2023

My 2023 playlist on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/53UJd6VThfZmBJqCf0vold 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPXZHlD_pYLpunle4QU1Ye62ZIxXfOHB6 

I hope you find something to enjoy in this collection of songs that I discovered or re-discovered this year. Editorial comments, history, and disclaimers below, as usual.

Other playlists here or follow me on Spotify

Enjoy – well before all the “Best of 2023” playlists, you heard it here first!

Editorial comments:

1. This playlist has a ridiculous 90 (!!) songs on it, for 5 hours and 45 minutes of playtime. No attempt at sticking to conventional tape / CD / record length, obviously.

2. Because of the length of the playlist, I gave up on a logical progression of the songs based on sound, content, genre, etc. – there are 90! (90 x 89 x 88 x 87 x …) possible orderings of these songs, which is a VERY BIG number (1.485716 x 10138). So I did not have time to try out all orderings. By comparison, the number of heartbeats in a lifetime is about 2.5 x 108

3. I just looked at my annual review of Spotify, and apparently I listened for 23,225 minutes (16 days nonstop) and played 3160 songs. So don’t say I didn’t pare it down for you.

4. I tried generating this summary/commentary using GPT-4. The result is not good. Quote: “This playlist doesn't just cross genres; it leaps over them, with every track promising a different flavor of sonic candy.” And: “This playlist is a rollercoaster ride of emotions, zigzagging through the streets of every genre town like a runaway scooter.” Is the b*tch criticizing my composition? For the full ChatGPT-generated description of the content, scroll to the end of this message.

5. The opening song, West by Modern Love Child, is a catchy anthem that is so obscure that every time you listen to it, you make a real difference to his Spotify stats. As of this writing, the artist has 3,044 monthly listeners and the song has a total of just over 5,000 streams. The YouTube video has 550 views (mostly by me). So show him some love!!

6. By comparison, Peso Pluma, also on the list and probably someone you had never heard of before, has 49 million monthly listeners. "Luna" is a collaboration with Junior H, and has 166 million total streams. Peso Pluma’s studio album, Génesis, debuted at #3 on the US Billboard 200 in June 2023, becoming the highest-charting regional Mexican album in the chart's history.

7. Rage by Vic Mensa was the theme song to a Netflix comedy special by Matt Rife (the only hit when you google “good-looking comedian”).

8. The song Nobody Knows by Pastor T.L. Barrett and the Youth for Christ Choir (#75) is from 1971, making it the oldest song on the list. I heard it in a movie credit or something and Shazamed it to find out what it was.

9. If Kindness by Andrew Simple (#43) sounds familiar, it’s because it was in a Toyota Christmas commercial. Yeah, I get my ideas in all sorts of places. And no, it’s no longer on YouTube, so I used a different Andrew Simple song on the YouTube version of the list.

10. Returns of old favorites:

    • Portugal. The Man released an excellent new album this year, Chris Black Changed My Life. I included two songs from that album. Doubt (#69) goes back to the sort of sound that sold me on them to begin with. And yes, I still kind of resent that they became a pop flash-in-the-pan (“Feel it still” has 1.2B streams, which is twice as much as the most-streamed Beatles song). 

    • Arcade Fire (arguably the best band of the 00s, and representative of a wave of awesome Canadian music from around that time) is back on my list with another song from last year’s album (End of the Empire I-III, #70). Still love them.

    • blink-182 is of roughly the same vintage, high-energy pop-punk. They had an excellent 2023 album, One More Time (#83) (“a cathartic return to form that coincided with pop-punk’s resurgence”)…

    • Ten points if you can find the ABBA cover. 

    • The Rolling Stones also released a new album this year. I was all ready to dismiss it, as I have most of their other new albums after Some Girls (1978). They have been a band for over 60 years, Mick is 80… but this new album kicks ass. Sweet Sounds of Heaven (#78), a collaboration with Gaga, is just one of several good songs.

    • The reason I included Rock 'n' Roll Suicide by David Bowie (in two different versions, no less) is that it sounded amazing when Michele and I went to see the Ziggy concert movie this year on its 50th anniversary tour.  

11. After getting feedback on the ominous song titles on my 2020 list (which was indeed a dark year, not just for me), I once again have to state that I did NOT pick these songs for their lyrics, titles, or themes, and any connections you might read into them is purely speculative.

