Real Estate

Best Songs of 2023

Every year, it gets harder and harder to pull this off, as one kid becomes two kids and my spare time steadily shrinks. Plus, how many people out there actually care what my 18th favorite song of the year was? Well, if you’re reading this, you probably do care, so I greatly appreciate it. But also, if for no other reason, I at least need to do this to keep documenting each year’s music highlights for my own personal archival reasons, or I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.

And I promise, even though it doesn’t sound like it, I did have fun doing it, too.

Playlist links, then honorable mentions, then #50-21 listed out, then the top 20 with some written commentary. Enjoy.

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Five Quality Tracks: August 2015

This was a feature that I used to do for the Daily Californian’s Arts & Entertainment blog. I decided to give it life again here. At the end of each month, I’ll post a feature highlighting five quality tracks released during that month.

1. Beirut: “Gibraltar”

It’s been far too long since Zach Condon of Beirut graced us with The Rip Tide four years ago — I’ve been missing his pleasing style of sparkling indie pop. “Gibraltar” furthers the more minimal blueprint of The Rip Tide, largely foregoing the “world music” that Beirut became known for originally. There are no horns or strings to be found here, but there’s still plenty to keep us interested. The piano is bright and the melody sweet, but the percussion is what makes the song, with its combination of bongos, shakers, and well-placed handclaps. It’s a light, airy, and delightful song.

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2014 in Music: Album Awards

I hate to start it off like this, but 2014 wasn’t a great year for albums. Don’t get me wrong, there were plenty of solid releases, but it wasn’t like 2009 or 2011 or 2012, when we were knee-deep in near-classics. Before coming to this realization though, I thought I was going crazy, wondering if music just didn’t provide me with the same enjoyment. Luckily for my sanity’s sake, other music critics also thought 2014 was kind of an off-year.

Here’s Matthew Perpetua, music writer for Buzzfeed:

When I think about 2014 music in terms of songs it's like "so much great stuff!" & when I think about in terms of albums it's like "KILL ME"

— Matthew Perpetua (@perpetua) December 4, 2014

But just because there weren’t as many excellent albums as years past, that doesn’t mean there weren’t some transcendent pieces of music. To my ears, there were five records in particular that stood out among the rest. Without further ado, my top five albums of the year:

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Best Albums of 2011

For some reason, Facebook decided by Best Albums of 2011 post broke some kind of copyright, so it (and all of its HTML) got deleted. For those who are interested, here was my list (with a little less pizazz unfortunately).

25. M83 – Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming