The 2023 Confusingly Made Up Awards for the Best Songs
Three years ago, during the dark ages, I came up with a bunch of made-up sounding awards to give my usual unranked/unordered best songs of the year list a little…zhuzh. Then I stopped doing that because, without going too far into it, the same toxic work situation that caused me to basically stop reviewing things also made song lists seem insurmountable and not fun.
But now, that’s over and the Song Awards are back, baby! So without further adieu, here’s ten arbitrary, made-up awards that I thought made sense in my head but definitely won’t to anyone else, honoring the best songs of the year.
The Chris Gaines Memorial Award for Best Rock-Based Two-Stepper
“Crusades” by Geese
Geese’s second album is a WILD RIDE. It’s the Doors mixed with Steely Dan, Allman Brothers, Toadies, Jesus Lizard, and Todd Rundgren. The midpoint of the album, “Crusades,” comes after the particularly unhinged prog/post-rock epic, “Undoer,” which crescendos into a full destruction of the studio while vocalist Cameron Winter blows out his vocal chords screaming over the din. When the track crash-switches to “Crusades,” the song comes as both respite and rousing energizer. The 4/4 two-step of the endless guitar layers mixed with honky-tonk piano are inspired and lighten the spirit. And when the music cuts halfway through for Winter to calmly tell you, “and I will take your side every time,” the effect gives me goosebumps no matter how many times I listen. The emboldening music immediately jumps back in to get that line dance moving again, and it makes “Crusades” and absolutely unforgettable listen.
The Tim & Eric Mind Blown Meme Award for Most Mind Blowing
“Shit Talk” by Sufjan Stevens
Saying “Sufjan Stevens wrote a good song,” should do nothing except produce yawns and “uh, duh”s from everyone. But the penultimate track to Steven’s eulogy to his longtime partner, Evans Richardson, is above and beyond, even for him. The eight-and-a-half-minute epic traverses themes of love, the fighting that often happens when times get tough, and the guilt that rises when you can’t be the perfect partner. It becomes even more personal and heartbreaking, when you realize that lines like “I will always love you, but I cannot watch” come loaded with the darkness of seeing his partner slowly dying but not being able to cope. The song changes back and forth between Stevens’ standard twee stylings and an overwhelming choir of voices dancing phrases back and forth. They coalesce around the repeated phrase “I don’t want to fight at all,” though the varied deliveries between all the parts is simply awe-inspiring. The voices drop away to leave behind a wordless, ambient orchestration of horns and mournful strings that goes on for the entirety of the last half of the track’s runtime. But it’s no lazy exchange for a fade out. Instead, the arrangement becomes Richardson’s apotheosis, lifting his spirit to heaven, while Sufjan, and by extension ourselves, are left here in the grimy real world, waiting to see our loved ones again.
The Greta Gerwig Mumblecore Award for Most “Literally Me” Vibes
“ballad of a homeschooled girl” by Olivia Rodrigo
Olivia Rodrigo’s second album not only avoided a sophomore slump, it blew her first album out of the water in every way on every track. The highlight (for me, at least) is this non-single track that so perfectly encapsulates social awkwardness, regardless of homeschooling background. “Each time I step outside, it’s social suicide,” she near-screams at the end of each chorus, providing 2023 with one of the very best lines written all year. Plus, this song kicks ass. It’s loud, uninhibited rock and roll delivered at full pitch, putting Olivia Rodrigo’s versatility and pure talent out there for all to see in a passionate, heavy display. It’s funny, it’s tragic, it’s oh so literally anyone at a party where you know no one. It’s perfect. Crank it up now.
The Dana Freeling Award for WHAT IS HAPPENING?!?!
“A&W” by Lana Del Rey
Lana Del Rey has, previously, not been someone I was really into. Her particular brand of “sad girl” singer-songwriter traditional pop seemed very… boilerplate, even if she was one of the leaders of that revival of sorts. I liked her 2019 effort, Norman Fucking Rockwell, fine enough, but I still just… didn’t get it. But while much of the aesthetics of that album are present throughout Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd, the songwriting is just levels above anything else I’ve heard from her. The finest example of that is her—for lack of a better word—experimental take on the mini-suite that is “A&W.” The first (and largest) section is the closest to what I would expect from a Lana song, beautiful smoky vocals gently informing the listener of something existentially horrifying. It may be within her wheelhouse, but some of the passages here really land with a powerful punch. Then, after the last chorus, over four minutes in, the entire vibe switches as grimy glitch-hop beats kick in over chopped-and-screwed samples of the previous chorus. This then leads to a full tempo switch-up that feels like Annie Clark attempting a riotgrrrl chant over a Portishead trip-hop beat. It is mind-boggling and fantastic, and I can’t state enough how utterly wonderful it is to be surprised like this.
The Daniel Ek Totally Isn’t Spying On You Award for Most Likely to Creep Into Your Spotify Wrapped
“Kamikaze” by Carly Rae Jepsen
God knows it was on my Spotify Wrapped, and it didn’t just sneak in, it kicked the doors down. This song is a straight up banger. It should not be a surprise that I am a fan of CRJ, because who isn’t? But this track off her B-SIDES COMPILATION to last year’s The Loneliest Time, has quickly become my favorite thing Carly has ever made. The beat, the mixing, the production, all perfectly match Carly’s fantastic delivery of powerful lines about an unavoidable reconnection with a bad ex. “I love the beginning / The moonlight is calling / I know we’ll go up / But we’ll end up freefalling;” it’s so explosive and primed for the club that I just cannot stop listening to it. This is dance pop at its absolute best.
REPEAT WINNER!!!
The Katey Sagal Award for Most Blown-Out 70’s Hair and Disco Ball Fun
“Free Yourself” by Jessie Ware
Previously, Jessie Ware won the prestigious Katey Sagal award for the title track to her last album, the delectable disco revival of What’s Your Pleasure? But while that album focused on the Giorgio Moroder form of electronic-Italo-disco, this first single off her latest release, the impeccable That! Feels Good!, is a very different form: that of the original, more live and ornate disco. This track in particular rides the sound of real pianos and horns and mixes in the beats of the (comparatively) more modern club track styling of, say, C+C Music Factory. It’s full nostalgia in only the best way. With these last two albums, Jessie has fully embraced the role of disco queen surrounded by a hoard of artists who wish they could create a sonic revival even half as good as this. If she sticks to this sound forever, it will never get old.
The “Is That My Alarm Clock or a Straight Banger?” Award for Most Annoyingly Addictive and Most Addictively Annoying
“Hollywood Baby” by 100 gecs
How does one even begin to explain what 100 gecs is? The band that accidentally created hyperpop sat back and waited for that predictably unstable wave to crash and take their myriad copycats with it. Then, in the resulting low tide, 100 gecs returned. Their… just, weird WEIRD weirdness is still very much prevalent on much of their sophomore album, 10,000 Gecs, and yes, on this song as well, but “Hollywood Baby” is by a wide margin their most accessible and mainstream(ish—very much -ish) song. And if you can get past the purposefully autotuned-to-near-unrecognizable-death vocals, a lot of what’s going on is much closer to power pop or pop punk than anything insanely bizarre. The duo of Laura Les and Dylan Brady playfully back-and-forth to deliver one of the best rock anthems of the year (with the incomparable Josh Freese on live drums!!!) that no one would ever actively listen to unless it was forcefully shoved in their ears. Allow this article to be that Q-tip.
The Kenny Loggins Award for Best Single Tie-In to an Awesome Soundtrack
THREE-WAY TIE!!!
“Speed Drive” by Charli XCX
“Journey to the Real World” by Tame Impala
“What Was I Made For” by Billie Eilish
Obviously, in a three-way tie, there won’t be a longer discussion of each song, but one of the best things to happen to movie music this year is all the original music written for Barbie. Each artist took the themes of existential dread, female empowerment, and draining the world of pink paint (look it up, this movie used the entire world supply of Pantone 219C), and made it their own.
