It’s always a daunting task to sit here in December and try to recap the Year in Music. In some ways, 2023 flashed by in a blink of an eye, and in other way it dragged on seemingly for forever, as evidenced by the sinking feeling we get when we look at headlines from January and February. Perhaps the past 12 months will not go down as the greatest year ever for music overall, but it did deliver some pretty killer tunes, and welcomed a host of new artists that made an immediate impact, from the grand indie-glam spectacle of The Last Dinner Party (they own our Song of the Year in “Nothing Matters”) to the magnetic sex-positive playful allure of Chappell Roan (she owns our Album of the Year in The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess). Vanyaland’s coverage of the year’s never-ending onslaught of new singles is recapped below with 20 of our faves, spanning electro to punk to indie to alt-pop, and looking back it’s clear that there was a heavy dose of quality that grabbed the headlines over our increasing numbness to quantity.
Blondes, “Love In The Afternoon”
It was once famously said that gentlemen prefer blondes. And pretty soon everyone’s gonna love Blondes, the young English trio straight outta Nottingham who in March unleashed an absolute belter called “Love In The Afternoon,” which straddles a seductive line between indie ambition and modern rock magnetism. Issued by C3 Records, “Love In The Afternoon” follows 2021 EP Out The Neighbourhood, which helped propel the quartet to millions of Spotify streams and billions of TikTok views. That’s all well and good, but we’re here purely for the sonic rapture at play in this massive single. “This song is one of our absolute favourites, it’s been in the live set since last year and feels so exciting to play,” the band says. “We’ve been out of action for a little while so wanted to punch back in with something lively. Our producer Antony Genn really pushed us to kick this song into the next gear up and we feel really proud of what we’ve made. We’re so excited for everyone to hear it.”
Bugeye, “Dancing out in the Dark”
In late November we warned everyone to not finalize those Best of 2023 lists just yet, because Bugeye hit with a late entry to the party. And now here we are. The London dance-punk band raise a glass to the excitement of youth with “Dancing out in the Dark,” an infectious fuzzed-out power-pop bop that feels like it’s been a part of our lives this entire time, and it wouldn’t sound out of place on a ’90s-themed mixtape alongside Kenickie and Elastica. “Dancing out in the Dark” finds the queer trio — singer and guitarist Angela Martin, bassist Paula Snow, drummer Lisa Lux — channeling the nostalgia of our teen years, when sneaking out at night to meet up with friends led to endless excitement and adventures. It’s a total fucking jam. “The song came together quite quickly with bouncing ideas of each other to construct each section of the song – we played around with stripping the song back to its bare bones and building each section from there,” says Martin. Let it rip.
The Beaches, “Blame Brett”
Didn’t get tickets to see The Beaches in October 18 at a sold-out Crystal Ballroom? Blame your ex. Failed to let the Toronto band’s brilliant album soundtrack your autumn breakup and personal rebirth? Blame your ex. Missed the whipsmart quartet back at Boston Calling, where they delivered one of the most infectious and lively sets of the festival? Blame your ex. Slept on our spirited interview with the band late last year ahead of their Allston club gig? Blame your ex. Unable to whistle along to summer ’22 jam “Grow Up Tomorrow”, which features perhaps the best best bit of indie rock whistling since Bleached’s “Hard To Kill”? Blame your ex. Ignored our pair pair of photo galleries from back in 2019 when they opened for Passion Pit at Boston’s House of Blues and Tempe’s Marquee Theater? Blame your ex. Planning to omit this year’s whirlwind single “Blame Brett” on our Best of 2023 lists in a few weeks? Not a fucking chance.
Chappell Roan, “Red Wine Supernova”
If we were recapping albums in this Year in ReView section, then Chappell Roan‘s debut effort The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess would be out Number 1 Album of the Year. But we’re not, so we’re just gonna rise and shine with “Red Wine Supernova,” a theatrical ode to sapphic love affairs and longing that helped vault the alt-pop rhinestone cowgirl comet to star status. Roan is one of our generation’s greatest songwriters, and it’s the playfulness in her ability to convey feeling that separates her from a crowded field. Whether here on on the chant-along “Red Wine Supernova” or elsewhere — the rambunctious stripper anthem “Pink Pony Club,” hook-up culture yearner “Casual,” or white-hot neon glow tracks like “Kaleidoscope,” “Naked In Manhattan,” and “Femininomenon” — Roan’s ultra-magnetic, sex-positive storytelling has our sensibility in a vice grip. “After 4 years in the making comes my 14-song album holding stories of unearthing my true self and fearlessly embracing queerness,” says our new queen. “With the contrast of my Midwestern upbringing and living in one of the biggest cities in the U.S., The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess mirrors the rollercoaster of becoming the pop-star I always wanted to be.” And we are so grateful.
