40) Dang – Caroline Polachek

Who else could this list start with than the undisputed queen of 2023 Caroline Polachek. Dang is bonkers, completely deranged and a whole lot of fun. The sort of song where your friend might ask if your speakers are broken or it’s supposed to sound like that.

39) Hold On To Now – Kylie Minogue

The best Kylie single since Get Outta My Way. Transcendent, glorious and effortless.

38) Running Out of Time – Paramore

The best moments on Paramore’s greatest album are the times when the group lean into the Alt-Rock of 00s bands like Bloc Party and LCD Soundsystem, Running Out of Time is no exception. The closest the band came to last year’s phenomenal title track on This Is Why, Hayley Williams has never sounded more at home than on a song like this. So easy to love.

37) Falling or flying – Jorja Smith

The way that Falling or flying teases you through each verse and chorus. You know that there’s something else to come, another layer of vocal or delicate guitar riff, and every time I went back to this song I’d feel that push and pull more than ever. Jorja has such a delicate touch on a song where she also really goes for it at times and there’s something enchanting about every second.

36) I’m Not Here To Make Friends – Sam Smith

Like it needed to be said, this song and Desire prove once and for all that Sam Smith should only be making music with Calvin Harris and Jessie Reyaz. There seems to be one or two tracks on each Sam Smith record that really resonate with me and this goes right up there with Diamonds, Promises and How Do You Sleep as a sign that when Sam gets it right, the results can be incredible. It’s just a shame there’s so many tedious songs to deal with while we wait.

35) Walking Backwards – Ben Howard

Saying that a new Ben Howard song sounds nothing like you expected Ben Howard to sound like is pretty pointless well over a decade into his career. None of his five studio albums have any resemblance to each other and it took just one listen to Walking Backwards for me to sit up and wonder if we were about to get the best music of his career yet. The layered drums and guitars that almost sound like samples are instantly infectious and have really stayed with me this year. Ben Howard’s best standalone track in years.

34) Is It Over Now? – Taylor Swift

If I treated my Albums list like a Video Game of the Year list then the ‘remake’ of 1989 would definitely be one of my albums of the year. Not only because Taylor managed to keep the best album of her career in tact but because of extra songs as good as Is It Over Now?. Miles better than anything from Midnights, the bit where she goes ‘Think I didn’t see you? There were flashing lights, at least I had the decency’ DUN DUN DUN DUN is a god tier Taylor Swift moment. Releasing bonus songs as good as the ones from 1989?! Incredible.

33) My Love Mine All Mine – Mitski

Without doubt the most surprising radio and streaming hit of the year, Mitski’s place as a Gen Z favourite is baffling but deserved. My Love Mine All Mine is gorgeous and so effortless though. Mitski’s vocals are delicate and emotive, but the instrumentation is what pulls it all together. Steel guitar playing on Radio 1? My heart is racing.

32) Weightless – Arlo Parks

Amid the usual ‘follow up to a Mercury winning album’ discourse and even more usual ‘Sophomore slump’ talk, I think that Arlo Parks has been massively underestimated this year. I really enjoyed the album My Soft Machine but Weightless especially has stuck with me since January for a reason. It feels like the true next step from her debut record, the intimate spoken word artist is still there, but freer than ever on a hook as massive as this.

31) bad idea right? – Olivia Rodrigo

‘YES I KNOW THAT HE’S MY EX BUT CAN’T TWO PEOPLE RECONNECT’ The year’s best hook to shout along to in the car? Probably.

30) Flowers – Miley Cyrus

At the end of the year it’s easy to fall into the trap of assuming that a song like Flowers is appearing on a list is because it was inescapable on Radio and the charts. Yes it’s Miley’s biggest hit of her career and all but overshadowed a solid album beneath it, but Flowers is a bloody brilliant record. I love the vocal production on the ‘Can love me better baby’ backing vocals, or the lush strings in the chorus that aren’t overly sentimental but hint at the overly sentimental song it interpolates. Miley Cyrus is maybe her generation’s greatest ‘performer’ and on Flowers that shines through massively.

