The New Cue #346 December 22: "The Best 23 Songs I Heard in 2023" - A Playlist Special
Thirty mixes, curated by experts, to see you through Christmas and beyond...
Seasons greetings,
A while ago, we realised it would be impossible to put a Recommender together during this entertainment dead zone when there’s no new music released to recommend. So instead, we suggested to various music heads we know that they may want to compile a playlist of their favourite songs for us to share with the New Cue massive. Everyone loves making a playlist, after all. Their choices, we said, could be 2023-based but also older stuff they’ve been enjoying too. The past, the present but not the future, that was where we drew the line.
When Dorian Lynskey sent in his playlist titled ‘23 Songs for 2023’ we saw that we’d missed an editorial trick and quickly tried to get those enlisted to make their playlists also twenty-three tracks long. Some people got the memo, others didn’t. But all took the time to create this Christmas gift for you, and for that we are very grateful.
That’s it from us this year - we’ll be back in early January when we’ve got some excellent interviews lined up to ease you into the new year. Can we take this moment, please, to thank everyone for their loyal support of the one true New Cue in 2023, and to wish you well in 2024.
Love and respect,
Ted, Niall and Chris
The Sounds of 2023…
As chosen by Jeff Barrett, Heavenly Records’ head honcho and the man whose footsteps all of London follows in eventually:
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As chosen by Blue Lab Beats, “Britain’s answer to The Neptunes”, recently nominated for best jazz act at the MOBOs:
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As chosen by Lloyd Cole, purveyor of heartbreakers since 1984 and most recently on this year’s late career highlight On Pain…:
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As chosen by U.S. Girls, aka Toronto-based songwriter, producer, singer and multi-instrumentalist Meg Remy:
Here’s Meg’s 22nd and 23rd choices, which annoyingly weren’t on Spotify:
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As chosen by Gaz Coombes, who put Supergrass back on hiatus and released another fantastic solo record in 2023:
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As chosen by The Duke Spirit’s Liela Moss, who released the majestic solo effort Internal Working Model in early 2023:
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As chosen by Michael Cragg, author of this year’s best-selling account of British pop’s flowering between 1996 and 2006, Reach For The Stars:
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As chosen by Lily Fontaine from Leeds’ indie-rockers English Teacher. The quartet’s debut album will be released in 2024:
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As chosen by Nathanial Cramp of Sonic Cathedral, who wishes listeners to know this:
“This has been a great year for new music – in fact it was hard to limit this playlist to just 23 tracks. I listened to lots of great ambient and electronic stuff this year, plus some things that sound like trip-hop mixed with Bowery Electric, and plenty of decent shoegaze adjacent bands which are sounding great now it's the true soundtrack of Gen Z. Oh, and there’s some Slowdive of course.”
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As chosen by Jenn Crothers, all-seeing mother of London’s Boogaloo Radio station…
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As chosen by Joel Gion, of The Brian Jonestown Massacre, whose memoir In The Jingle Jangle Jungle is out in February 2024 on White Rabbit. He’s only managed ten songs, and all bar one are vintage, but I went for a run to it this morning and yes, very good, no notes.
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As chosen by singer-songwriter (and songwriter for hire) Ed Harcourt, an absolute gold-ribbon mixtape masterclass:
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As chosen by Ian Harrison, MOJO magazine’s commander of news and vibes:
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As chosen by Ted Kessler, of The New Cue F.C.:
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As chosen by Steve Mason, whose excellent latest album Brothers & Sisters was released in March - a selection of olden golden nuggets:
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As chosen by music writing king and podcasting sage Dorian Lynskey:
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As chosen by Tomas Nochteff of Latin American underground experimental punks Mueran Humanos. Tomas has gone mainly for oldies, but all goldies:
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He’s not a poet, he’s a spoken word artist - but more of than that, he’s ROY, one of Britain’s most vital contemporary writers from whom we’ll be hearing much more of soon. These are his favourite songs of the year:
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As chosen by James Skelly. He’s picked 24 numbers but we’ll let him off because he’s the singer of The Coral:
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As chosen by the writer and journalist Harriet Gibsone, who published her brilliant memoir Is This OK? in 2023. Contains the Bill Withers into Sampha link you never knew needed:
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As chosen by indie-rock renaissance man Felix White, formerly of The Maccabees but now a cricket podcasting king, author, writer, broadcaster, composer, record label co-founder, baseball commentator and somehow also found time to launch an excellent new band this year. Here’s his 23, plus a bonus track because why not:
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As chosen by Karla Chubb of Dublin punk-rock crew Sprints, who follow a run of ace singles with the release of their debut album in January":
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As chosen by The New Cue’s Niall Doherty, whose most-listened to album this year was the Oppenheimer soundtrack because he is a big nerd:
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As chosen by writer and BBQ supremo Genevieve Taylor, who always has good tunes soundtracking her fire wizardry. Follow Genevieve’s Substack here:
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As chosen by singer-songwriter Lucy Rose, who returned with the masterful single Could You Help Me this year:
As chosen by Hannah Wilson of London-based indie-pop duo Dolores Forever:
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As chosen by singer-songwriter Marika Hackman, who releases her new record Big Sigh in January:
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As chosen by broadcaster, DJ, writer and musician Danielle Perry:
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As chosen by the C in TNC, The New Cue’s Chris Catchpole, which is actually two Cs:
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As chosen by Canadian singer-songwriter Ron Sexsmith, who plumps for a selection of mellow, introspective classics which will work perfectly on New Year’s Day (and even better for the second day hangover too). Ron released his 17th album ‘The Vivian Line’ back in February. He hits the big 60 in January and is playing a show at Toronto’s Massey Hall to celebrate: