A lot of great music arrived this year — from established artists and bands to newcomers. Making the task of condensing all those phenomenal releases into a single top ten list an audacious if not slightly heart-wrenching task. Below you’ll find (in no particular order) my humble picks for this end of the year roundup, as well as a handful of honorable mentions. Making these selections all the more difficult was the fact that the albums they’re pulled from are themselves overflowing with rousing bangers and anthems alike.

1. Rahill “Fables” (feat. Beck)

First up is New York singer/songwriter Rahill, her song “Fables” (feat. Beck) off her solo debut LP Flowers At Your Feet one of the many buoyant indie-rock earworms you’ll find inside. Tucked underneath its dizzying riffs and psych-pop melody is a nostalgic ode to her father’s storytelling, honing in on the Iranian epics he would read to her. Like so many of the song’s on the album, it’s enveloped in the magical tenderness that coats Rahill’s familial memories.

Stream the song via YouTube or Spotify.

2. Sarah Kinsley “Oh No Darling!”

“Oh No Darling” — the very first track on Sarah Kinsley’s Ascension EP — is a goosebump inducing race through the bittersweet transition from childhood to adulthood. From Kinsley’s jaw-dropping vocal vaults to its galvanizing gallop of drums and urgent guitars (including its electrifying riff solo finale) the song is an endorphin rush of emotion that’s hard to shake — not that you’ll ever remotely want to take it off repeat.

Stream the song via YouTube or Spotify.

3. Steady Holiday “The Balance”

With three albums under her belt Los Angeles-based Steady Holiday (a.k.a. Dre Babinski) is without a doubt one of the great singer/songwriters of a generation. “The Balance” is just a small distillation of the raw emotion, life-affirming beauty, and spellbinding melodics that guide her music. At its core the song is a swooning and weightless ballad of acceptance, one rife with quietly poetic and hopeful Babinksi-isms: “But I know love in a strange time / It’s a challenge, it takes work and knowing.”

Stream the song via YouTube or Spotify.

4. Angie McMahon “I Am Already Enough”

In a similar vein, the triumphant rollicker “I Am Already Enough” by singer/songwriter Angie McMahon arrives as one of the many invigorating highs to be found within her sophomore album Light, Dark, Light Again. Against a driving exchange of rumbling guitars and steadfast but insistent percussion she crafts a self-fortifying affirmation of worth and meaning.

Stream the song via YouTube or Spotify.

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5. Dark Bardo “Belgrade Burning”

Dark Bardo’s debut album Contact Sailor exists in an realm all its own — the sound cultivated between duo Andy Baldwin and Filip Mitrovic is unlike any other and no two songs on the record are even remotely the same. From this mesmerizing collection comes the apocalyptically frantic track “Belgrade Burning.” With its thunderous blitz of sonics and hypnotic fixation with dancing through the end of the world, it’s a fittingly (for better or worse) manic sound for the current age.

Stream the song via YouTube or Spotify.

6. Nation of Language “Sole Obsession”

Slipping into the melancholy world of brooding but ecstatic synth-pop, “Sole Obsession” from Brooklyn trio Nation of Language is the ideal soundtrack for the heartbroken and romantically nullified. Ian Richard Devaney’s dulcet vocals present themselves as a radiant conduit for such sorrow, encompassing the lucid descent and emergence from lovestricken grief that Strange Disciple explores. The only thing more sublime than his wails are the alluring soundscapes that Aidan Noell (synthesizer, backing vocals) and Alex MacKay (bass guitar) create for his words to haunt.

Stream the song via YouTube or Spotify.

7. Young Fathers “Rice”

Trying to isolate a favorite off of Heavy Heavy, the second album from Scottish trio Young Fathers, was one of the hardest decisions made in compiling this list. In the end I went with the record’s dually celebratory and visceral opening track “Rice,” a song that sets the entire tone of the album with its propulsive rhythms, fiery vocal samples, and all-around magnetizing energy. The way Alloysious Massaquoi, Kayus Bankole, and ‘G’ Hastings layer their vocal duties remains one of the group’s foremost spectacular qualities.

Stream the song via YouTube or Spotify.

8. Genesis Owusu “The Roach”

On “The Roach” Genesis Owusu entwines literary allusions that would make an English professor giddy with nods to The Killers, all the while laying down the foundation for the narrative of his sprawling second album STRUGGLER. This track has it all — boasting a spellbinding loquaciousness that’s made fearsomely kinetic by Owusu’s melding of hip-hop and punk rhythms.

Stream the song via YouTube or Spotify.

9. Elisapie “Uummati Attanarsimat”

Inuk singer/songwriter Elisapie returned this year with an ethereal collection of covers in the form of Inuktitut. This was another difficult one to single out just one favorite with — but her reinvention of Blondie’s “Heart of Glass” into a slow-burning ballad resounding with lush acoustics and soaring backing harmonies remains an emotional highlight for me on the record. I can all but guarantee you won’t make it to the end without finding some tears welling up at the corner of your eyes as Elisapie captures a newfound and devastating beauty in such a familiar classic.

Stream the song via YouTube or Spotify.

10. Allison Russell “The Returner”

“The Returner,” the title track of Allison Russell’s second album, captures an elusive but necessary hope amidst its seamless blendings of soul and folk. One that gives voice to gushingly iridescent feelings of self-discovery and personal joy — it’s lilting melody going from a gentle tangle of acoustics into a lush and resonant rhapsody. “I’m a summer dream, I’m a real light beam, I’m worthy / Of all the goodness and the love that the world’s gonna give to me,” she sings, urging you to soak up those rays. “I’ma give it back ten times, people, are you ready? / If you think you’re alone, hold on, I’m coming.”

Stream the song via YouTube or Spotify.

A couple of honorable mentions:

Jenny Lewis – “Chain of Tears”
Tennis – “Pollen”
Metric – “Detour Up”
Romy – “Enjoy Your Life”
Alan Palomo – “Meutrière” (feat. Flore Benguigui)

See part 2 and part 3 of our favorite songs of 2023.

Words: Steven Ward