2023 Musical Time Capsule: Third Annual Playlist

Submitted by Joel on Sun, 01/26/2025 - 06:42

This post documents our third year of creating this annual musical time capsule. If you're wondering, Bethany has been visiting family in the United States for the last couple weeks, so I’ve been catching up on these blog posts, which is why they're all coming out days apart! As explained in my original post, we've continued to compile playlists of our favorite songs each year. Bethany first came up with this idea at the end of 2021, and 2022 was the year we paid more attention to our music choices throughout the year. In 2023, we took it a step further, curating a list earlier and more deliberately. Below, I'll dive into the reasons behind each song choice, but for easier access, here is the full playlist (including YouTube links) in the order we felt flowed best at the year’s end: (WARNING! Explicit lyrics!)

Ordered for flow, not by ranking of preference

  1. The Revivalists - The Long Con
  2. Benedict Cork - Have a Good Life (See You Never)
  3. The Weepies - Can't Go Back Now
  4. A Perfect Circle - So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish
  5. Taylor Swift - This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things
  6. Noah Kahan - Northern Attitude
  7. Gerard Way - Hazy Shade of Winter (feat. Ray Toro)
  8. Dua Lipa - Dance The Night
  9. Post Malone - Take What You Want (ft. Ozzy Osbourne, Travis Scott)
  10. Sarah Cothran - Baby Why
  11. Maisie Peters - Lost The Breakup
  12. Olivia Rodrigo - bad idea right
  13. Lyn Lapid - In My Mind
  14. Stephen Sanchez, Em Beihold - Until I Found You
  15. Yoke Lore - Seeds
  16. Ashe & FINNEAS - Till Forever Falls Apart
  17. Tish Melton - We Can Do Hard Things
  18. Paris Paloma - Labour
  19. The Strumbellas - Greatest Enemy
  20. Weezer - All My Favorite Songs (feat. AJR)
  21. Lizzy McAlpine - ceilings
  22. The Clientele - [I Can't Seem to] Make You Mine
  23. Linda Ronstadt - Long Long Time
  24. Niall Horan - Heaven
  25. Voyager - Promise
  26. CHVRCHES - Cry Little Sister
  27. Rose Betts - Irish Eyes
  28. Imagine Dragons - Amsterdam
  29. Kaarija - Cha Cha Cha

This playlist marks the first year that we started paying attention to music immediately as the year began. This is how our music went in 2022: We started the year jamming to the 2021 list. We started adding songs we liked to Spotify, and once we had five or six, added them to our 2022 list in our car. For a couple of months, we dabbled in the 2022 list, but it was mostly still 2021. The list kept growing and then Taylor Swift released Midnights and we added our faves to the list. Then we had Halloween music. Then back to the list. Then Christmas music. Then the year was up!

So 2023 started with a clean slate! We hadn't listened to anything but Christmas music for a while, so we had a few songs on our mind to start the year. I checked out the top songs of 2022 that maybe didn't hit our radar and it was a good year for Eurovision. So by Springtime, we already had a couple dozen songs on our list! Previously, we tried to limit ourselves to no more than 25 songs, but we quickly blew that away, so we increased the limit to 30. We have a much better system for music now, and we regularly chat with friends and family about our list, so we get a few more recommendations. At first, we're not quite so picky about our selection. I add songs that we like, but we're more willing to remove songs that aren't making the cut. 

Building the Playlist

As I've already covered the main objectives of this project in my original post, there's no need to repeat them here. Instead, I’d like to delve into each song and explain why it made the cut. Generally, both of us need to really enjoy the song to add it to the list. If we ever feel the urge to skip a track, it gets removed.

We have really enjoyed having these yearly playlists, so in 2023, I spent more time looking for music, especially at the beginning of the year, so we have a new list to start listening to. I'll look at the top songs from the previous year searching for music that we didn't hear that we might like. The first song on our list fits this description. The Revivalists - The Long Con I found on a list of Indie music that was popular in 2023. Other songs that go in the category of "included on lists of good songs" are (6) Noah Kahan - Northern Attitude<, (7) Gerard Way - Hazy Shade of Winter (feat. Ray Toro), and (24) Niall Horan - Heaven.

Spotify played (2) Benedict Cork - Have a Good Life (See You Never) for me, and I liked it. I asked my British friend what "cheers to the drama" meant, and he explained that it was a saying that kinda sorta means "this is so much chaos, I'm just gonna back off and let it be." Kinda. Sorta. Hard to explain. ANYWAY, I played the song for him and we added it to a playlist we took with us on a road trip (more on that later).

Spotify seems to have learned a lot about our tastes. It suggested MANY songs that made our list this year, including:

 

Taylor Swift had the Eras Tour with no new music released, but I hadn't heard the song (5) This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things before and Bethany talked me into including it "since we didn't have any Taylor Swift this year." The song reminds me of what parents often say when their kids break stuff, which amuses me. So it stayed.

The Barbie movie came out and had lots of decent songs, but this one stuck with us. Plus, we didn't have any dance songs, really, so it gave us a bit more variety, so (8) Dua Lipa - Dance The Night made the list. Plus Barbie was a big part of 2023, so it was nice to include a mention of it.

I had realized that there were popular musicians that I had never really tried to listen to, so I made a list and searched (and searched) for songs that I really enjoyed by them. Here's the one song that made the list: (9) Post Malone - Take What You Want (ft. Ozzy Osbourne, Travis Scott). I guess there was a reason I hadn't heard songs by that list of 20 or so artists. Just not my kind of music, I suppose. To each their own!

I like to go through our old lists and see if any previous artists have released anything new. Here are songs that made our 2023 list because I found other songs of theirs that we liked:

 

We really didn't have many recommendations this year, sadly. Probably because the list was already full (I used to try to keep it to under 25, but now it's 30 or fewer), so I didn't reach out for suggestions. But we did hear this gem from our friend Jacob: (20) Weezer - All My Favorite Songs (feat. AJR).

Have you seen the show The Last of Us?! It's so good! One of the best episodes included this song, which, then, became a cultural phenomenon: (23) Linda Ronstadt - Long Long Time. I had never heard this 80s song before, but I just love it! Do you know any other 80s gems that didn't see a ton of radio play that we might like?

Our two favorite songs from Eurovision were (25) Voyager - Promise and the one we really thought would win: (29) Kaarija - Cha Cha Cha. Yeah, we don't really understand any of the words, but the gist of the song is all about not wanting to be pulled into dancing, but then acquiescing to the peer pressure. It's a weird one, but we love it. CHA! CHA CHA ChuCHA CHA CHA!!

The last song that I haven't mentioned is (28) Imagine Dragons - Amsterdam, which I found while searching for songs for our road trip playlist. We drove to The Netherlands and Amsterdam, so this fit pretty well.

What Do You Think?

Wrapping up our 2023 musical journey, we'd love to hear about the tunes that resonated with you this year. Did any of our picks strike a chord? Have a listen and let us know what you think! As always, music is a deeply personal experience, and what moves one person might not move another. We invite you to share your own recommendations for future playlists. Your suggestions could become our next favorites!

And that's our playlist for 2023! Have any thoughts on our list? Wanna give us some suggestions to listen to? The best place to start the conversation is on Facebook, so check us out and tell us what you think!

Stay tuned for our 2024 list (coming very soon)!

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Joel
Things That Rock

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