The Festive Fifteen 2023
As the year draws to a close it’s time for markontour’s annual homage to John Peel’s ‘Festive Fifty’. As usual, my list is not festive and doesn’t even manage the fifteen tracks I habitual aim for and fail to achieve. But these are my favourite songs released in 2023. I hope you enjoy them as much I have.
This year’s Festive Fifteen is dedicated to Val Emslie, my wonderful, inspiring, internationalist godparent, who helped kindle my love of music from the moment she introduced me to Janis Joplin, aged about 12. For decades we swapped recommendations for music, books and films via postcards, first sent by Val from Egypt, Morocco, Sudan and the other fascinating places where she lived and worked, and then from me as I visited the world’s major cities through my work. I always looked forward to her critique of my Festive Fifteens and had she lived to hear this year’s edition she would no doubt have queried why so many of the bands are Anglo-Saxon in origin. I’ll do better in 2024, Val!
The full playlist is available on YouTube and Spotify.
1. Nothing Matters, The Last Dinner Party
Kate Bush meets Florence and the Machine, with a lead singer who appears born to be on stage. This powerful song of lust and love is a signal of much bigger things to come. “And you can hold me / Like he held her / And I will fuck you / Like nothing matters”.
2. Better Way to Live, Kneecap ft. Grian Chatten
The Fontaines DC frontman half-rapping to the heavy bassline of fellow Dublin band, Kneecap. “Underneath all the thundering there is magic / And if there’s a better way to live I gotta have it”. Splendid.
3. Two Lines, The Big Moon
Festive Fifteen regulars and my most-seen band in 2023 (their last, acoustic show at Union Chapel was particularly glorious), this song sounds best through headphones so your ears can take in the staccato backing vocals that perfectly frame Juliette Jackson’s lead vocal. “How does my head not split / With what’s inside of it / If we were in a movie / It would at least start to rain.”
4. I Saw, Young Fathers
Young Fathers’ live shows this year have been an overpowering, pulsating, hour-long adrenalin buzz. I really struggled to choose a track from ‘Heavy Heavy’, their extraordinary 2023 album, but ‘I Saw’ nicked it because I think it’s most evocative of the energy of their live performances.
5. War With America, Gretel Hanlyn
To be clear, Hanlyn “Don’t want war with America”, she “just don’t like what they done to ya”. Addictive, melodic indie-pop that makes me really regret not following Dr. Jas to see her at Latitude.
6. Tropic Morning News, The National
I’ve been obsessed with this haunting break-up song for most of the year. It is quintessential The National: poetic lyrics that are spoken as much as sung in Matt Beringer’s unmistakable baritone (“Got up to seize the day / With my head in my hands”), until a beautiful Dessner melody takes it up a key for the sing-a-long melancholia of the chorus, “I was suffering more than I let on / The Tropic Morning News was on / There’s nothing stopping me now from saying all the painful parts out loud”.
7. Love is Enough, Girl Ray
Serving up a funky, slinky sound this year and looking suitably stylish with it, Love is Enough is a song to put a smile on your face.
8. Different Now, Courtney Barnett
This is Courtney Barnett giving a big hug to a friend who’s hurting, via this fragile, reflective song, originally recorded by Chastity Belt. Even though it’s not her lyric, I hear echoes of Depreston.
9. Cello Song, Fontaines DC
OK – so two cover versions in a row, but this is a belter – a dark, pounding reimagining of Nick Drake’s ephemeral original. “But while the Earth sinks to its grave / You sail to the sky on the crest of a wave”.
10. Ode to Britannia, Seb Lowe
It’s hard not to draw the Billy Bragg comparison. He is at least an angry young man, able to express class politics in straight-forward, memorable lyrics “If you’re so good at fucking learning / Learn about your past.. / I care a lot / That’s all I’ve got.”
11. 4D Country, Geese
New York latter-day punks, Geese, released a concept album this year which tells the tale of a cowboy’s LSD-assisted trek through the desert. This is the opening track and so, presumably, situated at the start of that journey and the lyric seems to be about heading home after suffering lost love. The opening stanzas introduce the character: “Since I was born I’ve heard the voice of the Father / Goes in the one ear, on out the other / Hit me baby, show me the floor / I was Cassidy’s gun and she was his daughter.”
12. Black Camaro, Willy J. Healy
I usually only tolerate songs about cars when they are penned by Bruce Springsteen, but there’s a wistfulness about this track (“We are not lovers / But we are in love”) that captured me before I checked out what is the Black Camaro that Healy thinks of when he sleeps.
13. Birds, Divorce
Hailing from Nottingham, which is always a good sign, I loved their debut single, ‘Checking Out’, last year and the fact that Divorce are supporting The Vaccines and Everything Everything in 2024 are also good signs of things to come. I’ve no idea what this song is about and the lo-fi arthouse video doesn’t shed any light beyond the titular subject matter. But they have a great sound.
14. Sole Obsession, Nation of Language
Ultimately hypnotic and addictive, each Nation of Language album takes me a while to get into but then stays on repeat for months. Sole Obsession is the stand-out track from this year’s ‘Strange Disciple’. I get why the video features religious imagery, but what about the vacuming?
15. Who By Fire, Skinny Pelembe, Beth Orton
Beth Orton was enchanting as the rain belted down at Green Man this summer and this is a cracking collaboration with Joburg-born, Skinny Pelembe. Dark, moody, and narcotic.
Bonus tracks
16. Summer in Siam, The Pogues
Obviously there had to be a tribute to Shane MacGowan and this is arguably the last great song he wrote and sang with The Pogues. I remember buying the single as a student in Nottingham and playing it over and over again for hours. Wistful, vaguely melancholic and lyrically beautiful despite the sparcity of the writing: “When it’s summer in Siam / And the moon is full of rainbows”.
17. Black Boys on Mopeds, Sinead O’Connor
The first great loss for Ireland and the musical world in 2023 was Sinead O’Connor. This haunting song about racism and injustice balances the beauty of O’Connor’s voice with the harsh imagery of her lyrics, backed only by the singer strumming an acoustic guitar. “Margaret Thatcher on TV / Shocked by the deaths that took place in Beijing / It seems strange that she should be offended / The same orders are given by her”.
markontour 
One Response to “The Festive Fifteen 2023”
Great list Mark! Thanks for sharing
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