I’ve been compiling lists of my favorite songs of the year since at least 2013. For whatever reason, this 2023 list was the most difficult I’ve ever put together. Part of that is that my relationship to music has changed so much over the years. No longer working a boring desk job where I stare at spreadsheets all day means I also no longer have an opportunity to listen to eight straight hours of music, which means I listened to fewer albums, which means even putting together a list of 20 of them felt like a stretch.

And yet, it was also the easiest list for me to write. That might be because it’s also not a very adventurous list – it mainly features artists and genres I’ve written about in the past – but maybe it’s because the appeal of these songs is so apparent that I feel like I didn’t have to explain them too much. Either way, I hope you forgive me for my blind spots, and accept this list for what it is – one man’s opinion, and a guide to help you discover some music you might as well. With all of that in mind, please enjoy The Postrider’s Top 20 Songs of 2023.

20. “She’s on Fire” – Strange Ranger

Strange Ranger have always approached indie rock as less of a genre and more of a lifestyle, one that allows them to explore the wistful nature of youth and the deeply human urge to shitpost in equal measure. But what happens when you get a little older and that wistful youth begins to disappear? You try to recapture that feeling, of course, and “She’s on Fire,” with its collision of electronica and indie songwriting, is Strange Ranger’s attempt to do just that. Lead singer Isaac Elger reaches for salvation through music once again in an attempt to “feel the same,” but it isn’t enough – try as he might, the pulsing sounds of a club can’t rescue him from his fading love and looming mortality. All he has left is the desire to become one with music, to let it literally wash him away from this pesky, tangible plane of existence. We all know it’s impossible for that to happen, but that doesn’t mean he won’t try.

19. “Cramps” – Slow Pulp

The past half decade has been replete with fuzzy indie rock songs that harken back to the glory days of alternative radio, but few pull off the feat quite as well as “Cramps,” the breakout lead single from Slow Pulp’s Yard. The opening drum roll and overdubbed vocals nail the musical elements of the era, but it’s lead singer Emily Massey’s lyrics about suburban ennui and quotidian frustration, as well as the knowledge that there’s something out there that’s better, that both complete the copy and help it rise above mere pastiche. “I’ll take anything”/”That you wanna give”/”But I want everything,” Massey sings, as she realizes that she’ll settle for submitting to her dissatisfaction even if she wants to rise above it all. The song offers no resolution, but its coda, in which the guitars go clean and Massey’s vocals get reduced to mere tape-warped squiggles, suggests that all of this teeth grinding will lead to transcendence eventually.

18. “Wild Animals” – Liv.e 

Anyone who’s spent time in the modern dating pool will tell you it’s a shallow one, dominated by a cartel of apps with a clear incentive to keep you either single or constantly searching for better options. In other words, it’s a tough time to have standards, a struggle that Liv.e laments beautifully on “Wild Animals.” Pairing a dusty jazz piano with Liv.e’s hazy production and rap-singing, “Wild Animals” is a bleary synthesis of the old and new, the sound of a modern girl with an old soul trying to find her way in a world of disloyal men she can only compare to dogs. But Liv.e’s frustration at modern courtship masks her well-earned pride – when the potential partner quality is so low, there’s nothing wrong with sticking your nose up in the air, and writing a song that proves you’re worth it.

17. “Filming School” – Sidney Gish 

In an era defined by perpetually dour singer-songwriters, it’s nice to have Sidney Gish back in our lives to remind us that music can be charming, even funny. Beginning with a stately vocal note that quickly becomes a pretentious “ummmm,” “Filming School” is both a celebration and skewering of youthful pretension. A loopy jaunt in the vein of The Roches, Gish’s first release on the Sub Pop Singles Club is all about how good it feels to know things and have taste – or, at least, how good it feels to pretend that you know things and have taste, especially when you get to do it with another person. Like a lot of Gish’s songs, “Filming School” is layered thick with irony (after all, the only thing worse than a snob with a film degree is a snob without a film degree who still insists they know better) but still manages to be musically warm and inviting, a good natured joke meant to disarm. It may not exactly be weighty, but there’s still an art to making the perfect cream puff – and the promise of a new album full of them is enough to make this song one of the best of the year.

