The 100 Best Songs of 2023

Listen to Pitchfork’s favorite songs of 2023 and you’re bound to be blown back by the full spectrum of human emotion: the dizzying high of new love (“Rush,” “Padam Padam,” “Super Shy”), the vengeful low of a woman scorned (“Kill Bill,” “get him back!,” “Boy’s a liar Pt. 2”), the pit of despair (“Will Anybody Ever Love Me?,” “Moonless”), the fire to take action (“Namesake,” “It Must Change,” “Pinking Shears”), the joy of the dancefloor (“Installation,” “Rumble,” “Amapiano”), the pleasure of self-affirmation (“On My Mama,” “SkeeYee,” “Fruit Loop”), and on and on. Here you’ll find world-conquering pop hooks and local rap anthems, DIY electronics and lush studio productions, regional Mexican breakthroughs and Afrobeats crossovers. There’s even a 22-minute ambient jazz masterpiece. Dive into the 100 best songs of 2023 below. We’re sure you’ll find something you love.

Check out all of Pitchfork’s 2023 wrap-up coverage here.

Note: This list includes songs released in December 2022. Anything that came out after we published our Best of 2022 list was eligible.

Listen to selections from this list on our Spotify playlist and Apple Music playlist.

Mary Jane Dunphe: “Stage of Love”

On her first solo single, former CCFX crooner Mary Jane Dunphe describes a solitary, disorienting view of longing. The boiling point of her sensory confusion is right on the surface, bubbling out of the blown-out bass, tactile beats, and feral, distorted guitar riff. Dunphe’s deep voice seems to move in slow motion as she surveys the chaos. “Love is giving something you don’t have to someone who doesn’t want it,” wrote the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, a scary thought at the heart of Dunphe’s battle cry. It’s reason enough to stay single. –Jill Mapes

Listen: Mary Jane Dunphe, “Stage of Love”

Marina Herlop: “La Alhambra”

Catalan experimental artist Marina Herlop once likened her music to a huffing monster that expands and deflates like an accordion. That sense of tension and release underlies this year’s Nekkuja, but with her contrasts manifesting as spiky peaks and plunging depths. The prismatic single “La Alhambra” is among the album’s most striking pieces: Between plucked guitar and blasts of bass drum, Herlop’s sweet, glitchy harmonies shoot out like shafts of light penetrating a cracked cave ceiling. She ramps up the drama with moments of near silence; skittering electronics rustle before Herlop stacks her vocal layers like a pyramid of glinting gold bars. The higher she piles them, the more they sparkle. –Madison Bloom

Listen: Marina Herlop, “La Alhambra”

Peso Pluma / Gabito Ballesteros / Junior H: “LADY GAGA”

Génesis, the breakout album from the Guadalajara-based vocalist Peso Pluma, effortlessly combines the material hustle and hypebeast style of American rap with the traditional acoustic sound and storytelling form of Mexican corridos. Over the percussive thump of a guitarrón and the nostalgic stirring of a 12-string bajo sexto, the unexpected superstar opines upon the numbing effects of his newfound fame, his throaty rasp like a high-pitched trumpet next to the smoother voices of Rancho Humilde signee Junior H and singer-songwriter Gabito Ballestros. Pluma takes the name for this single from a Lady Gaga-licensed line of Dom Pérignon rosé, a celebratory reference point for an artist who has transcended the assumed borders of so-called "regional Mexican" music. –Nadine Smith

Listen: Peso Pluma / Gabito Ballesteros / Junior H, “LADY GAGA”

MSPAINT: “Delete It” [ft. Militarie Gun]

The first time MSPAINT played a hardcore festival outside their native Mississippi, vocalist Deedee had a chance encounter: finding Militarie Gun frontman Ian Shelton navigating a pre-show panic attack. The two connected and developed a lasting bond as weirdo outsiders adjacent to the scene. Eventually, Shelton helped guide MSPAINT as the co-producer of their debut album, and guest vocalist on its standout, “Delete It.” With lyrics about struggling to live in the moment, their collaboration plays like a long-lost ’90s alt-rock anthem, plunged through these artists’ idiosyncratic filters. –Ryan Leas

Listen: MSPAINT, “Delete It” [ft. Militarie Gun]

RXK Nephew: “Yeezy Boots”

In all of the debate over Kanye West’s place in our current cultural climate, no one has gotten to the point as quickly as RXK Nephew: “Jay-Z don’t even like you,” “the whole G.O.O.D. Music made bad music,” and most damningly, “you signed Big Sean.” The latest in the Rochester rapper’s ongoing series of appointment-listening diss tracks, “Yeezy Boots” works well enough as a litany of opinions about Kanye’s rapping (mediocre), street credibility (non-existent), haircut (dumbass) and shoes (same). But it’s also a meditation on an important concern for RXK Nephew, whose utter disregard for social propriety puts his career at risk nearly every time he drops a track: just how much out-of-pocket shit can someone say before they suffer actual consequences? “They doing Kanye like R. Kelly/I don’t care, I don’t wanna hear his music,” Neph mutters, knowing damn well that most of Ye’s sins would be absolved if he was still making hits. –Ian Cohen

Listen: RXK Nephew, “Yeezy Boots”

Lankum: “Go Dig My Grave”

A boy courts and then rejects a young woman. She returns home and hangs herself. Under various titles, this story has been sung countless times over the centuries. Dublin band Lankum recast it in light of the recent folk horror film revival; their version conveys an ambient dread akin to The Witch and A Dark Song. The spare arrangement opens with Radie Peat’s keening vocals and builds to a climax of queasy strings and death march percussion that’s more Bauhaus than “Barbara Allen.” The horror lies in the steadiness of it all, in its terribly unrelenting pulse and drone: Every thrum is a shovelful of dirt on your casket. –Stephen M. Deusner

Listen: Lankum, “Go Dig My Grave”

Bad Bunny: “WHERE SHE GOES”

For months after its release in May, Benito stans filled Reddit threads arguing over the creative merits of “WHERE SHE GOES,” and whether it went anywhere worthwhile at all. But the moody, New Jersey club-fueled banger offers just enough starts, stops, and beat drops to mirror his musings about infidelity. (A star-studded video featuring Lil Uzi Vert, Frank Ocean, and Ronaldinho simply adds to the fun foray into Bad Bunny’s relationship fuckery.) The song’s sprawling synths, brawny bass, and huge, soaring chorus meant “WHERE SHE GOES” only gained momentum through the year, becoming a ubiquitous song of the summer. –Erin Macleod

Listen: Bad Bunny, “WHERE SHE GOES”

Corinne Bailey Rae: “New York Transit Queen”

“New York Transit Queen” transforms a 1954 archival photo of a Black pageant winner riding a fire engine into a riot grrrl anthem. Corinne Bailey Rae, first known for bashful and yearning mid-2000s pop, debuts her shriek while narrating her subject’s joyous commute. The queen swells with potential as Rae and co-producer S.J. Brown soundtrack the raucous ride with clamoring drums, roaring guitar chords, and schoolyard handclaps that build into a wall of rhythm. Rae doesn’t give her a destination, but she’s obviously going places. –Stephen Kearse

Listen: Corinne Bailey Rae, “New York Transit Queen”

Everything But the Girl: “Nothing Left to Lose”

While married couple Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt have had their hands full with creative projects over the past two decades, it was a welcome surprise when their beloved group Everything But the Girl released Fuse early this year. The album highlight “Nothing Left to Lose” picks up where 1999’s Temperamental left off. Watt’s icy, slinky, and carefully structured production hides outsized emotions beneath garage’s lithe profile. Thorn’s exquisite, melancholic alto sings of the unbreakable bond between love and pain. “Kiss me while the world decays,” she pleads with the kind of passion that explains the duo’s reputation as dance music’s dreamiest couple. –Cameron Cook

Listen: Everything But the Girl, “Nothing Left to Lose”

Ragana: “Desolation’s Flower”

Ragana specialize in slow-moving, starkly arranged epics that gain power from how little is happening: a repeated phrase that gets under your skin as the volume increases, a sinister guitar riff that gathers momentum the more familiar it becomes, a pounding kickdrum that reverberates deep in your chest. “Desolation’s Flower,” the blown-out title track to the Pacific Northwest duo’s debut album for The Flenser, tethers this minimalist philosophy to a righteous rally cry. “Holy are the names,” they sing in remembrance of their queer and trans ancestors guiding them toward this moment. Together, they hold tight to their enduring values in a complicated world. –Sam Sodomsky

Listen: Ragana, “Desolation’s Flower”

Kieran Hebden / William Tyler: “Darkness, Darkness”

As Four Tet, Kieran Hebden has been blueprinting new possibilities for mixing beats and samples of acoustic instruments for more than two decades. Unsurprisingly, this union with William Tyler, the virtuoso finger-picking journeyman, is a perfect match. Centered on a thick chunk of “Darkness, Darkness,” a 1969 obscurity from soul-pop singer turned Days of Our Lives actress Gloria Loring, the song is a 10-plus-minute slow-burner that builds from psych-folk meditation to mid-’70s Miles Davis-style supernova, with Tyler channeling forefathers like Sonny Sharrock and Pete Cosey as Hebden shell-games the rhythms. The producer says a full album is on the way; it should be a mindbender. –Will Hermes

Listen: Kieran Hebden / William Tyler, “Darkness, Darkness”

Kiko el Crazy: “Pa Que Baile”

Saturated in Willy Wonka theatrics and slippery wordplay, Kiko el Crazy’s album Pila’e Teteo saved 2023 from a dembow drought. Opener “Pa Que Baile” hits with the force of a defibrillator to the eardrums, with an irresistible dancehall vocal loop that sucks you into the Dominican Republic’s neon underbelly like molly-water through a silly straw. In Kiko’s street utopia, ass-shaking is the highest currency, gangsters empty their clips toward the skies, and familiar pop references are reimagined as bachata remixes. He also bites back on Rosalía’s Dominican phase—when she pickpocketed his signature phrase “la pampara,” tried bachata, and befriended Tokischa—by recycling her own flamenco hand claps and “Linda” melody for a playful Caribbean repossession. He even channels his inner “Rich Girl” in the chorus, subverting yet another famed pop culture vulture. But here, everyone has all the money in the world. –Tatiana Lee Rodriguez

Listen: Kiko el Crazy, “Pa Que Baile”

Asake: “Amapiano” [ft. Olamide]

Underpinning Asake’s freewheeling cool is an epic striving for greatness. “Amapiano” is a concentrated blast of the Nigerian artist at his most charismatic and braggadocious, both a salute to the titular South African genre and his own swaggering stamp on it. Between trading boasts with rapper Olamide, Asake builds out the track’s skeletal house pulse and snaking log drum bass with sauntering Afrobeat melodies and a rousing chorus. In his attention to detail and sense of purpose, Asake elevates the song’s everyday hedonism into a hard-partying hero’s quest. –Harry Tafoya

Listen: Asake, “Amapiano” [ft. Olamide]

City Girls: “Face Down”

“Face Down” is a welcome reminder of City Girls’ propensity for churning out X-rated bangers. Flipping one of 2 Live Crew’s most notoriously obscene hooks, the duo dishes out trademark manifestos on scheming men over a riotous bounce beat. Even as Yung Miami and JT have spent more time as moguls and models than as rappers in recent years, “Face Down” proves that their raucous formula can still clock out hits. –Claire Shaffer

Listen: City Girls, “Face Down”

Rosalía / Rauw Alejandro: “VAMPIROS”

Darker than Depeche Mode, weirder than Wednesday Addams, Rosalía and Rauw Alejandro’s “Vampiros” is 2023’s most tenderly terrifying work of gothic storytelling. Over a grotesque bass lurch, a warped choral effect, and a gravelly dembow beat that hits like clumped earth on a coffin lid, the (one-time) lovers trace a bedeviled fairy tale of late-night misadventure. The song’s wildly addictive chorus and air of doomed romance cements the duo’s place as the Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin of the Rue Morgue. –Ben Cardew

Listen: Rosalía / Rauw Alejandro, “VAMPIROS”

Skrillex / Fred again.. / Flowdan: “Rumble”

Skrillex is back; Skrillex never really left. Instead, he simply morphed along with each mutation of sweaty, bro-beloved electronic music—after cementing his stamp on dubstep, he pumped out tingling, EDM-infected Top 40 hits, and now he pops up at Coachella as a mediating force between Four Tet’s airy thumps and Fred again..’s sentimental bangers. After a quiet few years, Skrillex came through with two albums this year, and “Rumble” is a pyrotechnic highlight from those records—an enthusiastic return to ruckus. Veteran grime rapper Flowdan snarls between strobing bass hits. Fred again.. helps slam home effect after effect: lion roars, water plops. The beat whirrs and whirls, sounding like wind buffeting through a helicopter’s rotors. No one ever accused Skrillex of subtlety, and this is prime in-your-face fun. –Dani Blum

Listen: Skrillex / Fred again.. / Flowdan, “Rumble”

Flo Milli: “Fruit Loop”

Flo Milli knows how to take the high of a sugar rush and knock a listener in the chest with it. “Fruit Loop” ramps that energy up until it snaps. She delivers simple, cutting bars like “You bitches really weak and you just talk online” and the laugh-out-loud diss “Tryna talk big but he got a lil pee-pee” with a peppy vindictiveness, like Harley Quinn faking a conversation with someone while holding a candy-coated mallet behind her back. –Dylan Green

Listen: Flo Milli, “Fruit Loop”

Yves Tumor: “Ebony Eye”

Yves Tumor’s latest album goes out ascending. Backed by triumphant strings, a propulsive “Umbrella”-esque beat, and a choir, Tumor trains their eyes to the heavens on “Ebony Eye,” the transcendent closer of Praise a Lord Who Chews… This is one of 2023’s premier shoulda-been singles—and, with good reason, Tumor’s personal favorite track on the album. Few could complain if such a grand finale suggested where this constantly shapeshifting artist is headed next. –Rich Juzwiak

Listen: Yves Tumor, “Ebony Eye”

That Mexican OT: “Johnny Dang” [ft. Paul Wall and DRODi]

That Mexican OT, a newcomer from Bay City, Texas with enough charisma to pull Houston rap-and-grill royalty Paul Wall for a guest verse, beams like a movie star in the exuberant video for “Johnny Dang,” clutching the song’s namesake jeweler like they’re brothers. What’s more, OT tells us how his Cadillac is doing jumping jacks and his semi-automatic sounds like bubble wrap. Even an eliminated opp gets a “bubble bath.” It’s all fun and games. “I’m just rhyming words, I don’t even know how to rap,” he titters, showing off his masterful, hilarious approach on the hook of this year's sunniest Southern rap confection. –Adlan Jackson

Listen: That Mexican OT: “Johnny Dang” [ft. Paul Wall and DRODi]

Janelle Monáe: “Float” [ft. Seun Kuti and Egypt 80]

“Float” embodies the kind of lightness experienced only by babies and spiritual gurus. Over a casually sublime brass backdrop that sounds like an HBCU marching band invading a luxe spa, a flirty, peacocking Janelle Monáe relishes shedding baggage and choosing a more unburdened life. If stress is a lifelong affliction, this song suggests the best recourse is to exhale, perhaps strip naked, and let those troubles roll off your bare back. –Clover Hope

Listen: Janelle Monáe, “Float” [ft. Seun Kuti and Egypt 80]

Overmono: “Good Lies”

On the title track of their debut album as Overmono, dance producers (and brothers) Tom and Ed Russell dissect and rearrange Smerz’s hallucinatory “No harm” like plastic surgeons for hire, facelifting the Norwegian duo’s murky R&B into an ecstatic festival anthem. Every inch of enigmatic unease lurking around the original vocals is shaved off, resulting in something like the soundtrack to meeting the love of your life while walking across the Williamsburg Bridge at golden hour. A clever stroke of emotional alchemy, “Good Lies” flips its source material’s defensive crouch into an airbrushed head-rush of sweet possibility. –Kieran Press-Reynolds

Listen: Overmono, “Good Lies”

TisaKorean: “uHhH HuH.Mp3”

If TisaKorean is primarily known for firing out dance rap tracks as chaotically as a toddler banging on their toy xylophone, “uHhH HuH.Mp3” stands apart for how much he actually lets the track breathe. Not that the Houston rapper is any less manic. Bouncing off a beat with all the head-knocking lurch of vintage Neptunes, he happily flaunts his influences, mixing up snap and crunk into a slurry of adlibs alongside his girlfriend Sunny Galactic. Pumping up its addictive synth hook as if he were inflating a giant balloon, “uHhH HuH.Mp3” is proof that TisaKorean doesn’t always need to disorient us into dancing—when duty calls, he can also lay down the muscle. –Sam Goldner

Listen: TisaKorean, “uHhH HuH.Mp3”

Christine and the Queens: “To be honest”

On “To be honest,” Christine and the Queens scales a mountain of self-actualization, shedding earthly anxieties—heartbreak, gender dysphoria—as he ascends toward the pearly gates of enlightenment. Uplifted by swirling synths and angelic coos, he heralds a Franglais party in the clouds where vulnerabilities can be belted out and no shadow self goes without a toast. Lofty as it all sounds, “To be honest” is Chris’ easiest-to-love song in years; at its beatific apex, it practically glows from within. –Owen Myers

Listen: Christine and the Queens, “To be honest”

Slowdive: “kisses”

Slowdive’s second post-comeback album, everything is alive, leans toward the more meditative and overcast end of the shoegaze pioneers’ aesthetic spectrum. But partway through, “kisses” punches a moon-sized hole through the haze to let all the feelings come gushing out. While this winsome indie-pop reverie may be a sonic outlier, it nonetheless complements the record’s thematic preoccupation with the passage of time. Neil Halstead and Rachel Goswell channel the rush of young romance via the music that soundtracked their youth, with crystalline Cure guitars and a chorus that would make New Order swoon in approval. –Stuart Berman

Listen: Slowdive, “kisses”

Niontay: “Thank Allah”