Charlotte Sands, “pity”
Charlotte Sands has caused a ruckus. Ain’t that a “pity”? The Nashville alt-pop artist and Massachusetts native unleashed a blitz of a new tune in November, a swirling menace of mechanical mayhem that sets a noisy tone for her forthcoming debut album can we start over?, which hits in January. It’s like Paramore gone late-’90s industrial. “‘Pity’ is a song about meeting ‘the perfect person’ and wishing you could be more like them,” says Sands. “It’s about the feeling of jealousy and comparing yourself but also about the experience of being captivated by someone else’s existence. Making this song was such a fun experience, I wanted the production to feel like a high-energy show opener while the melody stayed simple and repetitive so everyone could scream the words together when we finally get to perform it live.”
FIDLAR, “Centipede”
We always try to avoid recency bias in these Year In ReView recaps, so as soon as FIDLAR dropped the intense “Centipede” back in February, we made sure to include it here 10 months later — and not just because of the lyric “She’s my Oasis, but she treats me like I’m a blur” (though that helps, as does the 100 gecs reference). But “Centipede” holds up because it’s a quiet-to-loud Pixies-esque indie rock rager that’s billed as “a song about the minutiae of relationships that crawls under your skin the longer you spend with someone.” There’s a beautiful chaos at play here that explodes out of the speakers, and its one of the best things FIDLAR has ever done (and they’ve done quite a bit over the years).
Genesis Owusu, “Leaving The Light”
This year may go down is the one where Genesis Owusu break through to widespread acclaim. And it all started in May with “Leaving The Light,” a manic electro-funk sci-fi thumper of anthemic urgency that’s one of the absolute best songs of 2023. As soon as we heard it, we knew it’d sound huge out in the field at Boston Calling a few short weeks later, and we were not wrong, as the Ghanaian-Australian artist opened his set with it and promptly delivered maybe the most intense, interesting, and inspired performance of the entire weekend. “Leaving The Light” is a high-energy track billed as a battlecry of survival and perseverance, and only scratches the surface of sonics included in his summer sophomore album Struggler. “The ‘Struggler’ runs through an absurd world with no ‘where’ or ‘why’ at hand,” says Owusu of the album. “Just an instinctual inner rhythm, yelling at them to survive the pestilence and lighting bolts coming from above. A roach just keeps roaching.”
Grade 2, “See You Around”
Last year we had “Doing Time” in our Year in ReView 2022, and now Grade 2 make it 2-for-2 with the inclusion of “See You Around,” an adrenalized street punk rager that’s as indebted to the Bay Area classics as much as the English punk trio’s native surroundings. “See You Around” is just one of the many standouts on the band’s February album, a brash, bold, and melodic as fuck album of punk rock fury, wound tight with the type of fist-in-the-air, fist-to-the-face anthems set to soundtrack our never ending fight in the rigged game of life. There are several highlights — canvassing street punk, oi!, and the type of old-school guitar ruckus that can only be made by pissed-off Brits — across these blistering 15 songs and 34 minutes, but it’s the confrontational “See You Around” that has us keep coming back, and recollecting our breath during that hymnal-like outro. “Like everyone else, 2020 left us proper fucked off,” says frontman Sid Ryan. “Yet we were able to channel every ounce of that despair into every second of this record.