16. “Do It Faster” – Militarie Gun

Militarie Gun might be a punk band that’s better known for their brawn than their speed, but Life Under the Gun opener “Do It Faster” courses with a nervy impatience pulled straight from the genre’s Ramonesian heyday, from its pounding drumbeat to lead singer Ian Shelton’s goading “OOO OOOs.” Shelton is sick of your shit – sick of waiting around for you to make up your mind, sick of you holding him back – and all he wants is for you to finally do something, anything, whatever it is. It’s a sentiment any of us who have been caught up in a messy relationship, shitty job, or without a job can relate too, but most of us never get the opportunity to tell other people to get the hell out of the way and let us move on with our lives as explicitly as Shelton does here. For the time being, I guess that’ll have to be enough.

15. “Housefly” – Cory Hanson

Outside of the metal and jam band circles, caring deeply about a musician’s chops has become passe – even the modern indie guitar heroes like MJ Lenderman hide their fretwork beneath a heavy curtain of fuzz and irony. Cory Hanson, on the other hand, has no use for self-deprecation or punk posturing. He’s a guitarist, dammit, and opens “Housefly” with a sidewinding riff that’d be perfectly at home in a Creedence song. The lyrics about the humid everyday are completely secondary, so much so that Hanson doesn’t even bother to include a chorus, choosing instead to let this riff unfurl into a traditional instrumental break that’s classic in its length and purpose but punk in its focus on texture and volume. But maybe even that’s overthinking it – maybe all we’re supposed to do is sit back and let Cory cook.

14. “Thin Air” – Tanukichan feat. Enumclaw 

Shoegaze usually sweeps away its listener on a cloud of distortion or crushes them in a deluge of noise, but on Tanukichan and Enumclaw’s “Thin Air,” it chugs like a grunge or metal track, keeping what can sometimes be an airy genre anchored on the cold, hard ground. Hannah van Loon and Aramis Johnson trade lines like a pair of warring apparitions, one endlessly wandering, the other trapped in indecision, the only sure thing in their ephemeral, tortured existence being the constant hum of their fuzzed out guitars.    

13. “Steamroller” – feeble little horse 

Speaking of shoegaze – it’s not often that a genre named after the act of staring at your own feet engages with the topic of sex, so it might make sense that when it does, it’s through the lens of tedium and dissatisfaction. Opening with nine seconds of feedback, “Steamroller” sounds like a malfunction straight from the jump, so much so that it’s almost impossible to make out individual instruments on their own. Is that opening melody played with a synth? A slide guitar? An actual theremin? Either way, it sounds more like a broken sonar machine than an actual musical instrument, much in the same way that the underwhelming lovemaking described by singer Lydia Slocum feels less like the physical expression of love and more like a lazy routine. She doesn’t even bother to turn the plastic priest figurine on her dresser around anymore – she’s too focused on trying to wring some kind of feeling out of this sorry state of affairs, not unlike how her band is trying to make something coherent out of all this noise and churn.

12. “Eye on the Bat” – Palehound 

With its steady drumbeat and rambling guitars, “Eye on the Bat” feels like the perfect musical representation of a road trip – a journey from point A to point B with a series of amusing diversions along the way. For Palehound frontperson El Kemper, this is all a little melancholy, as giddy memories of roadside tailgating and Black Sabbath singalongs are contrasted with their significant other’s trembling voice and shaking fist. But the song’s central metaphor offers her and the listener some precious advice: stop worrying about what people are throwing at you and focus on what’s under your control instead. You probably won’t excel at baseball, but you may write the next great American road song.

11. “Honey” – DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ

On their epic four-hour album Destiny, secretive British duo DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ try to make real the End of History, imagining a world where technology facilitates harmony instead of suspicion and everyone gets to live out their pop star fantasies. No track better encapsulates this blissed out reach for the sky then “Honey,” which melts together warbling teen idol vocals, sunkissed pedal steel, and radio host adlibs to create what sounds like the greatest TRL segment of all time. Comparing songs to dreams is cliche, but in this case it’s not only apt, but necessary – even though it features samples of physical instruments, “Honey”’s gauzy, collage-like production makes them sound weightless, like the music they make has been separated and distilled from the labor intensive act of playing it. Examined cynically, this could be a clever metaphor for the late 90s’ arrogant belief that we’d entered a struggle-free world of peace, comfort, and abundance. I prefer to think of it as the closest thing we’ll get to an idealized version of cyberspace, one where you can transcend your own humanity and become one with the essence of the things and people you love.