The Boston Celtics, Niontay’s favorite basketball team, don’t need your approval. By the luck of the Irish and the grit of each possession, they’ll outwork and out-magic your team to victory. This is how listening to the Brooklyn-via-Kissimmee rapper’s muted opus “Thank Allah” feels: No drums, no frills, just bars and a prayer, his warm Florida flows snaking around swampy keyboard and squiggly bass. As Niontay’s dizzying verse unfurls across various plays, Irish goodbyes and trips across the map, he remains poised and cold-blooded, like a buzzer beater in slow-motion: “Get a bag and go home, nigga, it's the playoffs / Took a nigga shit, took his work, ain’t no days off.” When the drums finally kick in at the end, it’s like confetti raining down on TD Garden. –Mano Sundaresan

Listen: Niontay, “Thank Allah”

Greg Mendez: “Maria”

How horrifying to realize—maybe at a party, talking to an acquaintance—that the story you’ve just decided to tell is utterly wrong for your current conversation. This is one way to understand Greg Mendez’s hauntingly beautiful “Maria,” which opens with Mendez admitting he’s afraid to “tell you about some dumb shit” before doing so anyway. As the anxious melody lurches forward against strummed guitar, Mendez gives a plainspoken revelation about the intertwined heartaches of addiction and love, and a reminder that the stories we choose to tell can say just as much about us as any particular narrative. –Marissa Lorusso

Listen: Greg Mendez, “Maria”

Lonnie Holley: “None of Us Have But a Little While” [ft. Sharon Van Etten]

A Lonnie Holley performance, by nature, is ephemeral: The multi-disciplinary artist never plays something the same way twice, making every set a unique experience. So each of his albums is a privilege—the only way to put his moments of magic on repeat. This particular recording, from his latest LP, Oh Me Oh My, is a yearning riff on the impermanence of life itself. With a weathered voice, the 73-year-old sings of the struggles of existence and reminds us that it will be over all too soon. As Sharon Van Etten’s haunting croon harmonizes with the static of Holley’s synthesizer, they offer a gorgeous and melancholic plea to live in the moment. –Matthew Ismael Ruiz

Listen: Lonnie Holley, “None of Us Have But a Little While” [ft. Sharon Van Etten]

Jane Remover: “Census Designated”

Jane Remover has already pioneered (and moved on from) at least two digitally addled micro-genres in her short career, becoming a cult hero in certain corners of the internet while still in her teens. On “Census Designated,” the title track of her second album, the now-20-year-old gets a charge out of being young, successful, and having—or, more cynically, being—a product that everybody wants. Yet she’s also acutely aware of how dangerous show business can be for those who find early success, and the language she uses to describe herself (“barely legal,” “young blood,” “fresh meat”) is no less alarming than the hair-raising music behind it: a slow-mo explosion of glitching guitars, leading to an ending where the whole song crumples into ash. –Daniel Bromfield

Listen: Jane Remover, “Census Designated”

2HUMPY / 2RARE: “2HUMPY Anthem”

The Philly club rap crew 2Humpy debuted in early May with an animated On the Radar freestyle that showcased their watertight chemistry, belting punchlines and ad-libs in unison as they gathered shoulder-to-shoulder around a single mic; by Halloween, they had broken up. In between, they dropped one of the year’s most delirious party anthems. While 2023’s pop landscape was littered with half-assed rehashes of bygone hits, the group’s eponymous posse cut succeeds as an ouroboros of nostalgia, fusing flows swiped from Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock’s “It Takes Two,” a flip of the iconic saxophone sample from Public Enemy’s “Rebel Without a Pause,” and hypnotic 808 kicks that thread two decades of Jersey and Philly club innovation together. Maybe we just didn’t deserve 2Humpy. –Jude Noel

Listen: 2HUMPY / 2RARE, “2HUMPY Anthem”

Ralphie Choo: “MÁQUINA CULONA” [ft. Mura Masa]

Ralphie Choo didn’t grow up listening to pop music. The Spanish singer spent his youth surrounded by his mom’s flamenco faves, artists like Camarón de la Isla and Paco de Lucía, and these traditional influences only enhance Choo’s genre-defying style—a kaleidoscopic mix of reggaeton, hip-hop, and, yes, flamenco, which stands apart from almost everything else in Spanish-language pop right now. “MÁQUINA CULONA,” a highlight from his debut album Supernova, is a modern take on cumbia that fuses electric accordion with pulsing squelches. Choo flits between heavily Auto-Tuned vocals and softer crooning as he admires a woman’s particularly large culo. Some things never get old. –Maria Eberhart

Listen: Ralphie Choo, “MÁQUINA CULONA” [ft. Mura Masa]

Mustafa: “Name of God”

The isolation of grief has a way of bringing us together in surprising ways. Toronto poet and musician Mustafa wrote “Name of God” after his brother was killed and, throughout the gentle guitar ballad, he questions his faith while finding comfort in the Sudanese-Canadian community he grew up around. The striking music video shows Mustafa riding a motorcycle in a traditional jalabiya, with the Sudanese flag flowing from his back like a cape, and the song ends with a scratchy recording of one of his cousins declaring, “I am a human and Muslim.” While this complicated ode to heritage is deeply personal, it has also moved listeners to use the video’s YouTube comments to share virtual hugs and mourn the lives lost recently in Palestine and Sudan. Its head is down, and its arms are open. –Vrinda Jagota

Listen: Mustafa, “Name of God”

Central Cee / Dave: “Sprinter”

The animating query at the center of this song is basically: How many women can you fit in a minibus? Both Dave and Central Cee have handled weightier topics, but “Sprinter” reminds us a good time doesn’t need to be deep. To a delicate strum of Spanish guitar, the silver-tongued London MCs riff on getting paid and getting girls; the lines are smart, the rizz impeccable. “Heard that girl is a gold digger,” deadpans Dave, “It can’t be true if she dated you.” “Sprinter” topped the UK charts for 10 weeks, making it the country’s longest-running No. 1 UK rap single ever. That it feels almost shrugged-off only makes its dominance that much more impressive. –Louis Pattison

Listen: Central Cee / Dave, “Sprinter”

Blake Mills: “Skeleton Is Walking”

Though Blake Mills is known for his meticulousness as a songwriter, guitarist, and producer, “Skeleton Is Walking” ambles along like a spontaneous jam—and is better for it. Mills and jazz musician Chris Weisman’s textured guitar interplay casts an air of reflection throughout the slowly building track, as Mills ruminates on peacemaking, redemption, and the passage of time. It all culminates in a rare indulgence for Mills: a distorted guitar solo that would make Robert Fripp proud. –Margeaux Labat

Listen: Blake Mills, “Skeleton Is Walking”

Actress: “Push Power ( a 1 )”

Best known for sparse, heady, and sometimes beatless compositions, vaunted English electronic producer Actress incites the dancefloor with a musical tug-of-war on “Push Power ( a 1 ).” Insistent four-on-the-floor bass hits pull at a searching piano line, while repetitive ad-libs offer enigmatic color commentary on the action. The terse vocals are hypnotic, but also lucid, crisp, and ready for the club, befitting a song that captures a cerebral standard-bearer as he gets kinetic. –Daniel Felsenthal

Listen: Actress, “Push Power ( a 1 )”

Jamila Woods: “Tiny Garden” [ft. duendita]

Jamila Woods finds abundance in humility and incremental growth on “Tiny Garden.” Despite confessing her “iceberg heart,” the Chicago R&B auteur embraces self-discovery as she digs into a burgeoning relationship. “It’s gonna be a tiny garden, but I feed it every day,” she sings. When she shifts into the chorus, a cushy pad of bass blooms behind her, and melodic dapples of keys peek through the mix like rays of late-afternoon sun. New York singer-songwriter duendita’s guest verse, which recalls the encouragements of Des’ree’s “You Gotta Be,” adds another tender layer to the track. “Tiny Garden” celebrates the heart as a place where wild and beautiful feelings can thrive, as long as it’s tended to with care. –Allison Hussey

Listen: Jamila Woods, “Tiny Garden” [ft. duendita]

AyooLii: “Shmackin Town”

Rambunctious Milwaukee rapper AyooLii’s catalog is vast, including over 150 YouTube uploads in 2023 alone, but one thing is clear across his many, many songs: He wants everyone to know he’s got jokes. “Shmackin Town” feels like a tossed-off gag brought to life, as it flips Lipps Inc.’s wedding-reception staple “Funkytown” into an absurdist celebration of AyooLii’s hometown sound. Producer 2PHONENOAH adds the booming bass and four-on-the-floor beat that are everywhere in Milwaukee, while AyooLii rattles off one-liners about girls whose butt lifts he paid for—one because her booty was flat, and another because her booty was fat. –Shy Thompson

Listen: AyooLii, “Shmackin Town”

Kali Uchis: “Moonlight”

With an extraterrestrial’s sense of discovery, Kali Uchis notes that love between two human beings can be so wonderful all across her third album, Red Moon in Venus. She sings of messy sheets and spilled wine in a fluttery rasp that suggests deserved exhaustion. And on “Moonlight,” the Colombian-American artist hones her R&B credentials, slipping into Spanish to share her dirtiest thoughts. She wants to get high with her lover? Sure, why not. With a bassline that undulates like a waterbed, Uchis looks in the mirror and imagines what could be. –Alfred Soto