Haiku Hands, “Nunchucka”
We usually like to say that a song slots in one of three areas of nightlife’s itinerary: To be played while getting ready to go out; to be heard while out at the club; or to soundtrack the afterparty. Haiku Hands‘ May single “Nunchucka” seems poised to strike all three. The Australian trio’s pulsating club banger is an electro mega-jam that sounds massive indoors and out, with a slight throwback to the glory days of the blog house era. Haiku Hands dub “Nunchucka” as “a super charged high energy self affirmation anthem for anyone who wants to wipe off the patriarchal stain of self-loathing. A song to listen to before you go out, when you’re out, and when you get home. Enjoy your life.” This life sounds better with Haiku Hands.
Juliana Madrid, “Afterlife”
Every now and again we come across a song that stops us dead in our tracks, highlighted by a lyric that feels like it can be etched on our damaged brain’s broken heart until we finally shake off this mortal coil. In March that entry came from Juliana Madrid and her stunning SOTY contender “Afterlife,” a golden slice of bewitching alt-pop buoyed by the Dallas artist assuring us: “Hey / I’m not great but I might be alright / So kiss my perfect afterlife goodbye.” We’ve been feeling that one, alright, since it dropped, and our prediction that this would be in our Year in ReView came true. “In ‘Afterlife’, I am sort of flirting with the universe in hopes of getting more time,” Madrid says. “I’m often living in my own head, so I tend to get into these ruts where it feels like I’ve been putting my energy towards the wrong thing or not working hard enough or not using my time to my best advantage. Throughout the song, I attempt to understand these thoughts and try my best to find a middle ground with my own fears.”
The Last Dinner Party, “Nothing Matters”
Both sides of the music media machine consumes content at a rapturous pace: We hear new music, bang out a few words, craft an article for speed-reading, and move on to the next; the listener hears new music, adds it to playlist or a tweet, and moves on just as fast. But what happens when both sides hear a song that entirely prevents them from moving forward at such familiar breakneck speed? What happens when repeated listens forces a complete and utter standstill, drunk with such joyous euphoria over this wicked sensation that only brilliant music can provide and utter dread in thinking this will soundtrack all our next moves for a very, very long time? Enter The Last Dinner Party, the young London band whose debut single, a stunning piece of theatrical indie art-rock and decadent elegance titled “Nothing Matters,” arrived in the spring following a steady increase in buzz built upon frenetic live shows across their native England.
It’s a remarkable and captivating first entry from the quickly hyped quintet; dancing through the enchanting sound of “Nothing Matters” are hints of Kate Bush, Suede, Sinead O’Connor, ABBA, and Feist (we have a few others that come to mind as well, including the same type of innocent indie-folk allure found in “Home” by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros). And there’s pure heartbreak poetry in the lyrics, delivered with such seductive smarts and decisive distance by inevitable superstar vocalist Abigail Morris. Instant icon status, achieved.
Equal parts dramatic and riveting, “Nothing Matters” also contains perhaps the most piercing use of “fuck” in a chorus since Nine Inch Nails propositioned us in “Closer,” as Morris delivers a hypnotic line with crushing weight: “And you can hold me, like he held her / And I will fuck you, like nothing matters.” In these recaps we often supply a quote from the artist to further illustrate a point or a theme; here, The Last Dinner Party speak their volumes through their art. Lyrics like “‘Cause we’re a lot alike, in favour, like a motorbike / A sailor and a nightingale dancing in convertibles” and “We’ve got the highway tight, the moon is bursting with headlights / One more and we’re away, lovе tender in your Chevrolеt” are the types that first send us to Genius, then to Twitter, then finally to the tattoo parlor.
“Nothing Matters” is the rare song in 2023 that forces us to stop the million other things we’re doing at the time, and just sink into this new world they have created. This particular list runs in alphabetical order, but there is no denying that “Nothing Matters” by The Last Dinner Party is the undisputed Song of 2023, and it not only has it been since the moment it arrived, but we look forward to it appearing on Best of the 2020s lists six years from now as the gold standard of the past decade.
