkering light that refracts off woods’ dizzy of senses while Future Islands frontman Samuel T. Herring puts the perspective even more into frame with its hook. “Nothin’ out in Texas feels like weeks on the road / Pissin’ Mississippi, stopped in New Mexico / I ain’t seen my folks / And strangely I feel right at home on my own.” It’s a grind trying to live in the moment doing what you love, especially in a year where the industry of it all made making an honest living continued to work against its creators. You’re mostly out their on your own, making those missed calls hit even harder.
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