Pitchfork selected rapper Earl Sweatshirt’s track ‘Making the Band (Danity Kane)’ as the 10th best song of 2023, calling it a “swift shattering of every preconceived notion of what an Earl Sweatshirt song sounds like.”
Having no idea what a typical Earl Sweatshirt song sounds like, I’m not equipped to agree or disagree with that statement. Nor do I have the time or interest to explore the man’s catalog to form an opinion.
Continuing my look at the songs Pitchfork has declared the best of 2023, I’ve reached #9 — Troy Sivan’s ‘Rush.’
This dance pop track was the first single from the Australian singer’s third studio album, Something to Give Each Other. Named for a brand of poppers, the song seeks to recreate the feeling of being high at a club. As Sivan said, “‘Rush’ is the feeling of kissing a sweaty stranger on a dancefloor, a 2 hour date that turned into a weekend, a crush, a winter, a summer.”
The week of December 11, 1993, saw Janet Jackson holding on to the #1 spot of Billboard’s Hot 100 with ‘Again‘ and Meat Loaf in the second slot with ‘I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That).’
At #3 that week was Swedish dance pop group Ace of Base with a single that eventually peaked at #2 — ‘All That She Wants.’ The band would later score a #1 hit with ‘The Sign,’ from the same album.
Throwing back to the week of December 10, 1983, we find a couple of repeats atop the Billboard Hot 100 in ‘Say Say Say‘ (Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson) and ‘All Night Long (All Night)‘ (Lionel Richie).
In the #3 spot is Billy Joel’s ‘Uptown Girl,’ the second single from his An Innocent Man album, and one of three from that record to reach the top ten. ‘Uptown Girl’ spent five weeks at #3, its peak position on the chart.
Pitchfork’s #8 song of 2023 is ‘Chosen to Deserve,’ a darkly romantic tune by Asheville-based alt-country band Wednesday. This song was the second single from the band’s fifth studio album, Rat saw God.
Lead singer Karly Hartzman kicks off this track with the evocative line “We always started by tellin’ all our best stories first so now that it’s been awhile, I’ll get around to tellin’ you all my worst” and then proceeds to do exactly that, describing her debaucherous adolescence.
Meet Me In Montauk 