A Swift overview of the 2023 Top 100

18 Jan 2024 -

Being a curmudgeon, I have long stopped listening to Top 40 music. The last two decades seemed to offer nothing but vulgar brags, whiney brats, and girls who are always angry at boys. So boring. When my friend Steve Kiel sent me the Billboard Top 100 of 2023, I suddenly thought I should maybe give it a listen. Turns out I ended up really liking a lot.

I listened to but dismissed most of the rap songs, they are just not for me, and I waded through the morass of new country. Someone named Morgan Wallen placed eight songs, including the top spot, but they all left me cold. The real gem, and it’s a chiller, is the murder ballad Wait In the Truck by HARDY. Lainey Wilson sings the part of the woman the guy picks up on the highway in a rainstorm, and he asks her for the address of the man who gave her those “whiskey scars,” and then he kills him and she’s grateful but probably also a bit horrified. It could be the scariest story song I’ve ever heard, particularly with HARDY’s habit of over-enunciating the ‘k’ sound at the end of the word ‘truck,', and even giving an exasperated little breath after that. It’s all so calculated, but I loved the drama, especially when compared to the annoyed reaction I had to another country tune, the irresponsible shit-kickin’ bully anthem from Jason Aldeen called Try That In A Small Town. Dude, I grew up in a small town and we were never like that.  

The Latins got my panties wet this year. I discovered Peso Pluma, whose two hits PRC and Por las Noches make a great soundtrack for sex and romance. I also couldn’t resist Miguel’s Sure Thing. Other beautiful ballads include JVKE’s golden hour, and the spectacular Billie Eilish song What Was I Made For?, from the Barbie movie, which could possibly win the Oscar for Best Song. 

There are lots of other good songs on the Top 100, including Miley Cyrus’ Flowers, Harry Styles’ As It Was, Beyonce’s CUFF IT, Dua Lipa’s Dance the Night Away, Steve Lacy’s Bad Habit, Noah Kahan’s Dial Drunk, and Zach Bryan’s Something In the Orange. And then there’s Taylor. I’m not really a Taylor Swift fan, and all year that’s all we fucking heard about - who she dates, where she eats, which jokes about her make her bitchy, it’s too much already. But she did place four songs on the chart, and they are all really good. Cruel Summer and Lavender Haze are as smooth as cat fur. And as luxurious. They simply sound great, and their pretty little hooks get caught inside your brain. Anti-Hero is my least fave of the four, another one of those songs that make sad girls feel better about being sad all the time, but it is still good. 

But no song this year comes close to Swift’s Karma, which is not only the best of the year, but an all-time classic. “Karma is my boyfriend/Karma is a god/Karma is the breeze in my hair on a weekend/…Karma is a cat purring on my lap ‘cause it loves me/Flexing like a Vegas acrobat/Me and karma vibe like that.” Fuck, I wish I wrote that, because if I did, I’d be able to land me a gorgeous football-playing hunk just like she did.