Monthly Report: December 2023 Singles
1. Dua Lipa - "Houdini"
A couple months ago there was a Dua Lipa profile in the New York Times that described "1970s-era psychedelia" as one of the main influences on her artsier 3rd album due in 2024. And that irritated me because psychedelic music was a pretty vague term to begin with and people basically used it heavily in the late '60s, completely abandoned it in the '70s, and then revived it in a nostalgic way in the '80s and onwards. Maybe it'll make sense once we hear the album, but even with Tame Impala's Kevin Parker involved in the lead single, "Houdini" is still very much dance pop, but more a mechanical Moroder sound than the lush disco strings of Future Nostalgia, and it kicks ass. Here's the 2023 singles Spotify playlist of songs I've been writing about all year, although I'm going to jump right into my year-end lists this week as well.
2. Olivia Rodrigo - "Get Him Back!"
Back in September when I listened to Guts for the first time, I loved a lot of the songs off the bat, but "Get Him Back!" was definitely the one that I thought "I hope this becomes a single." And something like three or four days later, Rodrigo released the song's video and performed it at the VMAs, so that was pretty immediate gratification. I go back and forth about which I like best, but I'm not surprised that "Get Him Back!" just surpassed "Bad Idea Right?" on pop radio, it's a little more of a home run commercially.
3. Kenya Grace - "Strangers"
As I mentioned the other day, it feels like PinkPantheress really brought a different sound into the mainstream with her sort of Soundcloud era update on '90s jungle breaks, but then "Strangers" sort of streamlined that sound and took it to #1 in the UK before PinkPantheress. I really dig this song, though, I'm glad Kenya Grace is putting her own spin on that aesthetic, and her tracks out there are good, too, especially "Meteor," I like that both of them produce their own songs.
4. Conner Smith - "Creek Will Rise"
Conner Smith is 23 and just got his third song on the country charts and it's gotten far enough for his debut album to get a release date in January, his stuff is pretty good so I'm looking forward to it.
5. Dan + Shay - "Save Me The Trouble"
I feel like Dan + Shay is one of those acts where I like every 3rd or 4th single they do, and everything else is just a little too saccharine for me. But this is one of those where it's just the right amount of sweet and their harmonies sound great on the chorus.
6. Megan Thee Stallion - "Cobra"
Meg certainly got introspective and talked about her mental health struggles on her last album Traumazine, but I like that she's really continuing in that vein on her first solo single in a while instead of jumping right back into making club bangers. I didn't know what to make of this song at first but it's grown on me.
7. Megan Moroney - "I'm Not Pretty"
Another Megan! I don't often like songs about haters, but this song is a pretty funny little "bless your heart" middle finger to jealous girls.
8. Coco Jones - "Double Back"
There are so many '90s R&B samples in the air these days that it's not surprising that we'd end up with two competing singles with the same sample: both "Double Back" and Tamar Braxton's "Changed" sample SWV's "Rain." Tamar's song did slightly better on R&B radio, but Coco is the one who got to perform her song with SWV at the Soul Train Awards last month, which is pretty cool. And it was fun that the late jazz bass great Jaco Pastorius, who was sampled on "Rain," had two writing credits on R&B radio at the same time in 2023.
9. Rob49, Skilla Baby and Tay B - "Mama"
Skilla Baby is a Detroit rapper who's got a national profile but isn't really well known outside of the cult of rap heads who listen to anything out of Michigan, I mostly knew him from doing a project with Tee Grizzley. So it was kind of funny that Jack Harlow mentioned Skilla Baby in the chorus of a huge pop hit, "Lovin' On Me," kind of out of nowhere, probably for no other reason than that it fit the rhyme scheme. Whether by coincidence or not, though, a Skilla Baby song made an appearance on a Billboard chart for the first time last week, at the same time that "Lovin' On Me" went to #1. Skilla Baby does the hook as well as the second verse on "Mama," which is 10 bars, just the strangest possible length for a rap verse to be.
10. Zara Larsson & David Guetta - "On My Love"
I find it kind of annoying how there's a whole middle tier of good pop singers who mostly get on American pop radio if they do a song with a big EDM producer. Zara Larsson has lots of good songs that should've gotten more radio spins ("Can't Tame Her" from earlier this year deserved better), but whatever, it's cool, I'm glad Guetta is doing this instead of another song as obnoxious as "I'm Good (Blue)."
The Worst Single of the Month: Guns N' Roses - "Perhaps"
I never really had high hopes that GNR would suddenly make some great songs again when Slash and Duff rejoined the band. But I'm annoyed that they've released a string of singles that are songs that date back to the Chinese Democracy era that Axl seemed to just slap Slash and Duff writing credits on, and "Perhaps" in particular is just limp crap. Chinese Democracy was, even in failure, kind of fascinating and larger-than-life, but we don't need leftovers, I would rather no new GNR music at all.
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