Mannequin Pussy, “I Got Heaven”
When you know, you know. In August, Mannequin Pussy unleashed a relentless new song called “I Got Heaven,” and it went straight into the Song of the Year 2023 consideration pile. As we wrote at the time: “Holy shit it rips.” The thrashing beast of a tune served as the first taste of new material from Marisa Dabice’s Philadelphia band, and underneath all that fury and intensity is a justifiable reason for it, as the brilliant songwriter explains rather thoroughly: “‘I Got Heaven’ is a song intended to merge the sacred and the profane and to serve as a reminder that we are all perfect exactly as we have been made and that no one gets to decide how a life should or should not be lived. Heaven is here on a planet that gave us everything we needed to survive. Heaven is in the plants and in the water and in the animals who we share this world with. Heaven is inside of me and inside of you. The weaponization of Christianity for political means, for individual profit and power, as a tool to intentionally divide us is one of the greatest threats to our modern world and a threat to our ability to find solidarity through love. To allow the hatred and the violence and the noise to rise is to reject our sacred purpose as individuals, which is simply to love.” Crank it.
MRCH, “Wild”
It had been a minute since we last caught up with MRCH, and that’s simply a minute too long. The spellbinding Phoenix dream-pop duo of Mickey and Jesse Pangburn in October released a new EP titled TV Bliss via Vertex Music Ltd., and with it arrived the dulcet and enchanting “Wild.” MRCH — pronounced “March” — are keen to take us on a ‘gazing journey through their expansive music, and this time the aural trip glides through the experimental Arizona high desert town of Arcosanti and all its stark but otherworldly architecture. “Wild” feels like the type of spellbinding track that unfolds slowly with each repeated listen, but its ethereal qualities shine through right at first contact. It moves with such deliberate grace, and when Mickey offers up the lyric “Bathe in the sunshine / Do what makes us scared / Can’t wait for the moment / When we’ll feel prepared”, there’s enough anti-gravity in the angelic sentiment to carry us along with them. MRCH might be the most slept-on project of 2023.
The Murder Capital, “Return My Head”
It’s not too often that we get a certified AOTY contender less than three weeks into the New Year, but that’s what we received back in January when The Murder Capital unleashed Gigi’s Recovery. The sophomore effort from the Irish post-punk band is a masterclass in harnessing the subtle tensions we carry as we go through the day pretending everything’s going to be alright (it won’t be). And amongst its many standouts is the visceral “Return My Head,” a propulsive emotion slinger that leaves us dizzy. Gigi’s Recovery is a rewarding midnight mental burn of a record, where the empty spaces breathe deep and each sound crafts its own contemplative world. Deeper album cuts like “The Stars Will Leave Their Stage” and “The Lie Becomes The Self” offer a portal into the band’s mind’s eye, tumbling with a tightrope balance that comes closely to falling off into oblivion, but managing to remain on course despise the ongoing battle of hope vs. despair that surrounds every move. As a whole, Gigi’s Recovery is an enthralling and enchanting collection that would hold a bit of timelessness to it if it were not so reflective of the type of desired angst that fuels our society, and “Return My Head” offers a perfect entry-point into its wider and deeper voice.
Nuovo Testamento, “Heartbeat”
There’s only one absolute truth in the world of music and it’s this: If a group or artist releases an Italo disco song called “Heartbeat,” it’s guaranteed to be absolute fire. And Nuovo Testamento proved this once again, as the highlight of the Los Angeles/Bologna trio’s sparkling March album Love Lines brought a Hi-NRG dance party to global celebrations not seen since electro ruled the scene a decade ago. Tracks like “Heat,” “Wildlife,” and, especially, the white-hot “Heartbeat,” throw it back with ’80s-influenced club and freestyle elements, glossy nostalgia punctures, and sharp doses of modern synth-pop. The songs glow out of the speakers with a fresh, but sophisticated, sense of urgency, the sound of better days long gone, and we’re stoked music like this is still getting made.
rlyblonde, “Fantasy”
Chances are a decent amount of people woke up on February 15 feeling pretty fucking underwhelmed by Valentine’s Day festivities. Maybe it’s his fault, maybe it’s her fault, maybe it’s their fault; who knows, who cares, who really has time for any of this anymore? Providing new kind of soundtrack for a collective emotional shrug is rlyblonde, the Brooklyn-based project of multi-disciplinary artist Carina Allen, who hit the streams on the Hallmark holiday with an infectious an instantly-memorable debut single called “Fantasy.” When rlyblonde bemoans being “back wearing my heart on a screen”, we can feel the track’s gritty alt-rock riffage slice through all our prior expectations as it dances around a towering pop melody. We know how this story ends, for sure, but for the photographer-turned-musician, perhaps a new chapter is about to be written. “‘Fantasy’ is really about being frustrated with dating culture and the performances that women (especially women dating men) have to put on, almost out of necessity,” writes rlyblonde, “until it hits a point where it all becomes too draining.”