12. Obvious exceptions the previous point:

    • I Want a Dog (on Weezer’s 2022 album, #39 on the list) has to be the most obvious exception to my "I don't pay attention to lyrics and titles" rule. Even my dog can tell that one. Yes, I have more pictures of Dakota than most people have of their kids. She is extremely cute and remarkably well behaved for a pup, except for the occasional shoe being destroyed. I can’t tell if she loves Allbirds and eats them because of that, or sees them as prey (she does have those wolf eyes), but either way, she can turn one into small chips faster than the bad guys from Fargo.

    • When I first heard West, by Modern Love Child (the opening song on the list), I didn’t Shazam it in time, and in later searching for the rather obscure song based on what I remembered hearing, I re-discovered Go West by the Village People and the cover of same by the Pet Shop Boys. Given that I am stuck here, I included all three on the list -- a not-so-subtle hint to all of you that I am always open to visitors.

13. The following themes are purely coincidental, not exceptions to my “ignore the lyrics and titles” rule:

    • Freister Mensch der Welt (#5) – I didn’t look at the rest of the lyrics, and I swear it’s not a reference to my current slightly more free state. And “Ich lerne nichts und verbrenn meine Zeit” is distinctly not applicable. 

    • All the weather stuff -- Sommerregen (#32); IJskoud (#31); Hurricane (#65); The Weatherman (#88) -- is also purely coincidental.

    • I added Black Friday by Tom Odell around Black Friday, but again, I just loved the song without paying attention to what it was about. 

    • Several songs have seemingly depressed / depressing titles. Comes with the territory of being into indie music and hence getting them recommended. And I pruned many more.

14. Two of the songs are in Dutch, two are in German, four are in Spanish, and one in Italian (but not the one by Paolo Nutini, who is Scottish). And none of that makes any difference in terms of how much attention I paid to the lyrics. Brazil is not in Portuguese, which should be obvious to anyone knowing Declan McKenna. Excellent show at the Fox this year, btw.

15. I included fewer mainstream superhits this year. If I got rid of Enrique Iglesias and Avicii (which I probably should have done, as neither was new this year) it would have eliminated 44% of the total number of streams of all 90 songs combined. Both the Enrique Iglesias songs have over a billion (!!) views on YouTube. 

16. A few comments on songs or artists that I did not include or removed after initially including them:

    • The Beatles: Now and Then is new-old, cool and interesting, and a remarkable use of the restoration technology developed by Peter Jackson’s team, and maybe it should be on the list. It’s on my general “Liked Songs” list instead.

    • Troye Sivan: If you saw the SNL episode in which Timothee Chalamet spoofed Troye Sivan (I don’t know a better way to define “pop icon has arrived and is now officially mainstream”), I now have to point out that I had Troye Sivan on my 2018 playlist. But not this year, despite him being huge. And I must also applaud myself for getting those two names in one sentence that refers only to music and popularity. 

      • That same year (2018), I also had a song titled “Dakota” – in the #2 spot on the list. But not “I want a dog and I will name her…”

    • The National: They released two decent albums in 2023, and Maarten and I saw them play in SF in November. Several of the new songs are on my Liked Songs list, but none of them hit that immediate trigger of “that one must be on this year’s playlist”. 

    • Loren Peled: After October 7th I was angry and sad and listened to a bunch of Israeli music. One song recommended to me was לא עושה לי מקום (Lo Osah Li Makom), which is now on my liked list. It’s from 2021 and a good relationship song, not a political anthem, and not on this playlist. And despite being deeply moved by this horrible attack and the resulting war, I think capturing or communicating that appropriately through song choice would be much more complicated than I have the energy to do right now, and would lead to an entirely different type of playlist.

    • Bigflo & Oli: On a much lighter note, after watching Astérix et Obélix : L'Empire du Milieu I initially included two songs by Bigflo & Oli from the soundtrack… catchy French hip-hop with lyrics simple enough to be understandable even with my “trois baguettes et dix croissants s'il vous plait” French. But I got tired of them pretty quickly, so they failed that basic “will this get annoying” test of playlist songs.

    • The Crawlers: I had a song by them on here that has really intense lyrics about a difficult (and potentially triggering) topic. Despite liking the sound of the song a lot, after much back and forth I decided to take it off the list. I have a pretty thick skin, but it didn’t pass even my the WtF?!? test.  

