Going through the natural progression of all things, when first come albums, songs must follow. Like the last few years, I’ve listed 100 favorite songs total: alphabetically listing 90 of them and then ranking my Top 10 below that. There’s no way I can rank 100 songs in order. I know some people who can. I respect them for it, and tremble in their resolve.
Looking back on my Best Songs of 2022 post, I wrote that I felt I had become more disconnected to the general “consensus” of universally loved songs across the indie-sphere. That trend became more severe this year, although any adept listener in 2023 will surely recognize most tracks on this list. I’m not reinventing the wheel, or presenting many new ideas to the table. I just was kind of dissatisfied with a lot of the overwhelming critical favorites that dominated this year.
What you’ll find below is a melange of indie pop with heavy grooves, electrifying house and dance music, two appearances by Danny Brown, some familiar faces and longtime favorites of the blog, some newcomers, and yes, I could not resist including a track off the new collection of World of Echo-era Arthur Russell cuts Picture of Bunny Rabbit. If I dig deeper potentially I could make a “favorite archival, reissue and compilation releases” list to really go full nerd mode, but that would likely come later in 2024. Also I’m including both Parts 1 + 2 of Blonde Redhead’s “Sit Down For Dinner”, because you can’t have just one. It’s my blog and I can make up the rules if I want to. But enough yapping, plenty of listening to be done below. I hope you enjoy and find something new you love.
Listen along with the Warm Visions’ Top Songs of 2023 Spotify playlist HERE.
- ACTIVE SURPLUS – “Emote Control”
Try to resist the urge to breakdance until the squelchy, acid-like bass come in, then it’s game over. - ALAN PALOMO – “Stay-At-Home DJ”
The most popular song from the Yoshi’s Island soundtrack. - AMAARAE – “Co-Star”
I do not care about astrology unless amaarae is talking about it. - ANDREA – “Remote Working”
Sure enough this is what working from home sounds like when you’re hacking into mainframes on a daily basis. - ANNA B SAVAGE – “Pavlov’s Dog”
Panting, waiting, salivating, and you’ll be whipped up along with it. - ARTHUR RUSSELL – “Picture Of Bunny Rabbit”
Many walks in July getting my brain rearranged by this remarkable feat of a track. Yes this song was recorded in the 1980s. It was released this year. Get off my back. - ASHER WHITE – “Mare”
Twinkling and chiming like a homemade sanctuary, sun pouring in at every angle on well-loved cushions and blankets. - A.S.O. – “Love In The Darkness”
I included this on my playlist Winter Jacket Love Letter, so go listen to that as well. - BAMBII – “WICKED GYAL (feat. Lady Lykez)”
TURN UP!!! I’M ON A WICKED GYAL TING!! - BART – “Rose Quartz”
With a rhythm section like this one, there’s no way you could lose. Smoky and hypnotic.
~~ - BERNICE – “No Effort To Exist”
The bird in the evening just exists. - BILLY WOODS & KENNY SEGAL – “Year Zero (feat. Danny Brown)”
Sooner or later it’s gonna be two unrelated active shooters. Same place, same time, great minds. - BLONDE REDHEAD – “Sit Down For Dinner, Part 1 & Part 2”
Part 1: yearning, mystery, shrieks into the void. Part 2: an echo’s answer, release, a return to warmth, flushed capillaries. - BOMBINO – “Si Chilan”
Got to listen to this one in the car for the first time the other day and I was DEEP head-bobbing the whole time. Got a Khruangbin groove but it’s actually interesting. - BRAIDS – “Evolution”
Gotta give shine to one of the greatest modern synth pop groups. - CAROLINE POLACHEK – “Sunset”
High drama that sticks the landing. Let’s ride away. - CHUQUIMAMANI-CONDORI – “Breathing”
A revelatory start to a record unlike any other. A celebration. - CLEO SOL – “Reason”
There’s got to be more believing. A warm light cutting through gray clouds. - COLE PULICE – “If I Don’t See You In The Future, I’ll See You In The Pasture”
Divine meditation, 22 minutes of centering. - COLIN STETSON – “The Lighthouse II (feat. Brighde Chaimbeul)”
Similar to the track above, cleansing, a fire to send one away. Cathartic in a way that shows us that ancient music traditions naturally loved drone music and we should return to our roots.
~~ - COURTESY – “You’re Not Alone (feat. Erika de Casier & August Rosenbaum)”
Faraway stadium lighting faintly illuminating a dewey knoll, revealing a face in pulsating intervals. - CRUSHED – “Waterlily”
A song that sounds like a cool older sibling would show you and then never talk to you again. - DADÁ JOÃOZINHO – “VEJA”
Intoxicating in its ambitiousness, and its chaos. - DUSK – “Don’t Let Them Tell You”
Don’t let them tell you what you can’t do. YOU CAN DO THIS. - EDSEL AXLE – “Some Answer”
A heartbreaking, instrumental observation of a broken-winged bird attempt to take flight, a beautiful display of fiery passion. - ESTHER ROSE – “Spider”
Oh but I’m not helpless and I’m not scared, flex my wings and I’m back in the air. - FAITH HEALER – “Stranger”
The swaggering confidence that we could all use a thick dose of on occasion. Continually skirting the line of disaster but never quite getting there. - FEEBLE LITTLE HORSE – “Sweet”
A bold statement from a band that shows you they can do pretty much anything they’d like and it’ll sound incredible. - FREAK HEAT WAVES – “In a Moment Divine (feat. Cindy Lee)”
A sweaty, afterdark hallucination of smeared city lights and whirlwind romance. - GIA MARGARET – “City Song”
A place of recovery, a makeshift temple where the spirits tend to your bruises.
~~ - GLASSER – “Vine”
Artful, synth pop perfection, buzzing with electronics and soaring with strings & winds. - HAYDEN PEDIGO – “The Happiest Times I Ever Ignored”
Sobering like little else this year. An instant head-leveler. - JACQUES GREENE – “Believe”
Really wanted a full Jacques Greene record that sounded like this. Jet-engine fueled, big-room filling but not obnoxious. Elastic in all the right ways. - JAM CITY – “LLTB (feat. Wet)”
Add Kelly Zutrau vocals to any electronic composition and make it 1000% better. - JESSIE WARE – “Freak Me Now”
Wish That! Feels Good! got freakier! Give me freakier! This is freakin’! - JESSY LANZA – “Casino Niagara”
A luscious slow jam that showcases some of Lanza’s best songwriting + arrangement talents. Spare but continually engaging and grooving. - JOANNA STERNBERG – “I’ve Got Me”
We could all gain a lot by being a bit kinder and gentler to ourselves. - JOANNE ROBERTSON – “If It Feels”
A moondrunk missive that intoxicates, a riverside psalm next to a single burning candle. - JOHN CARROLL KIRBY – “Mates”
Unbutton that top button. Step with swagger. Put on your sunglasses. You are invincible. You are the coolest being alive. - JPEGMAFIA & DANNY BROWN – “Fentanyl Tester”
One thousand tabs open type beat. Five caffeine drinks on the desk type flow.
~~ - JULIE BYRNE – “Conversation Is A Flow State”
Healing can be heartbreaking, it’s alright. I am by your side. - KALI UCHIS – “Moonlight”
I just wanna get high with my lover, veo una muñeca cuando miro en el espejo, kiss kiss, lookin’ dolly, I think I may go out tonight, I just wanna ride, get high in the moonlight. - KARA JACKSON – “Rat”
If we learned one thing this year, it’s that we need to keep songwriting and storytelling tabs on Kara Jackson from here on out. - KATE NV – “mi (we)”
A song I’ve been waiting for a studio version of for six years. Footage of a ballet dancer chopped into millisecond-long clips and turned into a paper crane. - KELELA – “Happy Ending”
Dark and churning and seductive, a perfect album tone-setter. - LITTLE DRAGON – “Frisco”
Beloved group still throwing curveballs and keeping their sound fresh. Love to see it. - M83 – “Oceans Niagara”
Unabashedly epic, showing its hand a minute into the track, laying out what the song is all about and not worrying about building up to something. Let it all shine. - MAPLE GLIDER – “Don’t Kiss Me”
Yep, I’m in pain. - MARY LATTIMORE – “Horses, Glossy On The Hill”
A sci-fi epic of stars colliding, a slow-motion barrage of glittering fireworks. - MAYA ONGAKU – “Something In The Morning Rain”
Happened to listen to this song for the first time while walking in the morning rain. Can confirm it felt really good.
~~ - MEAGRE MARTIN – “Mountain”
Thank you Gorilla Vs. Bear. A band to watch for sure. - MEGA BOG – “The Clown”
One of the best choruses in any song released this year. Am I still the clown you found charming? - MEG BAIRD – “Twelve Saints”
Shaggy, psychedelic folk with hypnotic guitar lines giving me early Ghosts of the Great Highway Sun Kil Moon vibes. - MITSKI – “Heaven”
Feel like a princess being whisked away to sing a song on a crescent moon on a starless night. - ML BUCH – “Fleshless Hand”
Are those your nerves, that clatter, gurgle, shriek? Are those your eyes, smiling back at me? - MUI ZYU – “Rotten Bun”
Elegant and dazzling. A gorgeous sculpture that disintegrates before our eyes. - NABIHAH IQBAL – “This World Couldn’t See Us”
Riding a motorcycle through the urban sprawl, modern skyscrapers blocking natural light, the glassy surface of your visor bending the world around you. - NEWJEANS – “ETA”
So close to making it into my Top 10 for the year. Refreshing to hear pop production like this in 2023. And folks are still sampling “It Takes Two”, the eternal. - NOURISHED BY TIME – “Daddy”
I say “I love you”, you say “whatever”. - OVERMONO – “Is U”
Sample Tirzah and you get a gold star from me. All I want is you.
~~ - PANGAEA – “If”
Blood-pumping, melodic, harmonic, dramatic, percussive, brilliance. - PJ HARVEY – “I Inside The Old I Dying”
I just love how dark and mysterious this track is. Really feels like you’re stumbling through the woods and you find a forgotten-to-time old town still operating like they were in the 1800s. - POWERS / PULICE / ROLIN – “Melted Honey”
Hearing that saxophone wail amongst the din of dulcimer and guitar gives me chills every time. - SALAMI ROSE JOE LOUIS – “Akousmatikous (feat. Soccer96)”
Last half of this track puts the brain on puzzle mode. - SAMPHA – “Only”
The most poppy song on the Sampha record. It’s got a great bounce! - SCREE – “Questions For The Moon”
Subtle, thrilling instrumental music that straddles jazz, lounge, “exotica”, and so much more. Instantly engages your imagination and puts you on a journey. - SHAME – “Burning By Design”
Love when the last minute or so of a track is just absolutely furious riffage. This’ll get you out of your seat. - SLUICE – “Mill”
One of those songs that just feels good in your bones. Country-touched in the best ways. - SNOW STRIPPERS – “It’s Goin Bad”
Snow Strippers certainly know how to make a low point feel really good. Shout out Michigan. - SPELLLING – “Hard To Please (Reprise)”
Takes a song that originally sounded like it’d be on a vampire crush’s mix CD, now it’s the first dance song for the vampire couple’s wedding.
~~ - SUFJAN STEVENS – “Shit Talk”
First time listening through Javelin, “Shit Talk” was the first song that really stuck out to me. When I looked to the tracklist, I said out loud “of course my ass likes the 8:30 long track the most”. - SUN JUNE – “Get Enough”
Sun June got their wish and The Beatles dropped a song this year. This song was wayyyyy better than that song. - TARA CLERKIN TRIO – “Marble Walls”
Drifting out at sea, riding gentle waves, clouds of birds undulating their forms above you. - TENSNAKE – “Keep It Secret (feat. Jessy Lanza)”
If I had to compare, this is my favorite Jessy Lanza track from this year. It’s a blast and a half, how can you dislike this one? - THANDI NTULI & CARLOS NIÑO – “Nomayoyo (Ingoma ka Mkhulu)”
A very simple track that encourages you to take a deep breath, and let go of some of the silly things that have been bogging you down. - TINASHE – “Uh Huh”
Silky smooth, sensual, seductive, smoldering. Sensational. - TINY RUINS – “Earthly Things”
Enriching, from the earth indie folk rock with plenty of sonic details that’ll make you fall in love. - TIRZAH – “their Love”
Beatless but hypnotic. Endlessly reaching, detuned piano that allows Tirzah to muse untethered. - TISAKOREAN – “SiLlY MoAn.mP3”
Ok she got swag. Ok she got bags. Ok she got class. Ok she got ass. - TITANIC – “Cielo Falso”
A pop song that has been deconstructed and rebuilt into a world-beating mech with an unknowable amount of hidden features.
~~ - UH HUH – “Redemption Pause”
Slinky and slithering psychedelic funk jams, beamed in from a hazy basement near you. - WEDNESDAY – “Bull Believer”
FINISH HIM!!! - WESTERMAN – “Idol; RE-run”
People die waiting for the lightning to come back this way, all while looking at the idol. - YEULE – “dazies”
Crushed by one thousand pounds of flowers dropped from the sky. - Y LA BAMBA – “Collapse”
Kaleidoscopic and psychedelic, wavering like a mirage in the distance. - YO LA TENGO – “Aselestine”
Listen to more songs that give you a gentle smile and a light sigh, like this one. - YOUNG FATHERS – “I Saw”
Young Fathers are the most adept chaos merchants, able to let it fly and rein it in in a second’s time. - YUNÈ PINKU – “Night Light”
Shimmering, shining, glitzy, glamorous, cosmopolitan electronic music. Makes you feel alive, surging with life. - YUSSEF DAYES – “Chasing The Drum”
Take a virtuosic talent and make it absolutely groovin’ and you’ve got Yussef Dayes. - YVES TUMOR – “Lovely Sewer”
You’re still a friend of mine, Yves Tumor.
10. MEERNAA
“On My Line”
One of my first favorite tracks of 2023 – something that really got me perked up and excited about music this year. It’s got a DAMN good groove, with a chunky, flexing bass line and slick mellotron, a sci-fi synth solo, string arrangements, stereo-panned rhythm guitar essentially riffing the whole track, and of course a charismatic, soulful vocal from Meernaa herself. This was a track where I said “ok Meernaa ain’t playing around” – and whoever isn’t clued in on that is unfortunately late to the party.
9. TRUTH CLUB
“Exit Cycle”
I love a track that rewards with a great build-up. “Exit Cycle” is a track that is great on its own, starting off with a leading mix of electric and acoustic guitar, with drums eventually coming in with the chorus. The control of dynamics and arrangement is what makes this track shine, with the volume of the track keeping the listener bound to see where things go. Then from 3:23 and on, the gang vocals, the layering of melodies, the driving percussion, the rising urgency of the guitars, all fuse into one glorious release that has enraptured me for most of the year. It’s a simple track, but again, it’s all about paying off with a satisfying ending.
8. BIG THIEF
“Vampire Empire”
After making my favorite album of 2022, Big Thief couldn’t help themselves from making another top favorite of mine in 2023 as well. “Vampire Empire” is just a plain ole great rock song, with really fun vocal delivery from Adrianne Lenker, and lyrics that are deeply relatable, along with slightly humorous, showcasing the outrageous behavior of some folks you feel bound to. I gotta imagine this song also rips live, adding this to the catalog of Dragon New Warm Mountain songs I need to see performed live.
7. EN ATTENDANT ANA
“Wonder”
You hear that bass? You hear that keyboard tone? You hear that tempo? You hear them snappy drums?You hear the repetition? You hear that build up? You hear that bass now? Oh now you hear the guitar now? It’s really coming in there. How many chords are in this song? Are you tapping your foot? Is the vein in your forehead starting to bump up? Are you up now? Are you running now? Is En Attendant Ana your favorite band now? Cool, me too.
6. ARMAND HAMMER
“Trauma Mic (feat. Pink Siifu)”
“Trauma Mic”, the first single off We Buy Diabetic Test Strips showed that billy woods and ELUCID were out for blood this time around. DJ Haram’s industrial production and Pink Siifu’s doomsday preacher intro set the stage for this ripper of a track, which regularly gives me goosebumps. The guitar in particular in this beat is absolutely vicious, and the video’s setting taking place in a scrap shop was the perfect pairing. Incredible track.
5. PEARL & THE OYSTERS
“Pacific Ave”
My most listened-to song of this year! When I needed a hit of summery, feel-good music, Pearl & the Oysters had me covered. The whole album is fantastic, but “Pacific Ave” hit so many sweet spots that I had to pick this one as the favorite on this record. It feels culled from the same cloth as hits from the Pacific supergroup record, or a buried private press groover that you’d find on a well-curated compilation. It really made my spring something memorable, a shining spot in a rather dull year.
4. FEVER RAY
“Carbon Dioxide”
Was truly obsessed with this song earlier on in the year, as Fever Ray fills an arena with this booming pop banger. Every part of the track feels mutated, from the blobby, bass synths I could hear from Violator-era Depeche Mode, the wild arpeggios of computer electronics that sound almost pulled from “You Spin Me Right Round” by Dead or Alive, and Karin Dreijer’s bold, unflinching vocals that they shout out into the expanse. The massive breakdown near the end of the track puts the whole thing over the top, making you a participant in this hedonistic, lovesick circus.
3. SOFIA KOURTESIS
“Madres”
I wrote about this song when I sang my praises for the album it’s off of, and I wrote a lot, so I hope you don’t mind if I paraphrase what I said here. It’s a tremendous opener, setting the tone immediately and establishing the kind of timbres, rhythms, and textures heard throughout the rest of the LP. It’s driving enough to work in a club, but open and panoramic enough to feel like the sky is wide open. The result is hypnotic and beautifully intoxicating, with each micro-detail threaded into the song’s composition breathing human life into the song. It’s not often that a house track, complete with samples, beats, electronics, you know the drill etc, sounds like it could be pulled from the earth, or culled from the sky, or sourced from a river. One organism, breathing, moving.
2. DJ SEINFELD & CONFIDENCE MAN
“Now U Do”
Over the last few years I’ve described a certain flavor of late 90s / early 00s electro-pop with Euro trance flair as “laser tag music”, aka music that evokes the sugary, kid-brain-melting pop songs that dominated spaces that I frequented at the time. These places include of course laser tag spots for friends’ birthday parties (shout out Zap Zone), the local bowling alley (shout out Maplewood Lanes), the indoor soccer arena (shout out WideWorld Sports Center), or the ice cream shop / arcade at mini gold (waddup Putt Putt). Most of these places had a DDR machine as well, so the music from those (my mind immediately goes to “Butterfly”, of course), filtered with threads of Alice Deejay “Better Off Alone”, or Cher’s “Believe”, or even Daft Punk’s “One More Time”, fueled by cheese fries, blue moon ice cream, warhead candies, and desires to go home and play Pokemon Gold and feed my Tamagotchi, have left permanent couch prints on my pleasure center. That being said, “Now U Do” feels like a short circuit to those times, an endlessly replayable one at that.
1. MARCI
“Stop”
This is it. This is the pinnacle of pop music in 2023. Marci had already been a recurring favorite of both myself and my partner in our apartment this year, as her 2022 debut still sounds as fresh and fun as ever. In 2023, she followed up that great album with two singles, hopefully hinting at another album to come in 2024. The most recent was “Stop”, and earlier this year was “KITY”, which I cannot discount because if “Stop” didn’t come out this year, “KITY” would have taken up a space on this list.
In “Stop”, we see pristine production collide with infectious songwriting. This is not a new concept, Marci is not inventing the wheel. But the way the song is executed has turned me upside down nearly every time I listen. There’s a reason why I usually replay it two or three times. And for fans of movies like Asteroid City (ie, movies about movies), this is essentially a pop song about a pop song. You can’t get someone out of your head, like a catchy pop song, no matter how much you try to get this earworm dislodged. I should also add that Marci (aka Marta Cikojevic) is a member of the blog forever favorite band TOPS, and works with fellow TOPS bandmate David Carriere on all Marci music, lending a natural TOPS-like sound to all the compositions. I love TOPS, so my predisposition to go into this track loving it was pretty much set from the beginning. But this exceeds my usual fandom, clearly.
Let’s start at the chorus. Instrumentally, this thing PUNCHES, with snappy drums and low bass synth that hums in a way that must stimulate my brain in some addicting way. There are a lot of great little vocal overdubs: “I can’t stop (…stop, stop, stop…) singin’ that song about you (and the way that it POPS) over again”, which add a lot of depth to the song, kind of reinforcing this concept of sticky thoughts coming at you from all angles. Furthermore, the mix in the chorus features so many little details scattered across each channel, like the “stop” overdubs pop in both left and right channels, and little synth riffs that are a bit buried, but reveal themselves on subsequent listens. I should add when she says “POPS” in the overdub it’s overlayed with a little popping sound, which like the bass synth vibrates at a certain frequency that releases an absurd amount of dopamine each time it happens.
The verses aren’t slouches either, with gorgeous, glassy washes of synth that pan across the soundscape (that are punctuated by the bass synth featured in the chorus!) and the same snappy drums as featured on the chorus, along with some well-placed overdubs as well, such as when she says “Every second like one, two three, and repeating”, there’s a little “one / two / three” counting in time in the background, panned in the stereo space so they’re floating around your head like the “stop’s” in the chorus. On the second verse, a slinky guitar starts subtly chiming in, which eventually returns in a more prominent role in the outro, as well as a beefed up version of the drums (with a nice, muted kick), as well as shimmery, almost rave-like keys. It’s a great capper, a celebratory one at that. Like I said – it’s pop perfection. There were few fountains of joy that I afforded myself this year, so something like this coming along really helped out a lot.
Reminder, you can listen to all these tracks on my Spotify playlist HERE. Thanks for reading!
Warm Visions 