Salt Ashes, “Stains”
Depending on where one calls home, there’s a good chance Summer 2023 was a total washout, with the incessant rain spoiling our outdoor fun just when we need it most. But for Salt Ashes, the rain serves a greater purpose from above, as the London singer-songwriter welcomes it to wash away the trauma that prevents us from moving forward in life. The emphatic, empowering dose of dark and dazzling alt-pop hits the streams in July via Radikal Records. “’Stains’ is a very personal song that I wrote to myself,” says Salt Ashes. “It’s a song about helping yourself overcome previous pain or trauma and actually asking and allowing yourself to heal because only you can do that.” The themes that swirl around this sneaky Song of the Year contender come out of the shadows via a stirring music video directed and edited by Joshua Thomas at Tilted Hue, and you can check that out here.
Sands, “When It Starts To Rain”
We’ve joked more than a few times that Summer 2023 around New England was a total washout (hell, see the above entry). So it makes perfect sense for an artist from old England to come solid with a proper soundtrack, and that’s what Sands delivered in August 7 with “When It Starts To Rain,” a theatrical modern rock cruiser that feels the both the warmth and the chill like any seasonal storm of significant stature. “A daydream in a busy town kind of feel,” quips Sands. “Loved playing bass on it, and tried to keep an emphasis on the groove.” Mission accomplished, as “When It Starts To Rain” carries a dark urgency to its hallucinatory sonic alchemy, soaked in post-punk and psych-pop vibes as it arches and glides across its six-minute runtime. Sands is the project from London-based multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and producer Andrew Sands, and the single acted as the second serving from his October debut album The World’s So Cruel, via Temporary Wisdom. “Compared to my past releases, I think this time around on purpose I put together the songs that sounded the most pop without thinking necessarily at a strict artistic common thread or overall design,” admits Sands. “A good collection of songs with a shared uplifting approach to them, not much weird science a bit like at the beginning of rock n’ roll.”
Vera Sola, “The Line”
There’s a moment in Vera Sola’s October single, a stirring composition called “The Line,” where the singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist casts a spell over the past five years with a simple sentiment: “You track the wake and you’ll find what I’m about / I’ll be back when it’s right.” It’s a notable lyric for the artist born Danielle Aykroyd, the daughter of Dan Aykroyd and Donna Dixon and former poetry student of Jorie Graham at Harvard University. In 2018 she delivered debut album Shades, where she performed, produced, and arranged everything herself; now, Vera Sola is back with Peacemaker, her sophomore effort that arrives early next year. Amplifying the excitement, “The Line” shines a bright shadow across its stylish spectrum of emotion, playing out like a folk-noir thriller across its magnetic four-minute runtime as the artist explores death and everything that comes after it. “This song paraphrases a conversation I had with a dear friend in a parking lot on tour back in 2019,” says Vera Sola. “It’s about how experiences with dying and death — both in his career and personal world — prompted him to radically change the course of his life. I wrote it a day or so later in a rare moment of solitude while circling the hills of Pittsburgh on foot to decompress ahead of the night’s show. It sounds like a heavy, dark number but it’s actually a hopeful song.”
Superlove, “GO!”
A band can create all the content humanly and inhumanly possible, but even in this sideways-ass time we call 2023, the best piece of media any musical artist can create is a killer fucking song. That’s exactly what Superlove have done with the seismic “GO!”, a frenzied, fuzzed out alt-rock thumper from the Bristol noise-pop band that pulverized the streams way back in January. As it turns out, “GO!”, the follow-up to the English group’s 2022 album Colours, was inspired by Superlove being super burnt out by the content demands we often ask of musical artists. “‘GO!’ is all about how being in a band coming up and being online can feel like a massive race sometimes,” Superlove admit. “We wrote the song a few months ago when we were feeling well washed out with the band and the social media dilemma. We’re not used to filming everything when we’re hanging out together so we always felt a bit left behind when it came to making content.”