Listen: Kali Uchis, “Moonlight”

SZA: “Blind”

SZA is the poet laureate of love’s excruciating complications, and “Blind” is packed with the kind of searingly uncomfortable truths about damaged relationships that have inhabited an entire generation’s consciousness. Every painful admission of sexual desire, emotional deficiency, and romantic suffering is compounded by the cherubic plucking of a harp or a soul-severing string crescendo. When she raps, you can feel her claws protracting, muscles tightening in defense against the man coming for her heart. But her sung falsettos bear the ache of someone undone by their own needfulness. When your pussy precedes you, and your past can’t escape you, you don’t always know how to honor the love that resides in you. “Blind” dreams of security and self-assurance, but as bell hooks says, even radical love offers no place of safety. –Isabelia Herrera

Listen: SZA, “Blind”

Jess Williamson: “Hunter”

On “Hunter,” a song about the indignities of dating as a newly single person in a big city, Jess Williamson memorably declares that her love is “honest as an ashtray.” The simile is a puzzle, something to be pondered over repeated listens, but on a gut level it also just rings true. This is how Williamson’s music works. A native Texan who embraced her twang after moving to the West Coast, she writes songs not to tell us something, but to figure something out about herself—in this case, how a discouraging experience can sharpen her resolve: “I’m a hunter for the real thing,” she sings, resolutely. –Stephen Deusner

Listen: Jess Williamson, “Hunter”

JPEGMAFIA / Danny Brown: “Fentanyl Tester”

Picture this: You’re cutting it up on the dancefloor when you realize—all too late—that you’ve been too indiscriminate in your drug use. Reality glitches. Time goes non-linear. Your fun night out is suddenly about to become a wild, white-knuckle ride into the abyss. “Fentanyl Tester” exists in the queasy, amphetamine-fuelled delirium of that moment.

JPEGMAFIA layers subterranean bass and frenetic drum breaks over chopped-up, helium-speed samples of Kelis’ “Milkshake,” marrying the velocity of ’90s jungle with hyperpop’s ADHD whiplash. He and Danny Brown trade frantic bars about Molly and Marmaduke, the words tumbling out so fast you can barely parse them. There’s no respite, no empty spaces to catch your breath. All you can do is hang on and hope you make it to the other side in one piece. –Bhanuj Kappal

Listen: Danny Brown / JPEGMAFIA, “Fentanyl Tester”

Caroline Polachek: “Pretty in Possible”

Amid the deep yearning and conceptual romance of Desire, I Want to Turn Into You, “Pretty in Possible” throws meaning to the wayside, choosing abstraction to summon the unpredictability of love. Caroline Polachek free-flows over a shuffling breakbeat, channeling the vocal stylings of Imogen Heap and Suzanne Vega, along with the cinematic strings of Massive Attack. She takes us through the bustling streets of her mind, slipping past volcanoes, blood, and drowning insects. It’s a trip that’s as intoxicating as it is confounding. –Margeaux Labat

Listen: Caroline Polachek, “Pretty in Possible”

Feist: “Love Who We Are Meant To”

Leslie Feist’s sixth album, Multitudes, functions as a series of permission slips to be whatever we are—sad, strange, content, alone, engaged, anything, nothing. Though she addresses “Love Who We Are Meant To” to an unnamed “you,” she sings it like a note to self, a reminder that it is better to be herself without the man who has left than to be disingenuous with him. Yes, they will see one another again, and she will surely run amok with feelings when they do—her voice is so careful here, over delicate fingerpicking and gossamer strings, that it suggests a dam straining to hold back a flood. But that’s OK, because it’s who she is right now. –Grayson Haver Currin

Listen: Feist, “Love Who We Are Meant To”

Octo Octa: “Late Night Love”

For the chronically anxious, thumping beats and writhing bodies can present an obstacle to transcendence, not a path to it. But for Octo Octa, who has been open about her own anxiety, the dancefloor is a balm. Her greatest skill as a producer is welcoming clubgoers of all dispositions into its communal space, and “Late Night Love” perfects her inviting style of house. A throbbing bass lures everyone onto the floor and a pounding kick drum keeps them there for the 12-minute ride, until celestial synths reveal their destination: not forward to the end of a sweaty night, but upward to an ecstatic climax. Octo Octa clears the way—all that’s left to do is ascend. –Matthew Blackwell

Listen: Octo Octa, “Late Night Love”

NOIA: “eclipse de amor” [ft. Buscabulla]

“eclipse de amor” is fundamentally a bolero, and the Spanish electronic pop artist NOIA and Raquel Berrios of Buscabulla devastate as they grieve a love. Their vocals reflect this doomed affair’s impermanence; both singers navigate precise melodic lines, ending in trills that fray the melody thin. NOIA’s production makes the song modern, as horror-trailer SFX, sci-fi-console error pings, and a dembow riddim that bangs like a failing hard drive heighten the emotional wreckage. –Katherine St. Asaph

Listen: NOIA, “eclipse de amor” [ft. Buscabulla]

Charli XCX: “Speed Drive”

“Speed Drive” flips Toni Basil’s pining cheerleader relic “Hey Mickey” on its head: Charli XCX wouldn’t dream of begging for a boy’s attention—this passenger princess only has eyes for the girl in the driver’s seat. Her bubblegum Barbie cut, which also samples Robyn’s “Cobrastyle,” is as light and fizzy as pink champagne as it celebrates young women’s vanity and intellect. (Charli shouts out both model Devon Lee Carlson and Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire on the song.) It’s the greatest celebration of love and friendship between thrill-seeking female motorists since Thelma & Louise. –Peyton Thomas

Listen: Charli XCX, “Speed Drive”

Little Simz: “Gorilla”

Plenty of rappers can string together a mythmaking verse, but truly selling it takes the kind of swagger you can’t teach. On “Gorilla,” Little Simz exudes a detached cool, rapping with uncommon confidence. A horn fanfare builds hype—you can imagine Simz standing stone-faced, shouldering a championship belt—before shifting into a face-scrunching groove. It’s the type of classic bassline-and-breakbeat hip-hop that’s aged as beautifully as practical film effects. Simz oozes into the pocket, side-eyeing lesser rappers and fairweather fans when she’s not boasting about the depth of her skills and the futility of challenging them. She’s unbothered and in her lane, offering a masterclass in the subtle art of talking that shit. –Dash Lewis

Listen: Little Simz, “Gorilla”

Chappell Roan: “Red Wine Supernova”

The entire history of pop music is built on songwriters dreaming up poetic ways to convince hot people to sleep with them. Chappell Roan has no time for that. “You just told me/Want me to fuck you/Baby I will ’cause I really want to,” is just one of many delightfully direct come-ons peppering “Red Wine Supernova,” a horny, Sapphic highlight from her debut album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess. Over strutting synth-pop, Roan showers the girl of her dreams in singalong hooks tailor-made for drunken karaoke nights. Subtlety is, like, so overrated. –Amy Phillips

Listen: Chappell Roan, “Red Wine Supernova”

The Smile: “Bending Hectic”

The beauty of the slow-growing “Bending Hectic” is wrapped up in how Jonny Greenwood, Thom Yorke, and Tom Skinner make death and power seem equally, lavishly seductive. Is the song’s “vintage soft-top from the ’60s” careening off an Italian mountainside the hell-bound chariot of a doomed couple—or the last vestige of status belonging to a disgraced fat cat who’s going out swinging? It’s all rendered with such delicate romance. The way Greenwood’s arpeggios bend upward at the end of every line in the first half evokes the intoxication of a lover’s touch; Skinner’s drumming feels more like the fluttering of cilia. These airborne qualities parachute your heart up to your throat even before the terminal velocity of Yorke’s guitar, gnarled and striated as an ancient oak, signals absolution—or damnation. –Laura Snapes

Listen: The Smile, “Bending Hectic”

Olivia Rodrigo: “vampire”

Olivia Rodrigo introduced her second album, GUTS, with a ballad-as-exorcism, her narrator shaking a past self free from an older partner’s sordid illusions. “vampire” pinballs between liberation, relitigation, and self-scrutiny, each verse a study in contrast: front-loaded with giddy, urgent exposition—the fucked-up thrills and diamond nights that he deluded her into viewing as a “forbidden paradise”—before recoiling into rueful couplets surveying the emotional damage. As on “drivers license,” Rodrigo vaults into an incendiary bridge, this time hinting at an appetite for revenge. But just as she seems primed for a scorched-earth assault, she reasserts control: The curtain drops, the music stops, and the fantasies created by this “fame fucker” finally shatter. –Jazz Monroe

Listen: Olivia Rodrigo, “vampire”

Aphex Twin: “Blackbox Life Recorder 21f”

Aphex Twin’s first song in five years hums with gentle nostalgia, blurring at the edges like a happy memory that’s fading away. Dedicated to his late parents, “Blackbox Life Recorder 21f” begins mellow and summery, with much of the warmth and comfort of 2014’s Syro, seen through a softer filter. The bob-and-weave drum programming counters pretty synth melodies that float like celestial bodies. More elements eventually get stacked on—punchy breakbeats, crash cymbals in clusters—but the sentimentality at its core can’t be obscured. –Dean Van Nguyen