    • A bunch of whiny please-shoot-me-if-I-hear-this-song-one-more-time singer-songwriter stuff that initially sounded good but that slowed the whole thing down too much. See earlier comment about being into indie music and hence getting them recommended.

17. A few geeky stats (after all, I have worked in a Data Mining Solutions Department, an Analytics Laboratory, a Data Mining / Machine Learning group, and a Data Science Department):

• My 23,225 minutes of Spotify usage this year doesn’t even put me in the top 10% of Spotify listeners. I’m a bit disappointed. There are about 90 million people who listen more than I do.

• 26 of the songs were released in 2023 (about a quarter), 21 were released in 2022, and 90% were released in 2014 or later. Four songs could be considered “oldies” (being released between 1971 and 1979) – my definition of oldies being that they were released before I had my driver’s license. Of course, that makes pretty much the entire list oldies for some of you. 

• The distribution of number of streams is more or less pareto: a small number of songs are responsible for a large percentage of the total number of streams. What that means in practice is that there are a few ridiculously popular songs on the list, and a whole bunch of pretty obscure ones. The top most-streamed 15 songs account for more than 90% of the total number of streams of all 90 songs on the list, and the least-streamed 18 songs (the bottom 20% of the list) together account for less than 0.1% (1/1000) of the total streams.

My 2023 playlist on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/53UJd6VThfZmBJqCf0vold 

On YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPXZHlD_pYLpunle4QU1Ye62ZIxXfOHB6 

General disclaimers:  

• Obviously I hope you like the music, but even if you never listen to any of it, feel free to regift / forward to / share with someone who might.

• The choice of these songs does not mean that this is the only stuff I like - I have an annoyingly broad taste (not an omnivore, but definitely willing to try anything). I hope you like it, or at least discover a song or two you like through it! And I welcome your playlists, share away. 

• Not sure how this works with digital rights in other countries - I've seen weird things on Spotify where all of a sudden songs disappear from my playlist when I'm traveling. Let me know. 

• If there is a contribution that I obviously stole from you, please consider it flattery, not plagiarism 

• If you want to filter out explicit content, please follow the instructions here and Spotify will skip them during playback: https://newsroom.spotify.com/2019-10-04/how-to-filter-out-explicit-songs-on-spotify-in-a-few-quick-steps/  

ChatGPT Description of my 2023 playlist

This playlist is a rollercoaster ride of emotions, zigzagging through the streets of every genre town like a runaway scooter. Kicking off with Modern Love Child's "West," you're immediately transported on a road trip where the only requirement is a penchant for nostalgia and a love for sunsets. Olly Murs' "Dear Darlin'" pens a love letter to your heartstrings before TWIN XL gets "Messy" and turns the emotional page to angst.

VIC MENSA's "Rage" is the musical equivalent of shaking a soda can – it's about to explode with energy. Then, you're whisked away on a Latin escapade with Enrique Iglesias in "Subeme La Radio," where you can't help but pretend you're in a music video.

Tors' "Anything Can Happen" is the optimistic anthem for when life throws you lemons, but Run River North's "Pretty Lies" reminds you that those lemons can sometimes be bitter. 5 Seconds of Summer's "Me Myself & I" is a self-love jam that's as catchy as it is affirming.

As you dive deeper, Declan McKenna's "Brazil" will have you questioning politics with a beat that makes it impossible not to dance, while Matt Maeson's "Blood Runs Red" serves a slice of hauntingly beautiful introspection.

Avicii's "Hey Brother" is the ultimate sibling tribute wrapped in an EDM embrace, and just when you think you've caught your breath, AJR's "Drama" reignites the spark with a side of theatrical flair.

This playlist doesn't just cross genres; it leaps over them, with every track promising a different flavor of sonic candy. From the indie-folk musings of Hozier to the electrifying rock of The Gaslight Anthem, it's a musical smorgasbord that will have your ears feasting for days. It's not just a playlist; it's a narrative - each song a chapter, every lyric a line in this epic novel of rhythm and rhyme. So buckle up, hit shuffle, and let the serenade of this eclectic mix take you from "Bad Day" to "The Weatherman," because no matter the forecast, this playlist has a tune for every turn in the road.