Every year, a song a day and maybe more
31 Almosts from 2023: great tracks that didn’t quite make the cut
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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31 songs from 2023: a year of good and bad
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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31 Almosts from 2022: a big year demands a bonus list
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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The History of 31
I think most music diehards make mixes. They’re more than just convenient arrangements of favorite songs. They’re extensions of identity, audible introductions that represent who we think are or who we hope to be. They are deeply personal, even the fun ones (especially the fun ones).
If you’re of an age you might have painstakingly recorded vinyl tracks or radio singles to a cassette tape. Being of that age, I made mixtapes for all occasions: meeting a new friend, meeting a new friend friend, random gifts, work soundtracks, exercise pacemakers, or for no reason other than fun.
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31 songs from 2022: post-plague plethora (revised)
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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Rulebook: picking 31 Songs
31 Songs isn’t super formal but we do use guidelines to help us wrangle all the music we could include into a list we can process. Here’s the criteria we use to create our playlists:
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31 songs from 2021: mask up
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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31 songs from 2020: we will not be stopped
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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31 songs from 2019: hits keep hitting
A solid dozen new faces this year, and another eight making their second appearance. Buckle up for some new stuff.
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31 songs from 2018: don’t boo, vote
2018 sees the return of several favorite and familiar artists: Elvis Costello, the Decemberists, Editors, Neko Case, Richard Thompson, and Metric.
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31 songs from 2017: heavy losses
2016 was no easy year and to say 2017 is somehow better would really miss the mark. So many musicians lost across so many ages and all lost too soon: Grandaddy, Steely Dan, Husker Du, Smithereens, Tom Petty, Glen Campbell. These are the musicians of my youth, my adulthood, and my life. With their passing come new artists rising to comfort a saddened world and recharge a weary soul.
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31 songs from 2016: ashes to ashes
2016, musically, will forever be my worst. Music from the 31 list covers some tremendous acts, new and familiar. But I lost David Bowie; we all did. Not only was he my musical touchstone, spanning an entire adult life, he inspired me to listen to new artists and genres. He made it glorious to be weird and inspired unrepentant self-expression. Bowie’s influence went far beyond music yet remained anchored to the epochs defined by his albums: Ziggy, the thin white duke, a harlequin. With his passing it feels like time, itself, has been set adrift.
We have no real choice but to live. And to live means celebrating the things that make us alive. Bowie always embraced new sounds and new visions. I will honor his memory with each new song and share them with you.
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31 songs from David Bowie: in memoriam
The world knew Bowie but every fan – from dilettante to diehard – has their own unique experience. Having hung on every new Bowie release for decades, picking 31 songs was not easy. I won’t claim my take is definitive as none are. Instead I hope to show the diversity of his genius in a way that inspires deeper exploration.
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31 songs from 2015: turn it up louder
2015 energies were focused on my first, feature-length music documentary Turn It Up Louder. Happily the world did not come to a halt while I was holed up in the editing suite. This year brought a bounty of new and exciting albums that I enjoyed while cutting the movie.
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31 songs from 2014: nearly all Nerina
Nerina Pallot played a large part of my 2014 world: she, and her fans, were the subjects of my under-development documentary on what makes music personal. Nerina, herself, undertook an amazing feat: releasing an EP a month for the entire year (see supplemental playlist). With so much music from her the 31 list could easily have been swamped. But it was not.
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31 songs from 2013: perfect day
2013 was a pretty normal year. We reviewed around ninety albums, distilling the following 31 list.
What wasn’t normal was the passing of Lou Reed. I was a latecomer to Reed’s brilliance, later learning how deep his influence truly was. Today I wonder what it would have been like to visit Warhol’s Factory and watched the Velvet Underground. Or to have been at the table when Reed, Bowie, and Iggy Pop would hold court. Even a simple coffee with he and wife Laurie Anderson would have been unbelievably amazing. Not that any of that would have happened, and I’m grateful for his music from which I have been given so much.
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31 songs from 2012: dirty dozen
2012 saw a long contenders list: 104 albums! Musicians across the spectrum seem to be very active, from punk legends PiL to NYC phenomena The Rapture to new wave master Joe Jackson. Picking just 31 from this list was not an easy task.
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31 songs from 2011: Kate is back (again)
2011 sees the return of classic artists from my youth (Duran Duran, Kate Bush) alongside amazing new artists bursting onto the scene (St. Vincent, Everything Everything).
It’s years like this where music is more important than ever. My father, after a long and happy life, passed in October. He loved music, even if not always the music I loved. He played trumpet and cheered my sister on as she pursued music. Through him I came to appreciate the great vocalists of his time like Dean Martin and Mel Torme, and some new masters like Diana Krull.
More than anything, I’ll remember listening to Radio Bahrain in the 1980s when I was visiting him and my stepmom in Saudi Arabia. They’d take me to a small nearby fishing village and indulge my musical interests, spending many hours waiting for me to finish shopping for bootleg cassettes. My musical horizons grew exponentially, and I think that made him happy. It certainly made a big impact on my wellbeing.
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31 songs from 2010: twenty years of fun
This year my wife and I celebrate two decades of love, partnership, and music addiction. We’ve shared our tastes, blended as time blurs distinctions, and keep finding exciting new artists to become this year’s favorites. And this year offered many to choose from.
Bryan Ferry (of Roxy Music fame) and Deco are technical newcomers although hardly new to either of us. Both put out awesome albums well before our official list started counting in 2000.
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