"Too Good At Raising Hell" by The Struts
An ok song to start things off with that actually has a rock sound to it (which can be hard to find these days). It's still a little repetitious and formulaic for me, but it was at least fun to listen to occasionally.
"Fog Machine" by White Reaper
White Reaper makes another appearance on one of my yearly lists. A pretty solid song- has a good guitar solo in there (a guitar solo in 2023?!) and some good drums too. Cool to see this band keep putting out good stuff and hey they were even featured on a Taco Bell commercial this year!
"Pandemonium" by NF
Ok so this was a little mainstream- I heard it in Rocket League first and it blew up after a bit. I linked the lyrics version because, well, they are great. It's a very well written rap song that focuses on motivation and self-confidence instead of more typicla things like guns, false bravado, status, etc. The rest of NF's stuff on this album is very impressive too.
"One Good Thing About Summer" by The Airport 77s
Ah the Airport 77s also making another appearance this year. This was because I had an incredibly hard time finding good new music so I went back to old lists and looked up if those bands had done anything new. This song (and the album it's on) technically came out in late 2022, but I didn't know about it until 2023 sooo. It's fun pop-punk stuff. There's quite a few songs from this album I could've put on here but I chose this one because it's an earworm and half and I just wanted to get it stuck in your head too 😎
"Overcome" by Nothing But Thieves
You know me, I am a sucker for an 80s/synth-pop sound, this one gets close to that. This was a good background song for me when working and such (even as I type this I'm thinking "oh yea this is good to have on in the background" haha).
"Sympathy" by Declan McKenna
I always have to include one kind of weird song in these lists and this is this year's. I don't know why but this song caught my ear in a good way- it's goofy with a goofy video. Probably not everybody's taste, but eh, I liked it.
"Everything Dissolves" by Erik Voeks + The Ghosters
Total 90's Pete Droge/Matthew Sweet sound to this from a small band out in Kansas City. I always liked those types of songs to just relax to on a drive and such. This song makes me think that if the Farrelly Brothers made another road trip comedy, that it'd be included on the soundtrack.
"Garment Bag" by Adam Melchor
This is the final song and it made the list because it just conincided with me getting a drum set so I can finally learn the drums. There isn't anything overly complicated about this by any means, the drum beat and little fills after the chorus was something I found subtle and cool. I think I was just mad that there isn't a lot of drums in new mainstream songs and this popped on SiriusXM right after that thought popped in my head. In any case, it was a relaxing summer song for me.