29) Freak Me Now – Jessie Ware

Jessie Ware has made music for the clubs before, OG fans like me think back to those SBTRKT days, or to songs like Imagine It Was Us and If You’re Never Gonna Move but Freak Me Now might be the most danceable record of her career. From the opening few seconds the tempo is high and doesn’t let up for a second. It’s drenched in soul still though and Jessie sounds fantastic in the latter half of the song. 90s house meets Studio 54 but way of Chaka Khan. This song absolutely slaps.

28) What Was I Made For? – Billie Eilish

The shining moment on a soundtrack stacked with great tracks (The unhinged Speed Drive by Charli XCX nearly made it onto this list) I’m just too much of a Billie Eilish stan to not love this. Not enough is said about how Billie started to use her voice following the debut album, the difference from No Time To Die to this is much more stark than it seems and I love the way her voice just hints at pushing too hard on the quietest moments here. Lyrically stunning to the point where I feel like we might need to start disqualifying Billie Eilish from awards and lists just to let someone else have a chance.

27) Sprinter – Dave & Central Cee

I am appalled that I’m including Central Cee in my Best of 2023 list. Surely one of the worst artists to break in the UK in the last decade…but Sprinter is undeniable. A song about partying with so many girls that you need a van to take them all with you is one of the year’s best songs? Yes. Dave is on top form here though and it proves once again the lack of genuinely great hip hop singles from outside of the UK. Sprinter is the rap record of 2023 and I fully admit that I am a small part of the reason it lasted 10 entire weeks at #1 here.

26) Boys a liar Pt. 2 – PinkPantheress & Ice Spice

I say inescapable a lot when talking about big pop hits, but surely nothing defines that like a collaboration between two of the year’s true breakout stars on a song that is so infuriatingly catchy anyone who says they don’t like it is lying to you. This song buried itself in my soul this year, like a ringtone I couldn’t switch off and honestly I wouldn’t want to. The best of the year’s inescapable TikTok hits.

25) Disconnect – Becky Hill & Chase & Status

The resurgence of Chase & Status this year has been mad. It feels like people who were teenagers when songs like Blind Faith, End Credits and Pieces were defining Drum and Bass for the next decade are now the ones making this music, Becky Hill surely the most notable of them all. Disconnect just hits me in a way very little else on this list can do. Effortlessly simple and does the job. This is now the 5th year in a row that a Becky Hill song has made my end of year list, same again next year Becky?

24) WHERE SHE GOES – Bad Bunny

I love Bad Bunny in reggaeton mode, like on last year’s huge Un Verano Sin Ti, but there’s something that happens when he creates a darker more atmospheric house sound. Much like Dakiti, WHERE SHE GOES has such a driving presence throughout. I love the way everything echoes around each other, while Bad Bunny powers through his lyrics in more of a Hip-Hop tone than I’ve ever heard from him before. It’s a shame that the full album is pretty tedious, as for me this is one of Bad Bunny’s best solo records yet.

23) I Can See You – Taylor Swift

The best Taylor Swift single since the original version of Style. Taylor probably hasn’t sounded this good vocally on a pop record ever too. Steeped in everything that makes her the sort of artist worthy of doing era spanning tours, this is a masterclass in Swift Songwriting.

22) Never Felt So Alone – Labrinth

Poor Labrinth, delivering by far the best music of his varied career and he gets upstaged by an uncredited Billie Eilish on this, the standout moment on the fantastic Ends & Begins. The instrumentation is so chaotic and sparse it makes for a track that never goes where you expect. Their voices compliment each other perfectly too and much like What Was I Made For, Billie Eilish sings on Never Felt So Alone in a way we’ve never heard from her before. I love that powerful ‘my whole world just fell apart’ before everything closes in around them both again. A slight song that leaves me needing more, but that’s almost part of the appeal.

21) Welcome To My Island (George Daniel & Charli XCX Remix) – Caroline Polachek

The most Charli XCX sounding thing to exist this year. Utterly chaotic it flips a song that really should have been on my 2022 list and turns it completely inside out. ‘I guess I’m on my Richard Branson wave, No virgin, but I knew just how to behave’ is an outrageous lyric. The energy that Charli has here can only be described as Vroom Vroom energy, nothing to prove, nothing to hide and completely deranged. What is most baffling is that I’m now including shit like this on my year end lists; I truly have become a stan.

20) A&W – Lana Del Rey

Lana Del Rey at her most Lana. When I get asked by people what exactly it is that has made Lana ‘the’ critical darling in Alternative Pop music, it’s surely easiest to just play them A&W, a densely layered, intricate song but also an unhinged and fun one too. ‘It’s not about having someone to love me anymore, No, this is the experience of being an American whore’ is a lyric that Lana Del Rey alone could write and perform. There’s literally no other artist with the character, lyricism or audacity to release a song like A&W. It makes absolutely no sense, pulls from Hip Hop, Alternative rock and jazz and yet works because of the chaos.

19) Blood and Butter – Caroline Polachek

Check my most played songs of 2023 and literally every track from Desire, I Want To Turn Into You is in my top 20. Blood and Butter has everything that made me fall completely in love with the album, obtuse lyrics that say nothing but everything at the same time; a choir of layered vocals from Caroline; the way she sings ‘Tatttooo-oo-ooo’;  a BAGPIPE SOLO. A stand out track from the year’s most essential artist.

18) I Remember Everything – Zach Bryan (Feat. Kacey Musgraves)

I was always fascinated by how Zach Bryan would navigate moving from his very homegrown stripped back sound into the mainstream country world he sits in now. It was silly to question this given a song as gorgeously simple as I Remember Everything can also become a #1 on the Hot 100. Zach and Kacey’s voices contrast each other just enough to make their dynamic so enchanting. Instantly enjoyable, but over time my respect for I Remember Everything has only grown more and more.

17) Fever Dreamer – SG Lewis, Charlotte Day Wilson & Channel Tres

There’s something about Fever Dreamer that feels like it has been around for years. A dance track that’s seared itself into me since January so easily that it feels like an all time classic of the genre everyone has just forgotten about. Charlotte Day Wilson’s performance is subtle to allow each build to hit harder than the last, while Channel Tres delivers yet another killer verse to follow his star turn on Impact a few years ago. Dance music thrived this year and Fever Dreamer was an early favourite of mine.

16) VAMPIROS – Rosalía & Rauw Alejandro

Describing a song as more of the same could be seen as a bad thing. When I’m saying a song is more of the same as the 2022 Album of the Year MOTOMAMI it’s meant as the highest compliment. The now ex-couple delivered such a dynamic and interesting song on VAMPIROS, each line taking the song’s production and direction somewhere new. By the final dramatic finale it’s genuinely exhausting in a way that anyone who loves Rosalía will know extremely well. Reggaeton by default, otherworldly is a more accurate description.

15) adore u – Fred again.. & Obongjayer

There’s something about this song that’s so understated and yet soars as it develops. I spent a lot of this year talking about last year’s Actual Life 3 album as part of Mercury Prize coverage and the magic of that album’s build up to its soaring finale peak is similar to how adore u opens up bit by bit. Obongjayer’s voice is so beautiful against the backdrop of this building soundscape and the song gives back so much more than you need to give it. An underrated gem this year.

14) get him back! – Olivia Rodrigo

Imagine being a teenager right now and having your ‘teen’ popstars as musically consistent as Olivia Rodrigo. get him back! works for all of the same reasons that good 4 u did last year, it’s catchy as hell and performed with an edge of someone who sounds like they care a hell of a lot more than they let on. get him back! is yet another knockout moment full of genuine wit and lyrical genius.

13) The Hype – Sigrid

Every time I write about Sigrid I mention a very specific moments that sold me on the song. The Hype is no different. That first time she sings ‘Tell me, did you ever love me?’ as the music drops out around her before crashing back in with another ‘Did you ever love me?’. The drum roll on ‘when the magic died’ is a tiny but vital touch in a song stacked with them. I was slightly disappointed with most of 2022’s full length album but The Hype is a massive return to form for one of the best pop acts of the decade.

12) Miracle – Calvin Harris & Ellie Goulding

I Need Your Love, Outside, Miracle. 11 years, three songs. All absolute belters. Miracle might even be my favourite of the lot, two artists of my life creating a song that manages to sound like it’s pulled directly from the 90s but so forward facing too. Ellie is a mad woman for singing like this on a song that she is going to end up singing for the rest of her career, the confidence of the production and the refusal to be anything other than a banger is what makes Miracle such a fantastic record.

11) Eat The Acid – Kesha

Pressing play on Eat The Acid for the first time, looking at the bleak album artwork for album Gag Order I tried to process what I was hearing. This didn’t sound like an artist known for writing immediate pop hooks, but Kesha in 2023 isn’t the same artist, she’s absolutely not the same woman. ‘You don’t wanna be changed like it changed me’ hits hard, but it’s ‘I am the one that I’ve been fighting the whole time’ that cuts deepest. There are layers of emotional in every mechanical sound here, the rolling bass the heartbeat of the song and of the person Kesha is now. Comparing that first listen of Eat The Acid to being sat here listening to it knowing that Kesha is finally FREE for the first time in her entire career it makes a song that already had so much power feel essential to music this year.

10) Tattoo – Loreen

I can’t talk about Tattoo by Loreen, a phenomenal song that might even be the peak of her career, without talking about my highlight of 2023. I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t a Eurovision fan. It’s in my blood, it’s a place that feels like home but I had never been there. Eurovision being held in my home city was one thing but to be there was genuinely life changing. It seems ridiculous to explain to anyone that isn’t indebted to this silly song contest but it was one of the greatest weeks of my life (even suffering with a tooth infection the entire time). I can’t hear Tattoo without remembering that week. Each chorus bigger in scale than the last, Loreen performing with so much emotion and power, almost operatic at times. That moment where the violins slide in? Pop magic. Tattoo would already be one of the best songs of the year if it was just a song, but as the first Eurovision winner that I can say I’ve truly experienced it’s a legendary record.

9) Rumble – Skrillex, Fred again.. & Flowdan

The first great song of 2023, it took 4 days into the year for this song to completely take over my playlists. I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but thank god Skrillex is back at his best. The influence of both Sonny and Fred on Rumble makes for a track that feels dangerous, like it could bite back at any moment. The griminess of that bassline is so so good and the simplicity of Flowdan’s verses work so well. This crossover of peak American ‘EDM’, British Hip-Hop and a very current British dance sound makes for a song I have not been able to stop playing since the day I heard it.

8) Enjoy Your Life – Romy

There are few musicians I respect more than Romy, Jamie and Oliver of The xx. Last year Oliver Sim delivered one of the year’s most devastating songs, and a year on here’s Romy with pure euphoria. There’s no other vocalist who can bring emotion in the way that Romy does, singing from the perspective of a Mother she lost when she was just 11, Enjoy Your Life is aimed squarely at the idea of living life to the fullest. Her voice carries you through that journey, while the samples are pure Jamie xx magic. Enjoy Your Life feels like a song that has emerged from nowhere, like it poured out of Romy without her being able to reign it back inside. It’s effervescent and vital to 2023.

7) vampire – Olivia Rodrigo

When does it become a cliche to say ‘defied the sophomore slump’? Going into 2023 it did feel like some parts of the industry had their fingers crossed that Olivia Rodrigo wouldn’t have the staying power to elevate from Sour, but one listen through of Vampire those hopes were dashed. Olivia’s in it for the long haul and has never sounded as cutting, direct and venomous as she does here. ‘bloodsucker, famefucker, bleeding me dry like a goddamn vampire’ is one thing but I think the phrasing of ‘I’ve made some real big mistakes, but you make the worst one look fine’ shows just how bloody good Olivia Rodrigo’s songwriting is. Yet another stellar pop song from someone quickly becoming the last person you would bet against.

6) TRUSTFALL – P!nk

Maybe my favourite thing P!nk has ever released. Absolutely her best song in the last decade. TRUSTFALL is less subtle, less intricately constructed than some of the songs surrounding it here but it just floors me every time I hear it. P!nk has always been a better artist than her discography would lead you to believe, one of the defining vocalists of the 00s era but I often feel her songs are less impactful than she is. TRUSTFALL has all of the impact, it’s a thundering pop song that is elevated even higher by her presence as a performer. It’s also the final time I’ll include a song produced by Fred again.. on this list, 4 in the top 20 for anyone counting.

5) Houdini – Dua Lipa

When I wrote about Future Nostalgia at the end of 2020 I said that Dua Lipa was ‘probably destined to be THE popstar of her generation’. On Houdini she is. This is the song you release when you are the popstar of the era, an instant classic that still manages to hide layers beneath every listen. I don’t even think I’ve gotten to my peak obsession with this song yet either. It’s so clearly a Dua Lipa song, some tired comparisons from the sort of people that still call any of this music ‘disco’ aside, but the impact of Kevin Parker in production takes us closes to The Weeknd’s Dawn FM than anything else. A darker, more direct approach to a pop record and one that might just be my favourite of Dua’s career so far. Anyone not excited for another year of Dua Lipa needs to listen to this just once and then tell me that they aren’t.

4) To be honest – Christine and the Queens

I’ve written about Christine and the Queens a LOT over the years. A staple of my albums and singles lists for sure, but in 2023 it feels different. It’s hard to explain but the two times that I saw him perform To be honest live in 2023 were some of the most devastating and thrilling moments of the year. I feel such an immense connection to the person behind Christine and the Queens for the first time, the man Red behind the mystique of the ‘pop’ persona maybe.

The way that To be honest sits as a simple song alongside some more otherworldly or artful moments he’s had this year brings that direct connection so much closer and actually makes this singular record even more powerful. It feels necessary to my life even, as dramatic as that sounds, like music that will last far beyond the point at which I’m engrossed in the silly lists and rankings of it all. There’s true raw emotion in To be honest and Red’s incredible performance and it sits within me every time I hear it.

3) Little Things – Jorja Smith

I found myself really engaged with dance music in 2023, I wanted to move, nothing makes me move like Little Things. The rhythm, push and pull of this song is so effortless, full of desire and playfulness. Jorja has never sounded so comfortable in a song like she does here, I love the way she adds additional rhythms on top in her lyrics and phrasing in the verses. It makes for a song that’s so undeniably infectious and yet feels earthy and real.

It pulls from Jungle and DnB and dancehall, but remains soulful and almost has a freeness to it like a jazz song. I’m not sure I’ve ever managed to listen to it without joining in with the ‘What time is it? When the party stops’ bit before the bass crashes back in to keep it going just enough to appease me. A triumph of a song from an unexpected artist.

2) Begin Again – Jessie Ware

Jessie Ware is a master of bringing soul to everything she does. She could sing anything to me and I’d feel something. But there’s a moment that happens every few Jessie songs, I’m talking Running, Tough Love, Midnight or Save a Kiss where things align in a way I struggle to comprehend. It’s like the things she does so well, write emotive lyrics, sing with such soul and craft memorable hooks come together as one. Begin Again is the peak. One of the artists that has defined my life since I first heard Running over a decade ago, to feel this moment where all of the pieces align in such a triumphant way like they do here makes me so happy. The piano line in this song is fantastic, musically it’s the most confident a Jessie Ware song has felt, while the brass is bold and stabs through just when it needs to. 

I couldn’t talk about the song without mentioning the section that starts nearly 4 minutes in, layers building of backing vocals, ‘I work too hard’ soaring above it all before one final peak of vocals. The steady build across 5 minutes is captivating, a masterclass from someone who has been very good at what they do for a long time and has delivered their finest work. Begin Again was extremely close to being my favourite song this year.

1) Not Strong Enough – boygenius

No song defines 2023 like Not Strong Enough. It’s one of those timeless moments that happen in every ‘genre’ as it moves in and out of fashion. It’s the peak moment for every Phoebe Bridgers, every Lucy Dacus and every Julien Baker, but also the peak of every genre fluid songwriter of the current era. This is a song where every lyric will be tattooed on at least one person’s arm, where friends post that this was the gig that they want to remember forever, the words I write now don’t feel like they’ll be able to define what Not Strong Enough will become as a modern classic song. 

All I can do is say that right now nothing makes me feel like this song does. Like a release of emotions I didn’t know I had, these lyrics unlock something deep within me. Each member of the band comes in with their verse, more epic in scale and more essential than the last. There isn’t even a single hook, it’s just one thrilling lyric after another. I feel genuinely overwhelmed the moment when Lucy Dacus’ final verse kicks in, ‘I don’t know why I am the way I am’ is enough, but with every new line the music swells like an outpouring of joy, sorrow and emotions all at once. It’s almost a lot to get through, for such a powerful and joyous song it leaves me kind of devastated each time I hear it. These are three of the best musicians and lyricists we currently have creating music that will define other people’s lives. Not Strong Enough will always feel like this year to me, a song that feels bigger than any of us.