31 is an arbitrary number. Even the year “2023” is arbitrary, as we consider any album released from 1 Jan 2022 through 31 Oct 2023 eligible. And what constitutes an album? We don’t really know even though we sorta tried to write it down. There’s no real magic directly tied to any of it, really.

The discipline all this arbitrariness drives, however, can be magic. It gives a framework to help us think critically about what we’ve been listening to. These playlists become little sonic time capsules, evoking the delightful experiences of any given year. The 31s bond us to our friends and family, with whom we share the list every Christmas. Even the little USB drives we use to share music elicit delight.

Most years have more than 31 great singles, and the discipline that forges best-of playlists leaves many fine songs unheard. To remedy this, we started sharing our nearly-there lists in 2022. The songs on the Almost lists are often great but didn’t quite make the cut. Sometimes, the source album needed more strength as a whole. Other times, the artist might have a tremendous back catalog that the new release doesn’t live up to. Or, sometimes, one of us thought the album was 31-caliber while the other didn’t. For whatever reason, here’s our “b-sides” playlist for 2023.

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For some it’s been a good year. Covid is on the wane, employment is down, the market is up, and we’ve been enjoying what will likely be a short interval of relative stability in the United States. For others this has been the worst year imaginable and, for that, we must share good fortunes and hope humanity can be restored. Soon. Really, really soon.

Musically it’s been a good year. We listened to over one hundred albums from artists new and old. In the “new” bucket we have artists like Nikki Lane and Ken Yates who would have surely been on prior lists had we discovered them sooner. In the “old” group we have perennial favorites like Metric, Robyn Hitchcock, and The Hives. And Iggy Pop. You always gotta have Iggy. He’s in the “timeless” category.

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Some years it’s tough to pick 31 songs and 2022 was definitely one of those years. Maybe it’s because musicians have just emerged from quarantine, maybe the industry is putting more money out there, or maybe we’re just paying more attention. Whatever the reason, these songs likely would have made the 31 list on weaker years so it seems only right to share our runners-up list.

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Of late it feels like music was slumped over the wheel, exhausted from years of struggle against a cruel pandemic and concert grift. It’s not like we didn’t find great songs, but the contenders’ list was often short. Even favorites didn’t always come to the table with winners.

Then comes 2022, swinging in like an exuberant toddler who is way ready for nap time to be over. We had around 150 albums in the evaluation queue, dwarfing lists from recent years. Most albums had more than a few banger tracks which made picking the shortlist pretty tough.

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Every year brings old and new faces alike, even if they all arrive masked. We’re starting to see artists adapt to the reality of a post-pandemic world where performance, recording, and fandom have all taken some strange turns. Music abides, though, and artists persevere despite significant obstacles.

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Fuck Covid. Music isn’t going anywhere. Live shows may have ground to a halt. Musicians are learning entirely new skills, mastering the live streaming broadcast. And we’re seeing a whole new side of our favorite artists, often set in their living rooms.

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