Charli XCX’s song is appropriately hyperpop and hyper-speed, matched amazingly with Barbie’s attempts to escape from the Kafkaesque Mattel headquarters. While earlier in the movie, Tame Impala’s trademark trippiness and constant momentum is perfectly paired with Barbie and Ken’s bizarrely handmade (and pretty silly) transition from Barbieland to Los Angeles. Then, Billie Eilish leans into her more recent somber sound to provide a truly inspired backing for Barbie’s realization that she wants to be real; it’s beautiful and bursting with feeling.
I haven’t seen a major motion picture with this kind of music tie-in in a looooong time. And these are just my favorite three. There’s a ton of brilliant songs on Barbie: The Album: Lizzo’s hilarious, maybe-diagetic-maybe-not “Pink,” Niki Minaj and Ice Spice’s inspired and (purposefully) goofy re-imagining of Aqua’s “Barbie Girl,” plus Sam Smith, HAIM, PinkPantheress (apt), and the movie musical moment of 2023 that is Ryan Gosling’s “I’m Just Ken.”
The First Annual Conquest of Gaul Award for Song Best Designed to Appeal to Me, The Person Writing This Listicle, Specifically
“DSM-V” by HEALTH
HEALTH, especially in their current musical incarnation, is exactly the kind of thing that 20-something me would have literally fainted over. It’s loud, it’s fast, it’s heavy, is crunchy, it’s dark, and it’s full of effects. I have long tried to enter the dark, swirling gyre that is EBM (Electronic Body Movement—essentially industrial but with way better beats), but that genre often comes with… the screaming. It can be artfully done, but usually is not. HEALTH, however, have long used Jason Duzsik’s cold, airy, self-described effeminate voice to float high above their plethora of noisy iterations. RAT WARS is certainly the band’s deepest dive into EBM and electro-industrial, and their most sonically cohesive since 2015’s Death Magic, and “DSM-V” is the unfathomable abyss of that deep dive. “No one’s safe here / No one cares / Pleasure’s sacred,” Duzsik coos over a wash of his own sludge-metal guitars, BJ Miller’s blistering live and electronic drums, and the piercingly brilliant effects from John Famiglietti’s synths and samplers. Once, in 2008, HEALTH toured with Nine Inch Nails. Now they are Nine Inch Nails.
The Wipeout 64 Award for 90’s Nostalgia That’s Also Totally Awesome
“Fever (This Is the Real Thing)” by Alison Goldfrapp
For those not in the know, Wipeout 64 was a futuristic racing game made for the Nintendo 64, the last of the great cartridge consoles, and it FUCKING RULED. Apart from the shiny neon visuals, and going really goddamned fast, it also had the raddest soundtrack of any game ever. I learned who Fluke and Propellerheads were because of that game, and if you say you don’t know them, I guarantee you do (just watch The Matrix again, their music is all over it). All of this is to say, Alison Goldfrapp’s newest (and her first solo) record, The Love Invention, is a stunningly beautiful and shockingly addictive dance-pop album, chock full of crazy-awesome 90’s electronica beats, but matched with her brilliant songwriting and vocal talent. “Fever (This Is the Real Thing),” is the pinnacle of that combination. Fast, driving, and incessantly upbeat, raves were started specifically for this sound.
I really hope you check out these songs (assuming you haven’t heard them already). Links to listen are embedded in the images, but…
Below you will find a Spotify playlist of these songs and SO MANY MORE!!! There were so many great songs this year, but coming up with silly awards for all… 111 of them was not a burden I was willing to bear. So definitely check it out for true gems from:
Algiers featuring Zack De La Rocha, ANOHNI and the Johnsons, Blonde Redhead, boygenius, Caroline Polacheck, Caroline Rose, The Chemical Brothers, Christine and the Queens, Feist, Fever Ray, Genesis Owusu, James Blake, JPEGMAFIA x Danny Brown, Kali Uchis, Kelela, Mitski, Paramore, Queens of the Stone Age, Sampha, slowthai, Troye Sivan, Yves Tumor, and SO MUCH MORE!!!
