Sourhouse Tunes of the Year 2023
Positions #10-#1
#10 TROYE SIVAN – ONE OF YOUR GIRLS
I’m as surprised as you are that there’s a Troye Sivan song on this list. Suffering through the Blue Neighbourhood era on Tumblr was too much for me, though most of it wasn’t his fault. And then he drops this sad twerk masterpiece, horrifyingly slow, taking a scalpel to one of the pillars of the queer experience: being attracted to someone who identifies as straight.
It’s not just a case of “Yeah, me too” – he’s dropped an instantly iconic video to go with it, lap dancing lifelessly on top of a shirtless Ross Lynch whilst in drag, rocking a wig I’d kill for, and pertinently portraying the emotional impact of gender stereotypes. There’s a whiff of Gaga’s ‘Do What U Want’ about the track, and it’s all the better for it. Indeed, it might be no coincidence that both tracks are about what we do with our bodies in the pursuit of validation and feeling. ‘One Of Your Girls’ details the voidzone that lurks around queer men, a beguiling mix of wanting what we can’t have and wondering what life would be like if we could be what other people want us to be.
User beanbeenben’s comment from the 22nd October 2023 on the RYM page for the song is well worth a read.
#9 HEARTWORMS – RETRIBUTIONS OF AN AWFUL LIFE
If you’ve got a few minutes, I implore you to watch the video for ‘Retributions’ (linked below) and let it take over your entire soul. A dark, mystic energy pours out of the screen, and you sit in wonder at how an artist this new has already honed a style for themselves so bantam and solid. You’ll also quickly realise how much Jojo Orme’s sound mirrors the leather trenchcoats and gothic makeup that she makes synonymous with Heartworms in an instant.
On ‘Retributions of an Awful Life’, it’s all about that damn riff. The entire song is built around it; in that tense, extended introduction; in every verse across its runtime. Even on that sky-scraping bridge, the track can hardly hide its eagerness to get back to it. And why shouldn’t she be so indulgent? It’s a fucking fantastic bit of music: raw, brawling, electric, barely contained by the blizzard of sound underneath it. Only Orme’s ecstatic vocal delivery, rendered with ear-splitting clarity and Lynchian macabre, can be the David to this Goliath she’s formed. Not a single lyric doesn’t reveal some new depth of hers, as she acts like a zoo keeper to the twisted menagerie of noises caged in on the 5 minute run time. A truly rollicking soundtrack for sinister contemplations.
#8 SOFIA KOURTESIS – HOW MUSIC MAKES YOU FEEL BETTER
Few cuts from Sofia Kourtesis’s nigh-on miraculous debut album Madres haven’t been stuck in my head for the last few months of 2023. But, when it really comes down to it, this is the one that has had me in rapture the most. Sure, the chords of ‘How Music Makes You Feel Better’ are almost stereotypically euphoric. However, to call them contrived or forced would be disgraceful; Kourtesis drags their elation out from the deepest of depths, to almost overwhelmingly emotional effect.
The pain that underscores much of her recent work is at its rawest here, nerves exposed and wounds opened. All of which makes this a sonic dressing, and far from trying to cure things in one go, it’s an acknowledgement of the process of healing. With a generic title like that, whatever you want to bring to the table is up to you. It’s the authenticity of experience that she weaves into it, however, that ensure ‘generic’ is out of the question. This is quite simply one of the most moving, most affecting pieces of House music the genre has ever created.
#7 CAROLINE POLACHEK – SMOKE
“It’s about catharsis. The opening line is about pretending that something isn’t catastrophic when it obviously is”. Oh Caroline. May you never lose your penchant for writing some of the most gut-punching and personal words of our times. A story feels like it’s ending on ‘Smoke’, not just because it sits towards the end of Desire, but because all of its riffs embody the turning of a final page. An ending of love and a settling of feelings, rendered with tenderness and striking sharpness. Catastrophe kept at bay by hoping it isn’t really there, blood flowing through the fingers trying to cover up the stab wound. Every element sings of smiling through the pain.
As if she hasn’t made it hurt enough, that bridge comes in to truly take a baseball bat to whatever’s left. Yet as dire as the hurt is on ‘Smoke’, none of its elements speak of darkness. Indeed, it dances and twinkles with a slight glory in the ability to feel so much. And it’s that which ensures the catharsis that she speaks of is the song’s lasting impression.
#6 JESSIE WARE – PEARLS
As Ware enters a candy floss pink era of queer disco heaven with her new record, ‘Pearls’ spearheads the assault with so much brightness and joy it’s almost blinding. Dear fucking lord, listen to her on the chorus. Ware is having the time of her life on it, somehow finding another octave with every new line. You can scarcely believe she held herself together in the studio when the whole feeling is explosive. Windows shook. Microphones were pushed to the limit.
Luckily, she didn’t self-combust, and adds yet another body-moving cut to her already extensive collection. There is such a formidable energy here, a rhythm and fire that you simply beg to get into your bloodstream whilst Ware’s lyrics navigate you through the ecstasy. It’s not just on the surface either. Underneath, ‘Pearls’ is rock-solid, held together by that ecstatic beat and a healthy dose of Niles Rodgers inspired guitars.
This is Disco at its brightest and most joy-giving, not only an informed reading of its foundations, but one that is delivered with bombastic self confidence. In doing so well to create happiness – and putting her whole fucking body on the sonorous heights of the chorus – the result is unbounded, unrivaled, overriding joy. This is impossible to listen to at anything less than speaker-breaking volumes, and is so fanatically emotive that it makes me ache just to contemplate.
#5
BEYONCÉ, KENDRICK LAMAR – AMERICA HAS A PROBLEM
Fellow Renaissance fans will already know that the problem Bey decrees America is suffering from is that her ass is just too big. They’ll also know that she claims that “Love don’t get no higher than this”. Frankly, at the end of last year, having already repped this song, I was happy to agree. Then along comes a new mix, adding one of the most scintillating Kendrick features…well, ever, and a fresh coat of Atlanta Bass goodness. Suddenly, its eighties derived beat is elevated even further, its pace put up another level, its campness made even louder.
The energy of this monster single is difficult to quantify in words the non-queer community would recognise, but then again, it’s not like America has any trouble speaking for itself. Not only packing enough orchestra hits to make the Pet Shop Boys jealous, every riff on here is absolutely ferocious. Count them, too – Bey hardly takes a breather to give you another. A paramount achievement in a year that she has owned from start to finish. And we’re still only in Act I of Renaissance.
#4
LITTLE SIMZ – GORILLA
How do you round out a triumphant victory lap following the Sourhouse Album of the Year-winning record Sometimes, including a massive 2022 tour and a Mercury Prize for good measure? You drop a track like ‘Gorilla’, equal parts a thank you gift from Simzy to her fans and quite simply one of the most tenacious Hip Hop tracks in years. It’s hard to quantify just how many lines she drops in the space of 4 minutes. Not only is everything on here quotable, the palette of wordplay she manages to cram in beggars belief. “Big art collector-rrrr-rrrr”? Are you kidding me? It just doesn’t get better.
It’s not just the lyricisim though. It’s the laid-back, candid cool with which everything slicks off the track that makes ‘Gorilla’ such an indulgent little triumph. Her flow, always one of the best in the industry, is on Planet X here, taking it back to the style of her earlier material, only this time bringing the flawless production that has come to define her more recent work.
Not a moment here doesn’t croon with swagger and grace, fully earned and something she fully indulges in. I of course believe her when she says she’s “got bangers in the vault [she’s] been hoarding”, but this alone might be enough to define her entire career.
#3
PINKPANTHERESS, ICE SPICE – BOY’S A LIAR PT. 2
It’s always beautiful when a song unites different musical communities, but it’s even better when it’s something as twee, as catchy and as heartfelt as Pink and Ice’s glorious, life-giving collaboration. In today’s fractured internet culture world, ‘Boy’s A Liar Pt. 2’ has threaded a line across digital spaces. Just reading the number of comments on the music video worded along the lines of “One to play when the boys aren’t around” really says it all. If you do feel any shame in enjoying this masterpiece, I beg of you to shrug it off and play this song loud enough to wake the dead.
Not only riddled with gorgeous hooks and outstanding vocals, the production work from Pink in collaboration with the endless talents of Mura Masa absolutely soars on this one. Her compact, informed sound is given sun-kissed vibrancy thanks to that guitar lick and ringtone-esque synth hook on the verses. There’s no doubt, however, that it’s Ice Spice’s contribution that takes this to heaven and beyond. Effortless, effervescent, yet tremendously grounded; just listen to how she delivers “But I don’t sleep enough without you”. Sure, she’s so much cooler than you are, but she’s wrapped up in the same feelings that anyone’s subjected to.
Cutesy, yet sexy. Digital, yet tender. Pretty, yet deep. A child-like glee meets a teenage cool meets an all round appeal that I fully believe anyone can get on board with. There is unbridled wonder in its overtly feminine, impossibly infectious nature. Of all the shit this year has slung my way, ‘Boy’s A Liar Pt.2’ brings a joy with dimensions that even I can’t quite comprehend, flowing with the kind of qualities that will make it an iconic part of 2023 for decades to come.
Personal favourite
#2
CMAT, JOHN GRANT – WHERE ARE YOUR KIDS TONIGHT?
You’d never guess that because I am now at the ripe age of 26 that the phrase ‘mid-20s’ haunts me like an apparition. Not an out-and-out horror film one, but more of a complicated Haunting of Hill House kind of affair. I use the phrase liberally, despite how contrived it is, and despite how fucking wild it is to be currently going through my mid-20s. How on earth are you supposed to summarise the cocktail of emotions I wake up to every day?
Well, just listen to how haunted those opening synths are. Indeed, just listen to every fucking line on CMAT and John Grant’s absolving, monumental collaboration. “No one at this party knows I’m mourning” she sings on the second verse, and I feel like I could scream. “All of those friends who I thought were fine”, meanwhile, feels like I’ve had a bowling ball fired into my chest. At least you can dance on the chorus, in a sort of crazed, losing-my-mind type way.
‘Where Are Your Kids Tonight?’ brings my whole life into view, compressing the entire experience into one frame, somehow reaching every stop on my personal memory journey. Every age I’ve been in my life is present in its words and instrumentation. She’s managed to convey a feeling I’ve been scrambling to try and explain to myself for a while now, and has phrased it spectacularly. A title that mixes Brass Eye cynicism for the helicopter parenting that defined the nineties and noughties, whilst kindly jabbing the knife in to remind you that yes, you do actually have to go through this for real in fact.
Most significant of all, however, is that ‘Kids’ offers no answers. It’s an acknowledgement that the experience of life is not always something that can be solved. Thompson quoted a TikTok comment in an interview with Nialler9 about the song – “The human experience is absolutely fucking wild.” – and I can’t find better words to tie this all up. What a vague, enormously interpretable statement that is, and yet how personal it is too. All of us are living in the horrors of our own making, and I wouldn’t trade the world for it. Despairing at the passing of time, yet relishing what it does to you, is a massive task to put into one single song, and yet that’s exactly what CMAT has done.
Personal favourite
Sourhouse Tune of the Year 2023
#1
LANA DEL REY – DID YOU KNOW THAT THERE’S A TUNNEL UNDER OCEAN BLVD
When we were first graced with those opening piano chords accompanied by those gentle, lamenting strings back on the 7th December of last year, I already knew I would be writing something about it on this list 365 days later. Indeed, I had a quiet hope that 2023 might end up being a proper Lana year, the first in a while, and one desperately needed with the state of Planet Earth in the early 21st century.
My oh my were we graced with her presence this year. Not only a stunning album of the same name, but multiple incredible cuts from the record and accompanying singles, all of which have been stuck in my head at one point or another. Add to that iconic photoshoots for Interview, shifts at Waffle House and one of my favourite Glastonbury performances ever – even if it was cut short.
But it’s Ocean Blvd’s title track that has stood clear above the rest as her most incredible moment of this present era. Its characteristics are built on her classic sensibilities – drama, romanticism, Chamber Pop foundations with a nostalgic 70s twang. But the words she sings are not dressed up with her usual storytelling. Indeed, their orbits seem to curve round the person she’s built for herself, and speak from the heart on the complicated relationship between stardom and death.
Once an artist projecting her persona outward, ‘Ocean Blvd’ lands the journey she’s been on with her recent records, taking us far, far inside her psyche. A faint cry of “Don’t forget me” defines the whole cut. Sure, she’s quoting Willie Nelson with that, but it’s intonation says otherwise. For one of the most recognisable artists of the 21st century to plead not to be forgotten hits like a freight train. Almost totally infallible across her discography, on this she reveals herself like never before, so totally reduced to the Elizabeth Grant that has stood behind Lana Del Rey for all these years.
None of this is done without still playing to her strengths, however, and that’s a mighty good thing. The crowning glory of ‘Ocean Boulevard’ is it’s final minute; when the backing vocalists come in at 3:42 to also chant “Don’t forget me”, it’s like the gates of heaven opening.
Del Rey, ever the 21st century idol of romanticisation and a dying America, has at last gone beyond being just a character. She’s an entity capable of consequences, including for the artist who gave her life. Most notable of all, however, is that this is not a Bowie killing Major Tom kinda moment; if anything, Grant is making Del Rey more alive and more real than ever, and most certainly still inviting you to see yourself through her. In revealing her mortality, she’s become greater than we could ever have previously conceived.
Certification: Personal Favourite
Personal Favourite is the highest accolade I award to music, recognising it as one of my favourites of all time.
And with that, the Tunes of the Year for 2023 have been counted. Make sure to read the Albums of the Year list too. In the meantime, listen to all 30 songs in the dedicated, plus the others that made up my 2023 soundtrack:
