The Best Songs of November 2023
Photos by Tommy Kha, Nikita Freyermuth and Colin Medley Music Lists Best Songs
November is over, which means the holiday season is here and we must pay our respects to the month’s brightest and boldest offerings, including collaborations of the millennium, devastating album singles, catchy earworms, new bands trying to make a name for themselves quickly and big previews of what’s to come in 2024. Narrowing this list down to just 15 entries was a nearly impossible feat, even with the slow release days of Thanksgiving week. But we got it done and, without further ado, here are the best songs of November 2023. Catch up on October’s entries here. —Matt Mitchell, Music Editor
Björk & Rosalía: “Oral”
This Björk and Rosalía track has been on everyone’s radar since last month, when the two musicians announced that they’d written and recorded a song together to protest Icelandic fish farming (proceeds will be donated to help pay legal fees of protestors in Fjord Seyðisfjörður). Now, “Oral” is here and it’s just as good as you could ever imagine. And on top of that, the song is actually nearly 30 years old. Björk wrote it in the 1990s but declined to place it on the tracklists of Homogenic or Vespertine, fearing it was too poppy for either project. The fish farming issue—which zeroes in on how the “Frankenstein fish” that are being harvested from Iceland’s waters are likely carriers of pesticides and organic waste and are detrimental to the country’s salmon population—inspired Björk to dig the song up and invited Rosalía to help give it a contemporary buff. The result is, quite possibly, the most moving pop song of 2023’s second half. Björk and Rosalía’s individual artistry are magically symbiotic in conversation with each other, and “Oral” is a revelation. —Matt Mitchell
Bonnie “Prince” Billy: “Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You”
This is the second time this year that a Drag City artist left the title track off their most recent album, only to release it as a single in the months after (the other artist being Cory Hanson). While Keeping Secrets Will Destory You was Will Oldham’s first Bonnie “Prince” Billy solo project since 2019, “Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You” is a wonderful coda for this chapter of the project altogether. The track has been a live staple for a minute now, and it features Emmett Kelly, Blake Mills, Shahzad Ismaily and Jim Keltner on the instrumentation. But the real highlight of the song is the vocal harmonies provided by Lacey Guthrie, Katie Peabody and Heather Summers. The trio of voices merge perfectly with that of Oldham, who sings out “How can I grow old if I don’t know? Are you afraid to sing it?” atop a pensive, orchestral and delicate arrangement. Immediately, it’s one of the best Bonnie “Prince” Billy songs in recent memory, and one of the most stirring tunes of 2023 altogether. —MM
Brother Bird: “something better”
Nashville singer/songwriter Caroline Glaser—aka Brother Bird—released a new single last week, “something better,” and it’s positively beautiful. I can’t get it out of my head. The work is immense, beginning with a fine-tuned arrangement of piano chords before exploding into the guitar-driven, lo-fi indie folk that Glaser has made her calling card since releasing her debut album Gardens in 2021. As the title suggests, the track is a wayward outlook towards hope, as Brother Bird wants things to work out for herself. “Another calendar year, back with the family for the holiday,” Glaser sings. “Everyone’s all grown up now and I play with the food left on my dinner plate, constantly searching my brain for something impressive I could say.” “something better” is the first chapter of Brother Bird’s forthcoming sophomore LP, another year, and what a re-entry it is. “I wish that I was different for ya, but this is all that I could be,” Glaser cries out, and it cuts like a thousand knives. —MM
Chastity Belt: “Hollow”
Chastity Belt are returning with their first new album in five years. Live Laugh Love is coming next March, and lead single “Hollow” is a welcomed return for the Washington state alt-rock heroes. After their friends Kurt Vile and Courtney Barnett gave a few of their I Used to Spend So Much Time Alone tracks some cover treatment earlier this summer, Chastity Belt are dusting off their own creative inclinations—and thank goodness for that. “Hollow” is an incredible teaser of what’s to come from Julia Shapiro, Lydia Lund, Annie Truscott and Gretchen Grimm. It’s classic Chastity Belt, a song about feeling lost and without direction driven home by a steadfast double-guitar melody with a propulsive undercurrent of bass and percussion. “Free will doesn’t feel free anymore, waiting for some sign, wasting time,” Shapiro sings out. “Breathe in hollow air, nothing’s here. I wanna trust myself again.” —MM
Daneshevskaya: “ROY G BIV”
“ROY G BIV” (named after the acronym for the colors of the rainbow), is here and it’s even more magical than the three singles that preceded it—if you can possibly believe that. “ROY G BIV” was greatly influenced by Daneshevskaya’s day job. “We’re all in rainbow order, we’re all in rainbow order on the way down,” she sings. The song pairs her saccharine singing with a methodical, well-paced piano melody. It’s not a ballad, but it’s not an anthem either. “ROY G BIV” is ebbing water that trickles into brief fragments of string arrangements. It arrives like an orchestral nursery rhyme, most immensely when Daneshevskaya sings “Horse and cow, pig and sheep, as long as I still get to sleep. Folding chairs start to sink as long as I can wet my beak.” It’s soothing and familiar, a token of intentionality and comparmentalization washed aglow by NYC serenity and anti-busyness. “ROY G BIV” won’t be leaving my rotation anytime soon. —MM
Ducks Ltd.: “Hollowed Out”
Toronto indie duo Ducks Ltd. are putting out their sophomore album, Harm’s Way, in February. Following up last month’s lead single “The Main Thing,” Tom McGreevy and Evan Lewis are all in on one of the most infectious year-end melodies on “Hollowed Out.” Strapped with backing vocals from Ratboys’ Julia Steiner and Marcus Nuccio (who also plays drums on the track), Dehd’s Jason Balla and Moontype’s Margaret McCarthy and a string arrangement from Finom’s Macie Stewart, “Hollowed Out” arrives like a greatest hits compilation wrapped up into one three-minute instant classic. An amalgam of post-punk, power pop and pure indie bliss, this is Ducks Ltd. at, dare I say it, their best—as the duo muse on existing in places that are, slowly, beginning to recede and turn towards unfamiliar strangeness. “All we ever do is leave, a slow retreat through the same old scene forever,” McGreevy sings. “Darker at the city’s seams, collapse the street, a world unseen whatever.” —MM
Friko: “Crashing Through”
The fiery lead single from Chicago duo Friko’s forthcoming debut album Where we’ve been, Where we go from here, “Crashing Through” does what its title suggests. A sonic drop hits right after a fine-tuned drum fill from Bailey Minzenberger, and it’s a breakdown that arrives as an organic fixture of Friko’s guiding momentum they bring to every song. The harmonics embrace the untapped, energetic potential of a live show, and Niko Kapetan’s singing galvanize saccharine, heavy guitar chords into an oblivion of noise, gang vocals and a wallpaper of distortion. “I haven’t said what I mean to say, haven’t done what I mean to do,” Kapetan wails. “‘Cause every coward looks away from all the light crashing through.” The volume metrics are off the chart, as Minzenberger’s percussion ensconces Kapetan’s worn-in, sandpaper-polished singing like a fence of landmines. You can pick out familiar components in the band’s work and name them but, how they’re merged together—under the bow of Friko’s finesse and button-bursting energy—arrives untapped, nuanced and dramatic. —MM
Hurray for the Riff Raff: “Alibi”
Ever since they put out Life On Earth last February, I’ve been holding my breath over when Hurray for the Riff Raff would return with their next chapter. Now, the time has finally come. The Past is Still Alive finds Alynda Segarra teaming up with producer Brad Cook and peers Conor Oberst, Hand Habits, Anjimile, S.G. Goodman and others. The new LP is primed to include everything from Eileen Myles’ writing to relics of railroad culture, and lead single “Alibi” immediately establishes itself as one of the best country tracks of 2023 thus far. Segarra’s vocals arrive with a pensive twang worn-in and worn-out, as they mine for common ground, for plain-spoken understanding with someone whose days are numbered. “You know that time can take you for a ride, can take you by surprise,” they sing. “Maybe you’ll roll snake eyes. Baby tell me why you gotta play your luck. Two aces, call your bluff. I love you very much, and all that other stuff.” The whole record was recorded a month after Segarra lost their father, and “Alibi” arrives as a gut-wrenching portrait of memory, addiction, loss and distance between kin. —MM
Katy Kirby: “Party Of The Century”
NYC singer/songwriter Katy Kirby is on another level right now. Her last two singles—“Cubic Zirconia” and “Table”—have been among some of our favorite tracks of the year so far. Now, she’s unloading another clip of distinctive, stirring beauty. “Party Of The Century” might, based on the title alone, suggest that it’s an anthemic, upbeat song—but Kirby is not the type of musician to let us off so easily. No, “Party Of The Century” is pensive and sublime and harmonic, as the largely acoustic arrangement—packed with violin and folkloric percussion—establishes itself, immediately, as one of the best Kirby has ever proctored. Co-written with Christian Lee Hutson, the story is one that is as devastating as it is so deftly romantic, as she opens the track with an observation that the one she loves doesn’t want to bring kids into this world, even though they’re so good with kids. “You’re my worst survival strategy, last safety match I’ve got to light up,” she sings. “Happy anniversary, I’m happy as I’ll ever be. And I still wanna make love in this club.” Party of the century? Yes. Song of the year? You could argue that. I certainly will. —MM
Kirin J Callinan: “Crazier Idea”
Australian firebrand and kilt-wearing mastermind Kirin J Callinan announced his fourth record, If I Could Sing, today—and it’s high-time, as his last album of original material, Bravado, came out six years ago. After a year that found Callinan working on Caroline Polachek’s Desire, I Want To Turn Into You and Genesis Owusu’s Struggler, it makes sense that the momentum would swing forward for the genre-evading, preconceptions-obliterating, post-pastiche purveyor. New single (and fourth teaser track overall) “Crazier Idea” is quintessential Callinan—though a turn away from the the romantic accessibility of one-off singles “You’re Going to Miss Me” and “Dumb Enough”—as he runs through vignettes of pedal-to-the-metal synth-pop coalesced with ‘80s MTV rock. It’s David Bowie if David Bowie was asked to compose an original tune for the Rocky III soundtrack. “Hear me when I say that atoms born from dust are weapons left to rust!” Callinan cries out. “Ruining the spark, it’s all that’s come to pass. And there’s no crazier idea, so kill!” —MM
Mo Troper: “Citgo Sign”
What’s better than a new Mo Troper album? A new Mo Troper album of Jon Brion covers, of course. Earlier this month, the Portland producer, singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist unveiled Troper Sings Brion (fit with an incredible album cover-homage to Harry Nilsson), a reimagining of Brion’s demos and gems that aren’t available on streaming. Lead single “Citgo Sign” is classic Troper, as he takes Brion’s sketch of dream pop goodness and fashions it into a jangly tune reminiscent of early Byrds albums. With soaring guitars and a worn-in tenor vocal that flirts with the pearls of a vintage falsetto, Troper takes this once underloved rarity and makes it into a contemporary powerhouse you won’t be able to stop yourself from playing over and over. If anyone’s gonna outplay Brion, I think we’ve found our man. —MM
Omni: “Exacto”
Don’t just head over to the streaming service of your choice to check out the new jam from Atlanta trio Omni. Make sure to spend some time with the video the group made for this one. It includes a bit of guerrilla filmmaking involving tossing a TV off a parking garage and trying to clean up the mess, all without the permission of the powers that be. It befits this twitchy, anxious song, as singer / bassist Philip Frobos says, “imagining the odd things people do for attention from people they love and strangers alike.” You know, stuff like post thirst trap selfies on IG, or allow themselves to be humiliated in public just in hopes of getting a soothing touch from a crush, or hurling an appliance off a 10-story building and filming it for a promotional clip. 😉 —Robert Ham
TOLEDO: “Jesus Bathroom”
TOLEDO made a splash with their debut album How It Ends in 2022. It seems that they’re ready to carry that momentum even further, as new single “Jesus Bathroom” might just be the catchiest song you hear all month. As the year comes to a close, Dan Álvarez de Toledo and Jordan Dunn-Pilz are making sure they get in on the action before it’s all said and done—and what a way to do it. “Jesus Bathroom” is synth-driven and bubbly, arriving like a grand amalgam of dream pop and the type of indie rock we’ve known, adored and revisited over and over for the last decade. But, even then, TOLEDO is onto something much grander here. The turns are punchy, the vocals are saccharine. Caught somewhere between the 1975 and Wild Pink, “Jesus Bathroom” is a perfect three-minute achievement. I’m crossing my fingers that it means a new TOLEDO album is on the way. The world needs it. —MM
Vyva Melinkolya: “222”
Singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Angel Diaz released her second post-Orbweaving single under Vyva Melinkolya this past month. Orbweaving was a full-length collaborative project with Midwife. “222,” sees her teaming up with Ethel Cain, who affords the song background vocals. The two voices are compressed so tightly into the mix, each sound reduced to the essence of itself, all becoming part of the thick wall of sound that surrounds them. According to Melinkolya, “222” is a song of healing, a resuscitating and restoring of the self from its own fragments. She sings, “My legs in the water, I will not falter / The shape of a woman in the water.” Her voice floats through the track’s noise, a shape of its own sound and of her, as a woman, through the song’s pooling and unspooling. —Madelyn Dawson
Yaya Bey: “crying through my teeth”
It’s been a busy year for Brooklyn R&B musician Yaya Bey, who has quickly cemented her own budding stardom. Last summer, her fourth LP Remember Your North Star dazzled and sent her reputation soaring; in February, she unveiled an EP—Exodus The North Star—that further explored that world and served as a fitting coda for the moment. Now, the momentum has grown unavoidable. Her two new singles, “crying through my teeth” and “the evidence,” are immaculate. The former barely squeaks by as the better track—though you can make a good argument for either and be 100% correct. Bey had previously debuted “crying through my teeth” on COLORS earlier this year, and the studio production of it is just as gravitational and stirring. “Nobody ever stops to see just what reality might be,” she sings. “I know it’s real, it’s got to be, because it’s always real to me.” Bey seamlessly weaves in and out of vocalizing and rapping. It’s a sublime dichotomy that arrives beautifully, as the instrumental never swells above her own cadence. If “crying through my teeth” is a signal of what’s to come from Bey in the near future, count us all the way in. —MM
Check out a playlist of these tracks below.