Here we are again, another year of yearning to find great new music to listen to, even though you could never come close to hearing all of the songs that already exist. Who are you to want new music? Are you too good to go dig up the great works of the past? You ever listen to that first Crosby Stills and Nash album? Are your poor little ears tired of listening to Sixteen Stone?
I gave up listening via Amazon Music this year because the bitrate is ass. I still don't pay for Spotify, but I can use that app on my basement TV/receiver. During work from home days it's just more comfy to sit on the living room couch and connect the laptop to bluetooth and use YouTube. I don't pay for YouTube either, so yes, my music is interrupted by the worst ads in the world every 3 songs or so. The audio quality is okay-ish, especially now that I've linked a bluetooth receiver to an amp to some pretty nice outdoor Bose speakers that had to be moved indoors because we don't have a back deck anymore because shit got fucked up.
If Stereogum or the Indieheads subreddit doesn't have me interested in something particular, I'll check out playlists that compile the most streamed songs of the moment.
Unfortunately, in general, my days are spotted with meetings and bullshit so I'm spending much less time listening to music during a workday than in years past.
You can listen to this 2023 Soundtrack via Spotify or YouTube.
1. Chris Farren - Cosmic Leash
I noticed comedy people on Twitter were talking about this new album and I had never heard of him before. Actually, let’s back up a sec. In 2023, Twitter became X, and we definitely all call it X now and support everything it’s become. OK? So then Farren was a guest on Hollywood Handbook, the finest podcast, and that was enough to get me to listen to his pretty good album. I feared since he was funny and collaborated with comedy people on the video it would be more of a funny album than a good album, but Cosmic Leash rips.
2. The Japanese House - Sunshine Baby
YouTube was pretty insistent that I watch this live performance of this song, even though I’d never watched or heard the studio version. The live version is so much prettier and I like it a lot!
3. Boygenius - $20
The first time I listened to this album, I was glad it started with an upbeat song and this is the track I kept coming back to.
4. Blur - The Narcissist
I was not expecting a late-career album by a band that’s never been among my favorites to be my top album of the year, but here we are lads! I have long followed the person who wrote NPR’s review of The Ballad of Darren on X - it all happens on X! - so I saw this when he re-X’d it:
It’s funny because it’s true! (The parts I comprehend anyway - I have no knowledge of that era of David Bowie). I love that St Charles Square opens with the line, “I fucked up. I’m not the first to do it.” Barbaric rules. It all rules. But don’t get me wrong, I’m still Team Oasis.
5. Mitski - Bug Like an Angel
I can’t believe how often the simple guitar opening of this song pops in my head. YouTube recommended a video of Mitski explaining the structure of this song and the lyrics, and I wonder how long it would have taken me to notice what the lyrics were or what they meant had I not watched.
6. Julia Jacklin - Love, Try Not to Let Go
July 26 10:30 pm message to the group thread: Just stepped out of the very warm Julia Jacklin concert in kc and the heat index outside is 104
July 27 message to the group thread: Drank two Negra Modelos between 7:30 and 10:00 last night, drank like 24 oz of water on the drive home after, still have a headache right now after multiple cups of coffee and a tylenol. I am dying!
This is Jacklin’s first appearance on a year-end soundtrack but I have been enjoying her since the pandemic. She opened with this song.
7. Grian Chatten - Fairlies
Didn’t noticed this song was titled “Fairlies” rather than “FairLILLIES” until I typed it. I’ve been digging Fontaines DC since their debut, I liked this and one other song on his solo album but I guess I never went back and gave any of the other songs another chance.
8. The Animals - Inside-Looking Out
I was scrolling through the posts on X and saw one talking about a Spotify user named Brad who had playlists for different kinds of keyboards, so I listened to a few of those. The Hammond B3 Organ playlist has this absolute banger. I was only 57 years late on this one.
9. Samia - Honey
Samia’s album is my second-favorite album of the year! I did not know her prior to this year. What a journey from “Oh I like this song” to “She’s the daughter of Kathy Najimy and the guy who sings Total Eclipse of the Heart in Old School?!” to “Oh this album rules”.
10. Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds - Easy Now
See, I told you I was still an Oasis man. Being a lad is what I’m about!
11. Pool Kids - That’s Physics, Baby
This was on Stereogum’s best of 2022 list.
12. Black Country, New Road - Up Song (Live at Bush Hall)
Another concert I attended this year - this was at The Granada. I was not a huge fan but I was interested to see what they were like live, especially since they had their lead singer leave after their breakout album. I didn’t anticipate a big crowd, but the show got moved from a smaller venue and I believe it was a sellout at the bigger place. When they opened with Up Song, the crowd shouted along when they sang “Look at what we’ve done together! BCNR, friends forever!” and Corinne and I kinda looked at each other like, “Oh, this band is beloved?” It was cool. They have two complete live sets up on YouTube, including this one with the new lineup and songs they played on this tour. (The new lineup of BCNR does not have any studio recordings, so this live version was the only option to put on the soundtrack.)
13. The Replacements - Can’t Hardly Wait
Between The Bear and their Let It Bleed reissue, I tried to brush up on The Replacements this year. I’m a mid-40s white male so yeah, I like the soundtrack to FX’s The Bear. I’ve always loved REM’s Strange Currencies so it was cool that it was a repeating theme of this season. And I listened to plenty of IRS-era REM this year.
14. Gus Dapperton - Don’t Let Me Down
I know of this guy because he was featured on the Benee song Supalonely from my 2020 soundtrack, and here they are together again, making another fun song.
15. Alice Phoebe Lou - Lose My Head
16. Varsity - Done With Bits
I am sorry, but we are getting to the point in the playlist where I don’t have a lot to say. Instead of saying over and over, “I read about this song or the algorithm suggested this song to me, and I like it,” I’ll write something else. You know what I was pretty into this year? Toast. Going to the sad little nook at the grocery store where they throw the bakery items that are getting old, finding an older but fancy loaf of sourdough or jalapeno cheddar, freezing it, and pulling out slices to toast in the morning. And with the price of cereal going to the fucking roof, that’s a deal!
17. Tapes n’ Tapes - Just Drums
I finished the project I started in 2021 of listening to all of my purchased CDs in order, from A to Z. This year I moved on to my burned CDs, so my wife and other car passengers had to wait for me to move a huge Caselogic binder of CDs before they could sit down in the Camry. One summer evening I was home alone, and decided to grab a Dairy Queen Blizzard for the first time in forever. I put the windows down and cranked Tapes ‘n Tapes Insistor album. I’m sure you remember the title track Insistor from the 2006 soundtrack? I took that Blizzard from the drive through and didn’t want it to melt on the way home, so I stopped in the nearby, empty rec center parking lot and ate it there. Summer nights, baby!
18. Lunar Vacation - Only You
Yeah, another one where I don’t have much to say. You know what I played a lot of this year? Little browser grid games. You finish Wordle and your day isn’t done, you can think about some sports guys on Immaculate Grid and Crossover Grid, and at night when I am trying not to scroll through whatever trash (X isn’t trash, of course - It All Happens On X!!!) is online I challenge my brain with the Cine2nerdle movie game. I made my own grid game where my high school friends had to guess classmates that fit the categories, and I even made a music one starring the songs of Pearl Jam:
19. Superviolet - Angels on the Ground
I investigated this based on Stereogum’s mid-year best-of list, and really liked this opening track. I listened to the album while walking around Salt Lake City in June and like it alright but could never turn the corner to truly dig it.
20. Katie Von Schleicher - Montagnard People
I don’t know this was on some indie playlist and I put it into regular rotation. It reminds me of Ofelia K, an artist I liked but who hasn't put out any new music since 2016. Anyways, while I was in Salt Lake City I was craving falafel, and the restaurant I went to was playing a Regina Spektor album and that rolled right into Fiona Apple’s When the Pawn… I was loving it. I can’t remember a restaurant playing an album through since 715 did back before we were married.
21. Charly Bliss - You Don’t Even Know Me Anymore
22. Cherry Glazerr - Bad Habit
God, I have the hardest time keeping these bands apart because all women are the same. No wait - because they are female-fronted, two-word guitar bands that start with CH. I was looking forward to the Cherry Glazerr release more, and it let me down. I tested that album while watching Paul play on his first kid pitch team this summer. I’d get there early with him so he could warm up with the team, and then walk around the complex listening to podcasts. Should I have tried to make friends with the other parents instead? Maybe the mom who wore a shirt that said “One Gun Two Gun Red Gun Blue Gun”?
23. Overcoats - Want You Back
Yeah, this is just another song that came along, I don’t have any big thing with it. That the end of the playlist and for the first time in its history, there was no song by The New Pornographers in a year where they released a new album. We went to their show and had another great time, and overall I think the album is fine but it sounds muddled to me. The words of the chorus of Pontius Pilate’s Home Movies don’t fit the music - it drives me crazy! If I had put a track on here it would have been Continue as a Guest.
