Contributors to our Songs of the Week music survey of new releases are each picking a selection of the tunes that helped make their 2023 a better place. Here are the choices of Alana Rae ...
Not Strong Enough
By boygenius
Not Strong Enough has semi taken the world by storm. Maybe just my world but I’m not alone as it’s been nominated for three separate Grammys. Take those credentials with a grain of salt but Not Strong Enough is certainly a product of what happens when three of the top songwriters right now – Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus – put their heads together. It’s deep but with a carefree sense of fun and youth, a line well trodden by the group.
Impossible
By Wasia Project
Siblings William Gao and Olivia Hardy are on the keys and vocals of London-based Wasia Project. Their 2022 track impossible is a heavily layered, jazzy track of tension and release that is performed effortlessly and impressively. It’s catchy without falling into an excess of overdone pop tropes. It demands a live rendition, which they saw through via YouTube this year, just to see if they could master its complexity in real time. And that they could.
Vampire
By Olivia Rodrigo
The poppy – almost operatic – lead single from Olivia Rodrigo’s 2023 album Guts has the infectious pace of an ABBA song with Paramore angst. It also serves as a cathartic diss to an older man she was in a relationship with. Rodrigo revealed via TikTok clean edits of the hook that didn’t make the cut, some less NSFW (not safe for work) lines that still rhymed with “blood sucker”. These include whale blubber, garlic butter and Mark Zucker. A meta queen.
One of Your Girls
By Troye Sivan
Troye Sivan is one of those pop stars who can wrap a devasting lyric up in a flirty little bow. One of Your Girls is a layered party song on the sonically cohesive album, Something to Give Each Other. Sivan details a real-life regular occurrence of him continually being lured in by interested straight men. He told interviewer Zach Sang how he initially enjoyed it, but eventually started wonder if it was some kind of validation seeking and internalised homophobia on his part. On a more positive note, he looks amazing in drag, see below.
What Was I Made For?
By Billie Eilish
The most anticipated movie of the year had another secret ploy up its hot pink sleeve. For Barbie, Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas were asked to write a song, and Eilish claims this was what got them out of writer’s block following her second album Happier Than Ever. The lyrics that tease out Barbie’s existential thoughts were a harsh but well-executed contrast to her glitzy exterior, and one that Eilish says is exactly how she feels herself. A multitude of “the making of” videos have since been released for What Was I Made For? and its fun listening to a musician explain her craft with a lashing of Gen Z charisma.
아스라이 Aseurai
By Phoebe Rings
Tāmaki Makaurau band Phoebe Rings returns with a standalone single 아스라이 Aseurai. It’s floaty and shimmery in its instrumentation, with vibrant strings and jazzy bass guitar. The band’s leader, Crystal Choi, wrote and performed the lyrics in Korean after the death of her grandmother. Listeners can feel the raw emotion of Choi’s delivery, maybe due to the many times the band has played it live before this recording. Phoebe Rings have nailed a dynamic but boppy song this year, hopefully a precursor to similar works to come.
Murder on the Dancefloor
By Sophie Ellis-Bextor
Described aptly as having “timeless dancefloor elegance”, Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s 2002 hit is as groovy as it ever was. It is dynamic and an absolute hoot, with the original kind of sass that the likes of Sivan and Rodrigo have sprinkled over their pop offerings today. It’s apparently taken on new meaning for those who have watched Emerald Fennell’s recent film Saltburn.
Boyhood
By The Japanese house
The lead single off the Japanese House’s 2023 album In the End It Always Does is understated but oh so yearning in its lyricism. It dives into the trendiness of nostalgia while being a forward-looking tale of love and being unable to predict where it will land. Serene and clean in its production, it reminds you of Caroline Polachek at times – the song thrives on its subtlety.
Waiting Room
By Phoebe Bridgers
Bridgers famously isn’t a fan of this song. But to me, it is perfect. It’s a song that sticks around year in and out. It evokes emotions that are so specific and broad simultaneously and builds impeccably. Bridgers wrote it when she was 16 so criticises the way it overdramatises. But what a beautiful and fleeting time to have captured.