Listen: Aphex Twin, “Blackbox Life Recorder 21f”

Carly Rae Jepsen: “Psychedelic Switch”

You’d be forgiven if you thought Daft Punk reunited to produce “Psychedelic Switch,” the latest in Carly Rae Jepsen's growing collection of A-side-worthy B-sides. With synths strobing like Rainbow Road (or, you know, “One More Time”), Jepsen rides a euphoric ’70s bassline all the way to French-touch nirvana. As ever, the Canadian pop star is relatively coy about her desires, but it’s still charming to hear her “puttin’ on the ritz,” as she frames it, in 2023. You get the sense that even if her proverbial switch flips back off, this fleeting crush was worth the high. –Peyton Toups

Listen: Carly Rae Jepsen, “Psychedelic Switch”

Sampha: “Spirit 2.0”

The lead single from Sampha’s follow-up to 2017’s Process, “Spirit 2.0” is an airy journey toward enlightenment in which the singer finds transcendence in himself and his community. Starting with piano chords and arpeggiating Moog synths, the song swells into something luxurious but still light on its feet, as Sampha begins to effortlessly float over nimble percussion and sweeping strings. Switching flows and drawing out lines about “drifting into open skies,” he sounds freer than ever before. –Hannah Jocelyn

Listen: Sampha, “Spirit 2.0”

Pangaea: “Installation”

A decade and change since the electronic producer Pangaea pulped UK clubland’s collective brain with the diced syllables and drunken percussion of “Hex,” he repeated the feat—but sweeter, sexier this time—with “Installation.” The tongue-juggling vocal chops are still front-and-center, but where “Hex” swirled around drum hits that seemed to disintegrate just as they reached your ears, “Installation” pumps a full-blooded Jersey house bounce through bubblegum-pop framing and demands a singalong—even if you’ve got no idea what the words are. I’m going with “eso es,” or Spanish for, “That’s it!” –Will Pritchard

Listen: Pangaea, “Installation”

Armand Hammer: “The Gods Must Be Crazy” [ft. El-P]

On We Buy Diabetic Test Strips, Armand Hammer’s constantly molting new album, phones are always intruding into the songs: landlines crackle and die, calls are blocked or dropped, and Siri is a harbinger of death. El-P’s beat for “The Gods Must Be Crazy” sounds like the uneasy fusion of data and flesh—in this case, human voices stripped from their bodies and collapsed into a rhythm that could double as a ringtone. Elucid and billy woods write about the fraught interconnectivity this motif suggests, the former wielding Xeroxed visas while the latter inches “to the edge of Earth/Sunburnt—black as Pompeii.” When woods later raps about “overlapping Venn diagrams overlapping,” the tenuousness of those connections is laid bare. –Paul A. Thompson

Listen: Armand Hammer, “The Gods Must Be Crazy” [ft. El-P]

Tinashe: “Needs”

Sometimes, you just need dick. Tinashe doesn’t play coy about what she wants from a man on “Needs,” the no-frills, sex-positive standout from this year’s BB/ANG3L EP. Especially when coupled with a dynamic video full of freewheeling grocery-store choreography, the alt-R&B artist’s confidence in collecting simps is infectious. Reinforcing the idea that everyone has a reason to get some, “Needs” is ready to turn any Hinge-prone loner into a gleeful one-night stand. –Peyton Toups

Listen: Tinashe, “Needs”

Indigo De Souza: “Younger & Dumber”

“Younger & Dumber” is a crowning anthem for empaths everywhere. Over chalky pedal steel and piano drenched in reverb, North Carolina indie rocker Indigo De Souza looks back on her own knotted history with glassy eyes. She appears reluctant to share at first, but then pushes to a desperate scream at the song’s climax. For De Souza, love of self offers more than a comforting embrace: It sits deep within bones, and when it leaves, it does so in a violent rush. –Rachel Saywitz

Listen: Indigo De Souza, “Younger & Dumber”

DJ Koze: “Blissda”

DJ Koze is widely hailed for the flashy eclecticism of his studio albums, but he’s also an ace club DJ, and “Blissda” distills the empathic bliss of his dancefloor genius into six heavenly minutes. It’s a dreaming deep-house moonrise: The melody drips like mercury falling from a dropper as it coats a slanting contraption of knocks, claps, and cymbals. The bass is more of a presence than a proper line, burning in smudge pots somewhere nearby. The perfectly titled track turns catharsis into a container—a little eternity in a chilled bottle. –Brian Howe

Listen: DJ Koze, “Blissda”

MIKE / Wiki / The Alchemist: “Mayors a Cop”

The mayor of New York is a cop—an incontrovertible fact with damning implications. Rather than belabor the premise, NYC loyalists Wiki and MIKE use it to frame an experiential dialogue. Conditions include sweltering heat and slushy cold, skyrocketing rents and crumbling infrastructure; hemmed in on all sides, the rappers are left to assert their own personhood. “Mayors a Cop” is at once deliberate and meandering, with Wiki and MIKE exchanging wordy, emotive bars. Alchemist’s swirling horns evoke a military roll call, but the leaden tempo and muffled snare expose it for what it really is: a funeral dirge. –Pete Tosiello

Listen: MIKE / Wiki / The Alchemist, “Mayors a Cop”

Blonde Redhead: “Snowman”

On the opener to Blonde Redhead’s first album in nine years, the dream-pop band remains as sly and playful with language as ever. A workmanlike beat lays the foundation for an elliptical chorus: “So like a no man that you are,” recites Amedeo Pace, the phrase later dissolving into the titular word. The music suggests a false sense of contentment: There are coos and yelps and beautiful harmonies, but any tenderness soon starts to feel mechanical. Love, the band implies, can leave you mired in doubt and insecurity—the elegant groove that keeps “Snowman” trudging along is ultimately the sound of stasis. –Joshua Minsoo Kim

Listen: Blonde Redhead, “Snowman”

Kylie Minogue: “Padam Padam”

“We don’t need to use our words,” Kylie Minogue reminds us near the end of “Padam Padam.” The Australian pop lifer has long been an expert at the non- or barely-verbal: the la la la of “Can’t Get You Out of My Head,” the yeah yeah yeah of “All the Lovers.” And she just knew this heartless year called for more hearty onomatopoeia. Pumped up by producer Lostboy’s thumping bass and engorged whooshes, Kylie didn’t just give the gays and girlies a new pop standard, she gave us a secret code. We hear it and we know. Padam. –Jesse Dorris

Listen: Kylie Minogue, “Padam Padam”

Mandy, Indiana: “Pinking Shears”

“Pinking Shears” rattles with post-apocalyptic, post-punk aggression, but more than anything, Mandy, Indiana frontwoman Valentine Caulfield is exhausted. “J'suis fatiguée tu sais pas c'que j'suis fatiguée" (“I'm tired, you don't know how tired I am”) she declares, full of despair, as she rails against militaries, corrupt politicians, and nations that allow refugees to die in unheated buildings. The Manchester band’s music unfolds piece by unnerving piece, mirroring Caulfield’s fatalistic cry into the void: unsettling electronic percussion interlocks with live drums before descending into sheets of seething, inhuman noise. –Zhenzhen Yu

Listen: Mandy, Indiana, “Pinking Shears”

Kara Jackson: “dickhead blues”

Chicago singer-songwriter Kara Jackson spends most of “dickhead blues” sounding exasperated—that’s what dealing with an endless stream of, as she puts it, “losers who find themselves losing me” will do to a person. But it’s not about them. It’s about Jackson proclaiming her self-worth in the wake of so much nonsense. She wields her voice forcefully, first to hypnotize you, and then to slap you across the face with lucidity. “I am pretty top-notch,” she concludes, slowly and steadily learning to live for herself. –Jaeden Pinder

Listen: Kara Jackson, “dickhead blues”

Hudson Mohawke / Nikki Nair: “Set the Roof” [ft. Tayla Parx]

In a year when many DJs reached for edits of Y2K-era chart pop by the likes of Britney, Vengaboys, and t.A.T.u. whenever they needed to energize the dancefloor, Scottish vet Hudson Mohawke and Atlanta upstart Nikki Nair proved that an original banger could still take the club by storm. An irreverent continuation of dance music’s long-running transatlantic conversation, “Set the Roof” joyfully sits somewhere between UK garage and hip-house. But it’s the chipmunked vocals of Tayla Parx, whose sassy delivery recalls the days when Rye Rye was the hottest thing on the Hollerboard, that make the track such a sugary delight: Her maniacally looped phrasing can and will unlock the serotonin pathways of every raver in earshot. –Shawn Reynaldo

Listen: Hudson Mohawke / Nikki Nair, “Set the Roof” [ft. Tayla Parx]

Joanna Sternberg: “I’ve Got Me”

Joanna Sternberg’s lamblike voice and air of cartoonish innocence may make their deeply felt songs seem lighter than they are at first, but that impression doesn’t last long. Desolation and quaintness coexist in “I’ve Got Me,” a jaunty ode to the relationships we have with ourselves. Its meaning is dependent on the emotional contours of those fraught bonds: Depending on the listener, the opening lines—“I’ve got me in the morning, I’ve got me in the evening”—could either be taken as a salve or a cause for concern. No matter who enters or departs your life, you’ll never be apart from yourself. And how comforting, or terrifying, is that? –Emma Madden

Listen: Joanna Sternberg, “I’ve Got Me”

BAMBII: “WICKED GYAL” [ft. Lady Lykez]

Over the past decade, the Toronto DJ BAMBII has brought a boundaryless, utopian spirit to her Jerk raves, smoothly merging club music with the cultures of the Caribbean diaspora. “WICKED GYAL,” from her debut EP, Infinity Club, furthers this concept, as UK MC Lady Lykez spits Jamaican patois over wobbly synths and skittering beats. Providing fair warning for her unruly behavior, Lykez belches into the mic and cautions that, with one wrong move, her hands might end up around your throat. The dancefloor beckons, but when she gets twisted, “anything goes.” –Jesse Locke

Listen: BAMBII, “WICKED GYAL” [ft. Lady Lykez]

Julie Byrne: “Moonless”

Julie Byrne’s “Moonless” is a staggering breakup ballad furnished with sparse, impressionistic details: an old hotel, smoke curling toward the ceiling, sea and sky blurring together in the night. By eschewing a straightforward narrative, “Moonless” captures the more ambiguous ways that a relationship erodes: What does the story matter, she asks, if absence looms so large? Set against a wandering piano melody and windswept strings, Byrne’s voice builds towards a quietly forceful declaration of autonomy: “I’m not waiting for your love.” It’s a reminder that from the ruins emerges a chance to rebuild. –Quinn Moreland

Listen: Julie Byrne, “Moonless”

yeule: “x w x”

yeule launches into their rock-star salvo softscars by tearing themselves apart from the inside out, like an Alien chestburster. Fusing their overtly digital sound with an affinity for ’90s alternative hooks and guitars, they expel their self-destructive habits—retail therapy, drug-induced numbness—with one of the most guttural, cleansing screams heard on record this year. It’s a nuclear kind of catharsis. –Jaeden Pinder

Listen: yeule, “x w x”

Yaeji: “For Granted”

All the way back to her debut 2017 EP, Yaeji projected presence with a hush—singing soft enough that the listener had little choice but to draw close. That same miniaturism leads off “For Granted,” as she half-whispers in English and Korean atop an elastic downtempo beat, with zero foreshadowing of anything untoward. But then: Years of probing doubt and gritted-teeth gratitude finally detonate, unleashing a cyclonic intensity that hurtles past breakbeat pop toward breakcore outright. Even while swinging anthropomorphic hammers overhead, Yaeji remains unflappable, her liquid intonation rising above the squall: “Let it floo-o-ow.” And how. –Gabriel Szatan

Listen: Yaeji, “For Granted”

boygenius: “Not Strong Enough”

On “Not Strong Enough,” boygenius adopt the energy of Vacation Bible School dropouts who now find themselves wandering into random churches. Straddling the line between self-contempt and weaponized incompetence, they describe rotting away in their bedrooms and cowering from the people they love; they harmonize as though seeking courage from a higher power, giving the acoustic track the feel of a worship song. Near the end, Lucy Dacus beams through the melancholia: “I think I’ve been having revelations,” she exclaims, her rich vocals sounding like salvation amid an unrelenting universe. –Heven Haile

Listen: boygenius, “Not Strong Enough”

Jim Legxacy: “old place”

Here we have an incredible feat of alchemy that fuses seemingly every single one of London rapper-singer-producer Jim Legxacy’s disparate interests into 98 seconds of sublime pop music. “old place” feels like scrolling through a Zoomer’s TikTok feed: second-wave emo revivalism sits side-by-side with UK drill, Jersey club, and heartfelt R&B. The magic is in how effortlessly the song blends these sounds into an irresistible whole in service of Legxacy’s wistful nostalgia. “I know I probably shouldn’t take you back,” he croons at the outset, setting the clear-eyed yet lovelorn tone. In all, it proves that musical omnivorousness and efficient songwriting aren’t mutually exclusive. –Mehan Jayasuriya

Listen: Jim Legxacy, “old place”

Victoria Monét: “On My Mama”

The centerpiece of an album that’s equally plush and splashy, “On My Mama” is a ritzy “feeling myself” moment decked in showy horns and a stalking bass that unfurls like a red carpet. Singing confidently over a retro Chalie Boy rap sample that’s like a cool uncle playing hype man, R&B virtuoso Victoria Monét has fun luxuriating in her own sex appeal, shit-talking and whispering sweet affirmations to herself. All she wants is a good time—and the “permanent ecstasy” she deserves. –Clover Hope

Listen: Victoria Monét, “On My Mama”

Four Tet: “Three Drums”

Four Tet just might be the most unlikely mainstream breakthrough star of the year. After spending the last two decades honing his luscious, humanistic take on dance music, he suddenly became a Coachella and Madison Square Garden headliner alongside buddies Fred Again.. and Skrillex, dishing out EDM euphoria to the masses. But “Three Drums,” released three days after the Coachella gig, has him back in classic mode. Stately and tranquil for its entire eight-minute run, it’s better suited for the ocean floor than the dancefloor. Turns out the same things that make him a fantastic party-starter—patient builds, detailed textures, pitch-perfect percussion—are also what make “Three Drums” so gripping on headphones. –Patrick Lyons

Listen: Four Tet, “Three Drums”

Mitski: “My Love Mine All Mine”

The twilit centerpiece of Mitski’s The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We became a surprise phenomenon this year when its lullaby chorus grabbed hold on TikTok, lifting it to become her first-ever Hot 100 hit. With little more than a twangy guitar, piano, and her gentle voice, the snowglobe of a ballad is simple and to the point, with a poignant emotional center. It’s a perfect snapshot of the singer-songwriter’s wistful craftsmanship—tender-hearted and sharp-toothed—as she dedicates herself to the cosmos to ensure that the all-encompassing experience of loving, and having been loved, will endure for generations to come. –Eric Torres

Listen: Mitski, “My Love Mine All Mine”

100 gecs: “Hollywood Baby”

On “Hollywood Baby,” Dylan Brady and Laura Les take the alt-rock crunch, pop-punk brattiness, and skate-kid rhyming that ruled the culture of their youth and supersize the living fuck out of it. The result is a chaotic pile-up with enough molten hooks and melodic ideas to power an album’s worth of songs, wrapped in a spangly package that demands an immediate test of your speakers’ volume limits. –Mark Richardson

Listen: 100 gecs, “Hollywood Baby”

Water From Your Eyes: “Barley”

Nate Amos and Rachel Brown, who record as the warped electronic duo Water From Your Eyes, compose with the sharp planes and severe angles of brutalist architects. “Barley” is a mass of meticulously placed protrusions: the clipped rhythm of a shaker that sounds packed with ice shards, synth bursts that twinkle like Mario leaping through a row of coins. What sets the pair apart from their noisemakering peers is their ability to amplify those extremes with cottony contrasting textures. Brown’s voice, temperate and deadpan, heightens the detuned bend of Amos’ guitar riffs, while husky bass fleshes out an arrangement spiked with high frequencies. The component parts of “Barley” shouldn’t necessarily work together, but the duo’s sneaky knack for pop melodies makes these serrated edges irresistible. –Madison Bloom

Listen: Water From Your Eyes, “Barley”

Cole Pulice: “If I Don’t See You in the Future, I’ll See You in the Pasture”

For the uninitiated, it may seem like Cole Pulice is simply leaning their forearm on all the white keys of an organ before wailing on a saxophone across this very long song. But what you are actually hearing is all saxophone, including its sound being manipulated through signal processing live in the studio by the Oakland-based electro-acoustic composer’s feet. The auditory illusion fits the mood of the piece: liminal, transitory, extremely trippy. Pulice saves the best for the end, when they repeat a squiggly little pitch-bendy riff over and over: As the production is stripped away, they intimately struggle with their altissimo register, like they’re trying to crawl back into the last 22 minutes of a dream slipping away from memory. –Jeremy D. Larson

Listen: Cole Pulice, “If I Don’t See You in the Future, I’ll See You in the Pasture”

Avalon Emerson: “Dreamliner”

Avalon Emerson shifts away from club music and toward pop on her debut album, but she doesn’t entirely abandon the sound that has made her a celebrated DJ across the last six years or so. On “Dreamliner,” she bridges the transition across the course of the track: Thumping kicks and stiffly sequenced arpeggios evoke the mechanical techno of her back catalog, but the dance groove gradually subsides, making space for a playful synth melody that carries the song’s second half. Through it all, her cool, muted vocals do double duty as both pointillist tone color and hummable melody—a reminder that, for a musician with the requisite vision and skills, you can, in fact, have it both ways. –Rob Arcand

Listen: Avalon Emerson, “Dreamliner”

Sexyy Red: “SkeeYee”

No artist left less to the imagination this year than Sexyy Red, who broke out with a single called “Pound Town” and its extremely memorable opening declaration: “My coochie pink, my booty hole brown.” That blunt approach extends to “SkeeYee,” a summer anthem off the St. Louis rapper’s debut mixtape, Hood Hottest Princess, that’s now universal enough to have countless viral remixes and a place in Fat Joe’s vocabulary. Amid a bell-chiming beat, Red explains exactly what the song’s emphatic hook means: pull up! Turns out that’s a solid rallying cry. It’s also just really fun to say “skeeyee!”—especially when you’re supposed to be quiet. “Pound Town” may have established Red on the charts, but this is the song that distills her disruptive glee. –Hattie Lindert

Listen: Sexyy Red, “SkeeYee”

MJ Lenderman: “Knockin”

In the hard-luck world of MJ Lenderman, Bob Dylan isn’t the one singing “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.” It’s not Axl Rose or Warren Zevon, either. Instead, it’s John Daly, the pro golfer as well-known for getting drunk and fighting as he is for his championship victories. Lenderman’s reference to Daly in “Knockin” is funny, but it’s not merely a joke: The PGA’s tragic wildman knows as much about staring down darkness as any of those other guys. Over soaring pedal steel, Lenderman places his performance among other similarly bathetic scenes: a bird singing while trapped in a hardware store, a declaration of love whose speaker knows it’s hackneyed but delivers it anyway. The point is not to poke fun at the mundanity, but to exalt it. –Andy Cush

Listen: MJ Lenderman, “Knockin”

Mannequin Pussy: “I Got Heaven”

On “I Got Heaven,” Mannequin Pussy find salvation in rage. Marisa Dabice’s gritty screams rip the track open, as she condemns the religious powers that seek to judge and divide us in the bluntest of terms: “What if Jesus himself ate my fucking snatch?” But the song reveals sweeter sentiments in the Philadelphia band’s sparkly, shoegaze chorus, with Dabice championing the inherent worth inside of all of us. It’s a purifying song, a punk purge for the lapsed Christians still making sense of the institution that once defined them. –Maria Eberhart

Listen: Mannequin Pussy, “I Got Heaven”

Kelela: “Contact”

Is the dancefloor ever as transcendent as it sounds on “Contact”? Atop flickering breakbeats, Kelela makes you thirst for the kind of night when bodies blur and brush against one another until last call. With her weightless voice, she makes the club sound sensual and otherworldly, like none of your problems matter as long as you and your friends have a buzz and some bass going well after midnight. –Alphonse Pierre

Listen: Kelela, “Contact”

Caroline Polachek: “I Believe”

Born from the holy trinity of an acid trip, grief, and Celine Dion, “I Believe” is a prismatic diva anthem dedicated to the late avant-pop pioneer SOPHIE. Robotic beeps punctuate a breakbeat, as Polachek’s voice gently cuts through the mix like a celestial strobe light. Her aerial runs spiral upwards, twisting until the song is suspended in mid-air: “I don’t know, but I believe/We’ll get another day together,” she attests over a church organ. It’s a transcendent moment of faith, a promise that Polachek will keep celebrating her friend in this life until they meet again in the next one. –Jane Bua

Listen: Caroline Polachek, “I Believe”

L’Rain: “Pet Rock”

The patterns in L’Rain’s music are constantly shifting and weaving, like a technicolor kaleidoscope. With “Pet Rock,” the Brooklyn-based multi-instrumentalist, whose work blends experimental and pop sounds into songs that take on themes of grief and identity, turns a tongue-in-cheek nod to the Strokes into a psychedelic reverie. Drums begin with a simple rhythm and get gradually wilder until they burst into a cascade of syncopations, while electric guitars wind and interlock. The component pieces may be familiar, but L’Rain’s ever-evolving combination of them is anything but. –Vanessa Ague

Listen: L’Rain, “Pet Rock”

billy woods / Kenny Segal: “Year Zero” [ft. Danny Brown]

It’s the end of the world as we know it, and billy woods is feeling particularly nihilistic. The deadpan New York rap realist sounds like he’s burrowed into a bunker on this doomsaying spiral from Maps, his staggering album with the producer Kenny Segal. Bleak thoughts fester inside his skull. Living in the only country on Earth with more guns than people, he dreams up a nightmare in which there are “two unrelated active shooters—same place, same time.” The song’s most brutal gut punch, meanwhile, is a simple matter of fact: “My taxes pay police brutality settlements.”

If woods is stewing underground in this dystopian hellscape, Danny Brown is commandeering an abandoned amusement park and reveling in the anarchy. Over queasy feedback that squeals like a zombie radio signal, Brown tosses off rhetorical bicycle kicks, rhymes Cool Runnings with Good Will Hunting, and cracks wise about out-of-service McDonald’s soft serve machines. Together, the two rappers conjure an apocalypse that’s as hopeless as it is hilarious, the cruelest possible joke. –Ryan Dombal

Listen: billy woods / Kenny Segal, “Year Zero” [ft. Danny Brown]

Amaarae: “Co-Star”

Eschewing the “Afropop” pigeonhole, the Ghanaian-American artist Amaarae uses her roots as a muse rather than a constraint, allowing her music to shapeshift endlessly. “Co-Star” channels the sugar-coated sparkle of hyperpop and the millennial obsession with astrology over fast, syncopated drums that crackle like Pop Rocks. Depending on where you stand, you might also hear PinkPantheress, a little amapiano, or, in her catty sing-rapping, a nostalgic callback to Teeyah’s early aughts diaspora hit “Couper-décaler.” That fluidity is the secret ingredient of Amaarae’s star power: We might know where she comes from but we’ll never know where she’s going. –Jessica Kariisa

Listen: Amaarae, “Co-Star”

Big Thief: “Vampire Empire”

For Big Thief, 2023 counted as a quiet year. No new album—let alone a double album, or a pair of albums—just a lone 7” single. But what a single. On this rough-and-ready studio recording of live favorite “Vampire Empire,” Adrienne Lenker’s deep sensitivity to everything around her is at its most finely tuned. Atop ragged folk-rock, she spills forth about sex that transcends gender and drugs that don’t work, embracing and then escaping her demons in a whirlwind plunge. –Marc Hogan

Listen: Big Thief, “Vampire Empire”

Baby Keem / Kendrick Lamar: “The Hillbillies”

It’s nice to see Kendrick having fun again. On “The Hillbillies,” atop bright Jersey club drums and a Bon Iver sample, the rapper and his cousin Baby Keem ride a jangling beat as they battle for the best one-liners. Lamar sets the tone, spouting off about getting “four McDonald’s”—that is, probably, $4 million—“every time I land, bro,” while Keem responds with his own goofy flex about liking “irregular girls.” Their natural chemistry is off-the-charts and addictive, like watching two All-Stars scoring style points instead of trying to win the game. –Matthew Strauss

Listen: Baby Keem / Kendrick Lamar, “The Hillbillies”

Fever Ray: “Shiver”

Lust is a battlefield and Karin Dreijer is sweeping for mines. As they wade through the muck of desire, a synth-horn swells into a siren warning of danger ahead; sinister drums echo back and forth in anticipation, the air becomes thick with electricity. “Shiver” is so magnetic, so precise in drawing the dizzying shape of a fantasy, that it makes having a crush sound like an affliction. It could all change with just one more hang, just a little touch. By the time they’ve gathered the courage, a terrifying thought takes hold: Can I trust you? –Puja Patel

Listen: Fever Ray, “Shiver”

ANOHNI and the Johnsons: “It Must Change”

Seven years ago, ANOHNI cast modern society as a font of pure hopelessness. But on “It Must Change,” she suggests even the most oppositional forces are mutable. “You know how they always said that light is the opposite of darkness?” she asks. “It’s just fire in darkness…/ So those opposites, they don’t exist.” With these lines, the demand of the song’s title turns into an olive branch, as if she’s reaching beyond any one listener to a greater cause. Her voice surges above production that harks back to classic-era Motown and Muscle Shoals, tapping into what may be the last remaining universal human truth: We’re all just trying to survive. –Shaad D’Souza

Listen: ANOHNI and the Johnsons, “It Must Change”

Nourished by Time: “Daddy”

“Daddy” deserves a place in the grand pantheon of sad bangers. Over a deeply danceable house thump, Nourished by Time’s Marcus Brown croons his hook with the confidence of an ’80s R&B lothario. But there’s a palpable longing at the heart of this song’s club euphoria. Created in his parents’ basement—with an equally great live version filmed in their cluttered garage—the track includes raps about not being able to compete with a lover’s sugar daddy. There’s a displaced giddiness to the song’s sped-up vocal promise that he’ll never be alone, especially as Brown delivers the killshot: “I say, ‘I love you’/You say, ‘Whatever.’” –Evan Minsker

Listen: Nourished by Time, “Daddy”

Earl Sweatshirt: “Making the Band (Danity Kane)”

“Making the Band (Danity Kane)” is a swift shattering of every preconceived notion of what an Earl Sweatshirt song sounds like. Gone are the magnetically morose raps laid over dusty soul loops. Instead, as Evilgiane and Clams Casino’s chattering, anti-gravity production churns behind him, Earl expertly navigates an alien landscape, sounding newly invigorated. His quotables about MTV-era pop stars and the Incredible Hulk feel akin to proverbs, and lines about dancing in the rain and cracking bank safes come off as keys to enlightenment. Where Earl’s music was once ruled by murkiness and confusion, he’s now crystal clear—if only for a couple of minutes. –Matthew Ritchie

