BEST MUSIC OF 2023

the year of my emotional support pop girlies

Feb 01, 2024

It is honestly sooo brave of me to drop my Best of 2023 Lists this late in the game. I didn’t even start thinking about them until January 1st tbqh. Being inundated with subpar In & Out lists, 2023 highlight reels set to the same two songs, lukewarm takes, and a lot of opinions I don’t agree with will do that to ya!

2023 was what we in the Science Community refer to as an absolute dumpster fire of hot garbage sponsored by the biggest jester flops in the clown square. For me personally, it was pretty good! I spent the year doing everything I possibly could to make sure I did not add 2023 to the list of Worst Years of My Life. I sincerely hope those stay in 2020 - 2022. I feel like 2023 was the year of discovering life hacks and I turned things around pretty quickly for myself ALL THINGS CONSIDERING. The horrors persist, but so do I :)

I was having too much fun in my life to write tbqh! I tend to write when I am seeeething about something in the culture and I feel compelled to comment on it. When I first started this newsletter in the summer of 2022, my mission was to get my friends to care about Bangtan Sonyeondan and I succeeded! I made so many new ARMY friends through this newsletter and indoctrinated some old friends into the world of K-pop. My evil plan worked! Fast forward to December 2023 when all seven members of Bangtan officially enlisted in the military and announced they will reunite as a group in 2025. So what to do until then??

Welp, turns out when a genocide is happening before your very eyes, your priorities shift. At least that was the case for ME. I hoped it would be the case for you, but 2023 proved to me once and for all that for some of you, not even a literal ethnic cleansing happening in real time will make you care about the state of the world. As long as it doesn’t concern you and your algorithm, you simply refuse to engage. This harrowing realization has made me progressively angrier over the past year and I need to do something about it. So now I must pivot yet AGAIN, because that is what I do best!

2023 was The Year of the Girl, which was fun, but I told you guys this would happen back in August 2022. Happy to see the rest of the world finally catching up to me and my big girly brain! This time last year, I wrote in my journal that if and when I would return to this newsletter, I would do so with a new mission statement:

GASLIGHT, GATEKEEP, GIRLBOSS, K-POP.

Interpret that however you’d like! *Girls™ are here to stay, but some of you girls need to quiet down for a while. We have reached peak #bbgirlslayyaskweenpinkpussyhatbarbiedollwomxnpower and we need to start caring about other human beings in these trying times.

*Girls™ = Girls/Gays/Theys from here on out. I am terrified of most men and boys. Millennials really fcked up the future generations to come. Teenage boys bring guns to school and murder their classmates because Hwhite girl power feminism ruined most of the progress we made in 2020 when y’all found out about racism for the first time in your lives.

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ANYWHO! I love adding to the discourse so without further ado, let’s get into the best music of 2023! Spoiler alert: it is sooo girly !!!

TOP 20 SONGS

Blood and Butter by Caroline Polachek - She released her album on my birthday! What a gift!
on the street (with J. Cole) by j-hope - Hobi was in his lowercase girlie era before enlisting in the military. I am just so happy he worked with his musical idol for this one. Miss u sunshine!
Rainy Days by V - Taehyung is a lil jazz boy at heart and I love that he explored that side (with his deep sexy voice) in his first solo album. I am still thinking about his blonde menace Celine model phase.
Take Two by BTS - I luv 2 cry over my boyfriends.
Limitless by ATEEZ - OK that’s enough sadness for now…time to turn things up a notch !!!
Psychedelic Switch by Carly Rae Jepsen - Forever the most underrated pop girlie.
Set Me Free Pt. 2 by Jimin - Sweet baby girl Jimin really just said “FCK ALL YOUR OPPS!” Absolutely mesmerizing music video.
Back To Me by The Rose - Screaming these lyrics brought me back to my middle school pop punk roots </3
MY HOUSE by Beyoncé - Some of you did not go apeshit when the end credits started rolling at RENAISSANCE opening weekend and it shows.
Devil by the Window by TOMORROW X TOGETHER - I love my spooky sons! This EP was a delight!
Will Anybody Ever Love Me? by Sufjan Stevens - Javelin was one of the best albums of the year and I have fond memories of listening to it on a beautiful fall drive up the mountains. I love my sad boi forever <333
Please Don’t Change (feat. DJ Snake) by Jungkook - My ult bias became the biggest, record-breaking global pop star of the year and then immediately peaced out to join the military. He is literally our strongest soldier.
Super Shy by NewJeans - This is dedicated to the girlies who were always described as shy and spent months, if not years yearning for boys without saying a single word to them. I even had to channel my high school varsity cheerleader moves to get this choreo down.
Not My Fault by Reneé Rapp, Megan Thee Stallion - This was my anthem of January 2024, but thank god it technically came out in December. If 2023 was for the girls, then 2024 is for the Mean Girls.
Barbie Dreams (feat. Kaliii) by FIFTY FIFTY - This is the best song from the soundtrack and I am still upset it did not make it into the movie. GORGEOUS GORGEOUS GIRLS. The only thing that could save the 2024 #oscarssohwhite would be a performance of this song, but the Academy and viewers at home don’t deserve that.
vampire by Olivia Rodrigo from GUTS - An incredible single to introduce her sophomore album triumph. If anyone in Hollywood is reading this, I am available to star in GUTS: The Jukebox Movie Musical. I legit had a fever dream about making this album into a musical and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since. The script writes itself with Olivia’s genius lyrics, so that part is taken care of. I already know who I’d like to cast in every Supporting Actor Role (there are sooo many supporting actors in my musical! Not a single Lead Role for men I fear). I basically already choreographed routines for every song, ranging from solos, duos, trios, and large groups in jazz, hip-hop, musical theater, contemporary, modern, and ballet. I have a clear vision for the costumes, HMU, props, and sets. I would hire all of my friends and favorite artists to be in the cast and crew. I am also a fellow Pinay Princess who could easily pass as a high schooler. I just need voice lessons and 50 million dollars thank youuu :)
Super by SEVENTEEN from SEVENTEEN 10th Mini Album “FML” - CARATS STAY WINNING! This is the best choreography and music video of the year, no question. I think about Mingyu’s DARUMDARIMDA at least once a day. I get really sad thinking about the fact that I had to sell my concert ticket to see them in Dallas back in August 2022 at least twice a day. 2024 manifestation: SEVENTEEN will go on tour in North America and I will finally get to see my bias line IRL !!!
Haegeum by Agust D from D-DAY - 2023 started with a heart attack: Yoongi announced a partnership with Valentino and it only got worse from there. This man said oh sure, let me prime y’all for Girl Summer™ real quick in Pierpaolo PPPink ! He also figured out that Pilates was the ultimate hot girl workout so he picked that up and started wearing shorts too. OK COOL. His solo album was my most anticipated solo endeavor of all seven members and boy did it deliver. This man is the best producer in the music industry! Every song is absolute fire and his long hair era was too short-lived IMHO. Remember when he got so fed up with us demanding to know where his 7 tattoo was located that he just rolled up his sleeve during the livestream of his last concert to shut us up? Good times.
LEFT RIGHT by XG - These XTRAORDINARY GIRLS are officially my new favorite girl group. Just a handful of singles, an EP, and I’m already addicted. I need a full length album yesterday. They do Y2K-alien-Zenon-chic better than anyone else in the biz.
Red Wine Supernova by Chappell Roan from The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess - Chappell IS the moment! I spent the first nine months of the year rinsing every single song in her discography in anticipation for the album to drop and when it did, it only took me five days to go off book at her concert with my fellow Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girls™. A pop princess for our time! Just you wait. She is opening for Olivia Rodrigo on the first leg of the tour and none of you are ready. These Gen Z pop besties are going to dominate the industry. And if they don’t, it will only be because Millennial women will argue that Reputation TV is better and they will be sorely mistaken. Jack Antonoff whomst?! The new musical genius in town is Dan Nigro and I owe him so much for working with these two Princesses in the studio. 2024 belongs to them !!!