Three thoughts I’ve had about music this is year: One, it is difficult to enjoy books about music, without actually hearing any. Two, from this YouTube video, this quote was straightforward, but revelatory: “Music makes you feel feelings, lyrics make you think thoughts, songs make you feel thoughts.” The third is not quite so easily expressed.

A jumbled recurring thought that came to me while listening to music on shuffle is that it is nice to be pleasantly surprised. There are moments when you don’t choose what comes next, and though there may be some resistance to this because one can, at times, be a control freak, sometimes you don’t get the song you want, but the song you need.

Can this be extrapolated to life? In the context of life, fear keeps one from loosening control and allowing room for unexpected things, be it a song, person, place or insert the blank to come and flow through. In my experience from this year, often, pleasant surprises await, and you may not get what you expect or think you want, but perhaps it is something even better.

But back to the music. It was a good year for music and books. I started if off by reading The Meaning of Mariah Carey, which led me to reconnect with one of my favorite albums from 2005: The Emancipation of Mimi. I’ve been a fan of Mariah Carey for a long time and getting a closer look into her story and difficulties made me appreciate her as an artist on a whole new level.

Mariah Carey – The Emancipation of Mimi (2005)

Top Songs: I got this CD as a gift when I was a senior in high school, and pretty much loved it the whole way through. Also, back then that’s how you listened to albums! Some standouts: “It’s Like That”, “We Belong Together”, “One and Only”, “Don’t Forget About Us”, “Making It Last All Night (What It Do)”, and “So Lonely”.

Next up in the year, I was preparing to travel to Antarctica in February, and I was building a playlist to accompany that adventure and to appease my sentimental Pisces Moon soul. I have yet to complete the playlist, as I am very meticulous about curating the songs and order of these, but in this case, it seems that it will continue to be fluid and unfinished. Fitting for a playlist built around a Water Zodiac sign. Many top album contenders came from the artists on it. The ones that made it in are:

SZA – SOS (2022)

Top Songs: “Love Language”, “Blind”, “Snooze”, “Ghost in the Machine”, “F2F”, but most of all “Nobody Gets Me”.

Gracie Abrams – This Is What It Feels Like – EP (2021)

Top Song: “Rockland”

Radiohead – OK Computer (1997)

Top Songs: I love this whole album, but to pick three: “Paranoid Android”, “Let Down”, but the song I was mostly stuck on, “Karma Police”.

Brittany Howard – Jaime Reimagined (2021)

Top Song: “Stay High (Childish Gambino Version)”

The Beatles – Abbey Road (1969)

Top Song: “Here Comes the Sun”

Continuing with the 60s and 70s vibe, Amazon Prime released the limited series Daisy Jones & The Six this year. I read the book a few years ago, and while the story appealed to me, I mostly did not enjoy it. Because of this, I was hesitant to watch the show, but I absolutely adored it. I even watched it twice the whole way through, and have been singing its praises ever since. I now understand what the book was missing: music! I can’t overstate how well the show was cast and how beautifully the music was written to fit the story. Now, I just wish I could hear more of this fictional band’s music and see it on tour. Yet another example of a pleasant surprise.

Daisy Jones & The Six – AURORA (2023)

Top Songs: Every single song, but if I had to choose the top three, it would be “Let Me Down Easy”, “Look at Us Now (Honeycomb)”, and “Regret Me”. And “The River”. Ok, top four then.

And continuing with pleasant surprises, in April, all the musical gods and sylphs—supported by my amazing fiancé, his friend, and my aunt—aligned to bless me with tickets to the Eras Tour in Houston, helping me meet my bucket list goal of seeing Taylor Swift in concert. It was the absolute best time ever, with the best company and I shall never forget this highlight of her career and this masterpiece of a show; thus, Midnights inevitably had to be included on this list.

But first, some words about the Eras Tour.

I have been a Swiftie for a long time (since I started this tradition more than 10 years ago), and for the first time, it seems that she’s getting the kind of global recognition she deserves for the true talent and skill that this woman has. It is striking. Since she was a little kid, Taylor Swift has been writing music and capturing all these different moments in the life of a girl, and then a woman’s, in her albums or “Eras”, coupled with its own aesthetic, both visual and sonic. It is like she’s multiple artists in one, and at the same time, she’s just making explicit the changes we go through, the reinvention and the multifaceted personas we all possess. I’ve noticed that the word “era” is being used more often now, and I think it is a response to this concept TSwift has proven to the broader culture: people and artists don’t stay the same. They shouldn’t. They evolve, grow, expand, discover—and that is never a bad thing. It is the very stuff life is made of and for. The Eras tour was a cultural moment to appreciate that for Taylor Swift, and implicitly, for us, too. At that tour, I kept remembering all the different moments of my life where the different TSwift “Eras” were a part of my story’s soundtrack. It was bittersweet and beautiful, and it still brings tears to my eyes now. When you measure your life through music, as I do, the Eras tour provides the ultimate nostalgic moment for all Swifties to see how far we’ve all come.

Taylor Swift – Midnights (3am Edition) (2022)

Top Songs: I also love this whole album, but to keep it short and sweet, the songs I most played were: “Anti-Hero”, “Midnight Rain”, “Bejeweled”, “Karma” and “High Infidelity.”

While pop music has my heart, it is true that at times it can be redundant in sound. I expected this of Olivia Rodrigo’s sophomore album, but (again) I was pleasantly surprised. The rock and grungy feel to the songs had me reminiscing No Doubt and other 90s music, which I absolutely love. It felt new and refreshing to the current music scene, and the songs are both, pretty and witty, as well as insightful. If I were to rank the top albums of 2023, I would most likely list this one as my number one. I also have a new appreciation of the importance of music collaborators, and in this case, Olivia Rodrigo and Dan Nigro’s collaborative work deserve all of the praise and awards they can get (and most likely will at the Grammys).

Olivia Rodrigo – GUTS (2023)

Top Songs: “all-american bitch”, “bad idea right?”, “vampire”, “ballad of a homeschooled girl”, “get him back!” and at the very top, “love is embarrassing.”

In the tropics, where I live, beach season tends to start in November through what would be considered winter months in the northern hemisphere. During the end of 2023, I spent some time at the actual beach and mostly in my daydreams listening to this playlist (also unfinished) and this album:

Rawayana – ¿Quién trae las cornetas? (2023)

Top Songs: “Dame Un Break”, “Binikini”, but most of all, “Hora Loca” (thanks to my bestie, Natalia).

Honorable Mentions:

• Gorillaz – Cracker Island (2023)
• Miley Cyrus – Endless Summer Vacation (2023)
• Noah Cyrus -The End of Everything (2020)
• Jon Batiste – World Music Radio (2023)
• Jungle – Volcano (2023)
• Taylor Swift – 1989 (Taylor’s Version) (2023)

And last, but not least:

Pink Floyd -The Dark Side of the Moon (1973)

This last Pink Floyd album is important because on a whim, I decided to go to the Roger Waters “This Is Not A Drill” tour on its final show in my city of Quito, Ecuador. Epic is an understated description for that show. Like the Eras tour, it also highlighted the different life and musical milestones of this artist, and it was a nostalgic goodbye tour for an octogenarian genius. The tour was visually and politically striking in so many ways. Often, I felt overwhelmed from the visual, auditory, and emotional depth of the messages conveyed. It was an immersive musical experience that I could never have imagined. During the show, I just kept thinking about how lucky I was to be there, how easily I would have missed it, how important it is to seize opportunities, and appreciate the hell out of everything positive that comes. This is a sentiment I will carry on to 2024 and wish the same for all my readers.

Peace, love and music, always.

“Art is how we decorate space; music is how we decorate time.” – Jean-Michel Basquiat