Listen: Earl Sweatshirt, “Making the Band (Danity Kane)”

Troye Sivan: “Rush”

Reeling from the one-two punch of a breakup and a lockdown, Troye Sivan sought solace in Melbourne’s gay bars: sweaty clubs, cold beer, love affairs that start after dark and end by sunrise. The pop star captures those endless evenings on “Rush,” a song that could easily soundtrack the best night of your life, from its chaotic opening to a hook chanted by your friendly neighborhood rugby team hunks. While the fluidity and frankness of “Rush” is bracing, the song’s sensuality and confidence finds Sivan in conversation with like-minded icons of decades past: consider Janet Jackson circa “Together Again,” or George Michael looking for “Fastlove.” Spinning personal anguish into liquid honey has yielded the singer’s most timeless work yet—a reminder that pain may be temporary, but poppers are forever. –Jamieson Cox

Listen: Troye Sivan, “Rush”

Wednesday: “Chosen to Deserve”

The love of your life is a dirtbag who skipped school, pissed in the street, and bummed around with dumbass friends who chugged Benadryl like PBRs—and she’s perfect, baby. Part down-home devotional, part miscreant’s statement of purpose, Wednesday’s “Chosen to Deserve” is a country-rock slammer where frontwoman Karly Hartzman confesses her unsavory past to her partner, proceeding with faith that when the story’s over, he’ll still be smiling. “We always started by tellin’ all our best stories first/So now that it's been awhile, I'll get around/To tellin’ you all my worst,” she begins. A casually observant Jewish girl raised in the Bible thumping South, Hartzman appropriates the language of predestination to deliver one of the most romantic tributes of the year, a wide-open love song that proves that everyone, no matter how fucked up, is a miracle to someone. –Cat Zhang

Listen: Wednesday, “Chosen to Deserve”

NewJeans: “Super Shy”

Zero-to-hero anthem “Super Shy” is the daydream wafting through the mind of an overlooked heroine while she eyes the most popular boy in school. Minji, Hanni, Danielle, Haerin, and Hyein exude quiet confidence as they plot to catch a cutie by surprise. Built around a riff on the Powerpuff Girls theme and a bass drum like a hiccuping heartbeat, the song was co-written by Erika de Casier, who expertly guides the group towards a soft, sensitive take on drum’n’bass. Embedded in its message of demure power is a sliver of meta-commentary on NewJeans’ approach: More sonically understated than many of their K-pop contemporaries, they have quickly become chart titans nonetheless. “You don’t even know my name, do you?” the girls ask impishly on the hook. The “but you will” is implied. –Olivia Horn

Listen: NewJeans, “Super Shy”

SZA: “Kill Bill”

With her wrenching self-examination, SZA’s songwriting encourages the kind of deep emotional inquiry that, as with all the greats, helps us understand ourselves better. Not so much (one hopes) on the murderous “Kill Bill.” At the start of SOS’s fierce stylistic melange, this inescapable boom-bap thriller instantly revealed the singer’s morbid humor and the range of her pen; it’s SZA gone full auteur. Playing the villain, she crafts her allegorical single in the spirit of murder ballads and action films, fantasizing, in the uncannily cool-headed chorus, about the most extreme revenge imaginable against a boyfriend who’s moved on. Her hard-boiled extravagance and acute psychological attunement might just kill the ex living in your head. Yet it’s her drolly disarming boasts—“I got me a therapist,” “I did all of this sober”—that suggest what really drives the song’s deathly fiction: SZA’s own bid for self-preservation. –Jenn Pelly

Listen: SZA, “Kill Bill”

Olivia Rodrigo: “get him back!”

One way or another, Olivia Rodrigo is gonna get ya. On the deliriously fun third single from her second album GUTS, she rattles off an ex’s red flags with an amused detachment that channels the Waitresses’ Patty Donahue and Blondie’s Debbie Harry. Over a fuzzy three-chord melody, Rodrigo waxes vindictive on the song title’s double meaning, conjuring alternately violent and reconciliatory fantasies that her therapist father (who gets a shout-out!) might attribute to “anxious attachment.” “get him back!” quite literally sounds like the contrasting highs and lows of Rodrigo’s warring impulses, her voice taking on the quality of a school bully on the song’s rapped verses and a bubbly cheerleader on its exuberant choruses. The quiet-loud dynamic culminates in a final whispered bridge, which sends the frenetic peak of the song’s last chorus into orbit. From its false start to Rodrigo’s devilish final laugh, “get him back!” is as messy, flawed, and ultimately freeing as a breakup feels. –Arielle Gordon

Listen: Olivia Rodrigo, “get him back!”

Noname: “Namesake”

Noname isn’t afraid to delve into the messiness of making art with a global consciousness while toiling within a capitalist economy. On “Namesake,” she laments the pervasiveness of complacency, admits we’re all complicit, and rails against war crimes from inside a cloud of blunt smoke. Over a percolating funk beat, Noname calmly eviscerates the very concept of sacred cows, adopting a faux-cheerleader lilt as she connects the dots between Super Bowl headliners Beyoncé, Kendrick, and Rihanna, and the NFL’s longtime association with the military industrial complex. In the next breath, she calls out the woman in the mirror for playing Coachella after she said she wouldn’t. “Namesake” is a ruthless song about accountability from which no one is safe—not even Noname. –Matthew Ismael Ruiz

Listen: Noname, “Namesake”

Sufjan Stevens: “Will Anybody Ever Love Me?”

The question at the center of this song is the same one Sufjan Stevens has been asking in his music for the last 20 years, though he’s never been quite this direct about it. It’s easy to understand why: His trembling whisper of a voice and the way he can make the pluck of an acoustic guitar ring out like the loneliest sound ever created are instantly devastating on their own, so cutting them with poetic storytelling and elaborate arrangements can feel both merciful and necessary. But “Will Anybody Ever Love Me?” is pure, undiluted, raw—the kind of song that makes your face crinkle up before a single word is sung.

Casually tossing the song into the “sad” pile and waiting for it to soundtrack your next breakup doesn’t do it justice. Though Stevens begins the song on his own, lamenting alongside a fingerpicked guitalin, he’s soon joined by a chorus of background singers who offer much-needed consolation. And while the love he longs for may be the romantic kind, with verses that dream of funeral pyres and golden blades, there could be something bigger and more mysterious at play: Is it God’s love that he’s after? At 48, Stevens knows that answering these kinds of questions doesn’t get any easier. But simply saying them aloud carries its own power. –Ryan Dombal

Listen: Sufjan Stevens, “Will Anybody Ever Love Me?”

PinkPantheress / Ice Spice: “Boy’s a liar Pt. 2”

The boy in question was never the point. On this star-making TikTok megahit—a bubbly fusion of Jersey Club and the sounds of Super Nintendo—Gen Z’s most beloved pop/rap princesses don’t actually seem to care that much about some dude’s mendacity: PinkPantheress assesses her situationship in a sing-songy chirp, while Ice Spice raps well-argued rhetoric about a bro’s sad two-timing, making it very clear that she knows he's not worth her time. What "Boy's a liar Pt. 2" is really about is how much fun it is to bitch with your friends. In the video, the sparkling duo and their pink-clad posse own the streets and subways of New York, a vision of baddies in need of nothing but each other, turning a track about a trifling boy into the ultimate declaration of girl friendship. –Julianne Escobedo Shepherd

Listen: PinkPantheress / Ice Spice, “Boy’s a liar Pt. 2”

Lana Del Rey: “A&W”

“American whore” sounds almost like “American woman,” and I’ll tell you how often people say one to mean the other. Picture vintage 2012 Lana in the Budweiser T-shirt. “Ride” was her bid for total freedom and she prefaced it with a monologue about what that meant: broken dreams, the open road, and being the other woman, the one with no attachments. On “A&W,” co-written with Jack Antonoff, she approaches her destination with a seven-minute autofiction epic that breaks like a storm cloud over Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd. Lana seeks the source of her ill humors and speaks of lost youth, a distant mother, predation, addiction, and desperate, toxic validation. Little rivulets of piano trickle through the melody, wearing out the paint. Hear her sing the word “raped” with the same polite trepidation they’ll use to suggest that she asked for it: No point explaining, she knows what they’d call her.

Her exposition is its own kind of dark comedy, like, I know the app says I’m in Rosemead—can you come to my hotel room? Lana can be tender but the American whore is ice cold, smiling: She challenges us to ask how she ended up here and the answer is defensive and unsatisfying. She knows that being bad feels amazing—delirious, sharp like new money, concussive like the riptide bass that sucks us into the song’s furious, twisted fantasy denouement. “Surf’s up!” When the switch flips it’s Lana’s script, The Experience of Being an American Whore, one of those trendy youth dramas full of sex, drugs, and Cocoa Puffs. And here’s mystery Jimmy, the habit that uses her back. Doesn’t the melody sound like it’s spiraling? The perfect victim is silent so Lana becomes loud, stubborn, unbreakable. She’s got a “your mom” joke that’s gonna stop his heart: What if I told her everything? –Anna Gaca

Listen: Lana Del Rey, “A&W”