Friday Faves: 2023 Music

Welcome to The Enthusiast, a newsletter for those who fall in love with everything and everyone. Every week(ish) I send love notes about the people, places and things I'm loving, from the latest pop culture to random esoteric ephemera–all personally vetted and highly recommended by yours truly.

On Fridays, we talk about faves–and yes, I know it’s Saturday, so let’s just dig right in, babes!

Favorite Album of 2023:
Everything But the Girl, Fuse

I can’t say that I am or have ever been an Everything But the Girl “fan.” Like everyone reaching adolescence around 1994, I fucking sweated the iconic Todd Terry remix of “Missing” so much that I got the CD from my dad’s music club subscription (remember those?!?), but really only ever listened to that one song, over and over. But when the duo started dropping singles in 2023, 24 years after their last album, I immediately sat up and paid attention. “Caution to the Wind,” with b-side “Nothing Left to Lose,” dropped in February and by the time the full album came out in April, I was hooked.

Fuse finds married couple Tracy Thorn and Ben Watt older and wiser, maybe a little wistful but certainly not regretful of times past. “Nothing Left to Lose” opens the album with an atmospheric spin on classic British trip-hop. Thorn’s voice has deepened with age, but it’s richer and even more expressive now against the sparse spaces between beats. “Kiss me while the world decays,” she beckons at the end of the song, and it feels like the kind of hope hopeless romantics need to survive at the end of the world.

The album as a whole is pretty low-key and contemplative, but “Caution to the Wind” could be considered a bit of banger (and thus my favorite track), building up with handclaps and reverb-y vocal snippets before a classic 90’s house beat drops in. The evocative character study “No One Knows We’re Dancing” is inspired by Watts’s time hosting a Sunday night dance club, and it paints a joyful picture of the self-contained world a dancefloor can become no matter the day or time.

Closer “Karaoke” brings it all home with Thorne’s layered vocals asking “Do I sing to heal the broken-hearted?/Do I sing to get the party started?” The answer is “yes,” and I don’t think there’s ever been a more thoughtful ode to amateurs singing in public that also serves as a meditation on art, moods, and time itself. Usually my top albums are more uptempo, but 2023 found me experiencing more change than I was ready for, so this contemplative set of grooves was just the vibe I needed.

Runner Up: The Beaches, Blame My Ex

If it's jams you’re looking to kick out—especially jams about break-ups, depression, FOMO, and eating dinner out alone (and enjoying it!)—I'd highly recommend this tight little 10-song breakup album from all-gal Canadian band The Beaches. Catchy, cheeky lyrics and extremely ear-wormy hooks abound, as on all of their previous releases, but Blame My Ex feels slightly more mature without abandoning their established sound. 

Favorite Song of 2023:
Billy Porter, "Baby Was a Dancer"

Okay, so if my album of the year was a bit mellow, my song of the year was decidedly not. 3/4 EGOT Billy Porter dropped this single from his seventh(!) album Black Mona Lisa in March, and it’s one of those songs that I immediately have to listen to again (and sometimes again) after it ends.

"Baby Was a Dancer" is a big, strings-infused self-mythologizing disco track about Porter’s own past as a performer, and if you’ve ever considered yourself a dancer, you can’t help but see your own reflection in it, no matter how different your life experience has been. Porter innately knows that all of us dancers have been “Baby” at some point in our lives, and this joyous, defiant anthem refuses to let us be put in any corners.

Runner Up: MUNA, "The One That Got Away"

Just give me a constant IV drip of 90’s-inspired indie/alt dance-pop songs so I can live my best life all day every day, please. While I don’t love the 90’s fashion resurgence (why, Zoomers, why?!) this smart, sexy synth-pop bop delivers on all kinds of throwback feels without feeling kitschy. MUNA has basically perfected this sound and I hope they never stop delivering the emotional punch that comes with it.

Bonus Tracks:

• 💕💐 I have a lot of thoughts about J.Lo’s multi-million dollar multimedia ode to Bennifer (and I'm not alone), but I will hold my full review until I listen to the full album AND watch the making-of documentary. I can, however, say that piano-driven “Hearts and Flowers” not only slaps on its own, but it’s also the weirdest/best part of the movie with the best choreography.
• 💙🩵 George Gershwin’s opus “Rhapsody in Blue” turns 100 this year! I know “classical” music isn’t for everyone, but this is a truly American musical masterpiece, alive and vibrant even now, a century later.
• 🤴🏼 Back on my Barbie bullshit: I know Ryan Gosling will most likely not win an Oscar for his iconic role OR his sublime performance of “I’m Just Ken,” but I just love how he leaned into it so fully and continues to be a champion of what was obviously the best movie of 2023 and its stellar cast & crew.
• 👎🏻 Spotify laid off their Every Noise at Once genius data scientist Glenn McDonald (gotta pay those Joe Rogan bills 🙄), who played a major role in creating their original Discovery playlists. He named the oddly controversial Escape Room genre, which continues to be a fave for me even after I stopped using the platform two years ago. Apple Music’s recommendations have improved somewhat, but are still hit or miss (at best), so hopefully McDonald keeps his brilliant, intense taxonomy of every kind of song going on his blog or another platform.

Thus concludes this edition of The Enthusiast! Thank you for reading and if you're not already subscribed, you should sign up (it's free!). Be sure confirm via email link to receive each post directly in your Inbox. If you're already a fan, forward this newsletter along to a friend and spread the love!

Subscribers get access to all previous posts AND the 2022 & 2023 Enthuasist Indices, with every single recommendation ever shared, organized by category. Stay tuned for Sunday Stuff and much more music musings coming soon!

Your Dancing Baby,
LKH