Like most songs in the age of streaming, we’ll keep it short and simple: sometimes you just need a three-minute mood. Here’s 15 of the best new ones that 2023 gift-wrapped for us.
15. Hollywood Baby – 100 Gecs
“Hollywood Baby” is what happens when you give a toddler the keys to a Mercedes. Crashing percussion, crunchy synth, and crazed vocal delivery make “Hollywood Baby” another supremely fun wrecko from the geckos. Dylan Brady and Laura Les are ridin’ round with the top down, enjoying their newfound success, and making sure that every drive-thru they drive through knows about it. Between the track’s blistering, anthemic chorus and its hook-heavy riffs, 100 Gecs know how to take things to 100 and make tasteless excess sound deliciously fun. Making it in Hollywood has never sounded so disastrously easy.
– Connor Telford
14. Garbage Pale Kids – JPEGMAFIA & Danny Brown
This track is like if you took a 404 error and sonified it. Or — more artistically said — like looking at a Basquiat painting. To many, on first glance, the auditory experience of “Garbage Pale Kids” comes off as abrasive childish drivel. However, when you dig into the meat of it, you realize the impressive taste-breaking technicalities of it — from turning the Japanese commercial snippets into a chord progression to the gnashing amp on the guitar solo panning through sonic space as the mic gets traded from Brown to Peggy like an Infinity Gauntlet hot-potato’d through an active battlefield. Understanding this song is like finally making sense of a headache-inducing computer issue.
– Ike Nnabuife
13. Unknown/Nth – Hozier
Irish born indie-rock sensation Hozier, is not unknown for his slow-tempoed guitar and power ballad vocals. “Unknown/Nth” is a twisted love letter dedicated to a lover whose hamartia is ignored by the writer, and they are blinded by an image of someone they once knew their loved one to be, or perhaps they were never the person they imagined at all. Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy interlace the lyrics, claiming betrayal and misunderstanding, placing the lyricist in the 9th circle of hell, alluding to the fall of the angel Lucifer. Hozier’s angelic melody is melancholic yet freeing; maybe we’re all better off being unknown.
– Kate McCanna
12. Paris, Texas – Lana Del Rey
On 2019’s “Fuck It I Love You,” Lana Del Rey sang “everywhere you go, you take yourself,” reminding listeners that escape is not a permanent fix for personal turmoil. “Paris, Texas” proves that she won’t stop trying, however. The gloomy waltz sees Lana traveling around the world, suitcase in hand, in search of a missing piece of her soul that she doesn’t really find. The somber piano flits along, never quite landing on a solid resolution, much like Lana herself. “When you know, you know,” she repeats over the track’s quiet instrumentation, “it’s time, it’s time to go,” emphasizing that from small towns to vast cities, all locales feel familiar and claustrophobic eventually.
– Connor Telford
11. Crumbling – Sign Language
Sign Language is one of my favorite bands currently putting music out. Their fairly genre-defying music reminds me of bands like Hum or Failure, but with a modern edge. The song “Crumbling,” off of their 2023 album Madison & Floral, is no exception, with the song combining multiple genres into a single hard hit. Emotionally, listening to “Crumbling” feels like I’m being tossed by a big wave or knocked down by some other force. From front to back, the song hits like a truck on an emotional level, just as any sad song should.
– Izzy Davis
10. Sorry Not Sorry – Tyler, The Creator
On his 2021 record, Tyler vocally battled with his standing in modern America on “MASSA,” but he escalates the conversation here on deluxe track “SORRY NOT SORRY.” Okonma shares his personal cost of being himself unapologetically — the onerous burden of his forefathers’ expectations/opinions and the price of the limelight. In the end, what matters most is you are trying to be better than who you were two years ago, and via his synthesis of Westside Gunn’s drumless style and the aesthetics of Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, Tyler (in the music video, literally) kills his old selves. He runs the track, only trying to surpass himself, finally shedding all the masks and taking accountability in order to move on and tackle his new frontier.
– Ike Nnabuife
9. Disillusioned – Daniel Caesar
No one wanted to write about “Disillusioned,” but the people of AROUSE voted for it, so it’s probably pretty good.
– Connor Telford
8. Deli – Ice Spice
“Deli” makes the most mundane place feel like the club. Who knew you could get a chopped cheese and get some ass thrown back on you at the same establishment? Isis Gaston, AKA Ice Spice, blends New York drill with a feminine flare. Stand out lyrics: Me and baddies be gettin’ along // So they always be singin’ my song. According to Spice, the 2024 in is girl power, and of course, shaking ass.
– Hannah Gillespie
7. Strike (Holster) – Lil Yachty
Lil Yachty took a break from his prog rock side hustle to show the world he still knows how to have fun. Released as a single under the shadow of his ambitious Let’s Start Here, “Strike (Holster)” brings Yachty back to his trap roots for two and a half minutes of spaced-out bars about hitting the pen, setting the lean down on a Balenci’ coaster, and making sculptures of Yoda out of old $100s. There’s a reason Yachty’s stayed relevant through a sea of copycats and soundalikes – make him put pen to paper and he’s proving his strength every time.
– Rohan Rindani
6. New Bottega – Azealia Banks
“New Bottega” is the ultimate distillation of NYC rapper Azealia Banks’s essence. Clever rhymes? Check — Banks extols the virtues of Italian fashion houses, then rhymes “Houdini” and “Lamborghini” and name-checks cheetah print for good measure. Kooky-but-entrancing flow? Check — bonus points for the hilarious faux-Italian accent. Throbbing house beat? Check — courtesy of Aussie producer Torren Foot. And feud with the producer? CHECK — Banks let fly an NSFW social media tirade against the DJ (and the Australian people). It’s the fashion-conscious progeny of her breakout hit “212,” and just what her fans needed to get through the ninth year of waiting for her second album.
– Nigel Becker
5. MMM HMM – Lancey Foux and Sexyy Red
Thanks to production marked with blaring bass and electronic rage, “MMM HMM” is a grime inspired song from Lancey Foux and Sexyy Red that is so full of confidence and boasting that you can’t help but to dance along. Sexyy Red provides new energy to this traditionally UK style production that she makes this song the new trans-Atlantic anthem for flexing. “MMM HMM” is meant to be blasted in the car or at a party and you’ll leave repeating the words in your head.
– Alex Lopez
4. Cool About It – Boygenius
On “Cool About It,” the Dacus/Bridgers/Baker trio pivots between the specific (“Make fun of the cowboys with the neck tattoos”) and the universal (“Tellin’ you it’s nice to see how good you’re doing/Even though we know it isn’t true”). Backing up the A+ songwriting is a gorgeous arrangement, with subtle folk-country backing whose little details pop out on repeat listen, as well as some of The Record’s loveliest harmonies. Mysteries remain about the song’s meaning — interpretations range from depression to addiction to a too-amicable breakup — but there’s no debating all three artists’ gift for songcraft.
– Nigel Becker
3. My Love Mine All Mine – Mitski
Mitski’s biggest Achilles heel is her selflessness; “My Love Mine All Mine” lets her be deservedly selfish for just over two minutes. As she serenely recognizes the power of keeping an emotional treasure to herself, the song easily drifts along, content to bask in the moon’s glow as it shines down on everyone in the world. Mitski is a master of the sucker-punch, but “My Love Mine All Mine” has nothing to hide – a pure and peaceful ballad about the power of recognizing just how little space you take up. The song’s virality has allowed it to gain an immense amount of hype, but make no mistake: its reputation is fully deserved.
– Connor Telford
2. Vampire Empire – Big Thief
“Vampire Empire” is a gut-wrenching exploration of a codependent relationship past its prime. Following its live debut in November 2022, Vampire Empire was unleashed on the public via an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in March 2023 before the single’s official release in July, leading to opposition from folks who deemed the Colbert version superior. Beyond this mercurial display from Colbert-truthers, the lyrics of “Vampire Empire” detail the regrets, troubles, and uncertainties that come from being entirely reliant on someone and expertly walk the line between vulgarity and intimacy. Heartbreaking and vulnerable with defining lines like “You turn me inside out, and then you want me outside in / You spin me all around, and then you ask me not to spin” and, at times, jarring instrumentals, Big Thief asks an important question: How much are you willing to take before leaving?
– Aine Fitzgerald
1. Not Strong Enough – Boygenius
“This song is like fuck-Boygenius” said Lucy Dacus, a third of the trio that makes up Boygenius, about “Not Strong Enough,” a song which dives into this feeling of being stuck but not capable or in actuality not wanting to change. The song starts with the lines, “Black hole opened in the kitchen/Every clock’s a different time/It would only take the energy to fix it/I don’t know why I am the way I am” demonstrates this perpetual sense of being stuck in this nonstop existential dread. Time and black holes are two uncontrollable things that are hard to comprehend. The speaker is demonstrating their intense fear and anxiety towards change and taking action. This also has to do with the relationship between the speaker and the person they aren’t “strong enough” to be with. As the song goes on the speakers reveal that they “lied” and are strong enough. It really encapsulates this feeling of depression and existential dread tied together with feeling better than everyone else. This also pairs well with the repetition of “Always an angel, never a god” which shows this inability to ever become the very best and how the speakers will never be able to reach this full potential of godliness. “Not Strong Enough” bravely describes this feeling of anxiety and how it can really affect a relationship and someone’s mental mindset. Though the lyricism of this song feels quite lonely the trios vocals harmonizing makes this song feel less lonely and more like an anthem for people who can relate to its lyrics.
– Kat Gallaugher
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