8 Sept 2024 edit: the music player isn't working anymore (even though i've not touched the code since i added and tested it and everything was working fine) and i don't know why and i don't know how to fix it. so player is broken for now (whyyyy)

Inspired by a friend’s lovely tradition of creating music playlists for the year that just passed, I decided to create my own, with my own criteria. Welcome to The Feeling of 2023 - a musical exploration of how the year 2023 made me feel.

With a total of 33 tracks running at 1 hour and 50 minutes, it follows a narrative of feeling, without corresponding to any particular chronology of time, but it does feature story sequences - which is why the order of the playlist is important and there’s no shuffle button.

(Fun fact: the first draft of this playlist was 83 songs with a runtime of 5 hours and 11 minutes!)

If you’d like to enjoy just the music, please use the music player below (huge kudos and thanks to PKLucky for the template). Basic controls for pause, volume, back, forward; the next track in the list will play automatically; clicking next to a track title will start playing that one. Also available on YouTube (as a playlist or its own video [link pending]) and Spotify (though some song versions not available on Spotify). If you’d like to read the accompanying story too, see below the music player.

I originally included an essay with this playlist explaining my music choices, but as I kept writing, it devolved (mutated?) into something… different. I hope you enjoy it regardless.

You are holding a champagne flute at a fancy party, one of those rich-people parties where everybody wears masks and Victorian dress. You have no memory of getting here - you only know it’s Monday. Fun’s Some Nights (Intro) starts playing and you enjoy the smooth vocals and lovely instrumentation, until:

I’ve been fucking crazy
There are some nights I wait for someone to save us (…)
But usually, I'm just trying to get some sleep

The manic emotion, the operatic background singing, the increasing anxiety that something is about to happen, the way he slides out the ‘crazy’ out of his mouth and the last final scream… Oh yeah, something is definitely about to happen. (And the mention of sleep. You'd like some sleep - but there's so much to do, so much you haven't done...)

You think this is about as dramatic as a Victorian fancy party can get - but then the metal starts. There’s an explosion (of course, there’s always a fucking explosion with metal music) as Poppy’s angelic voice starts her X track with a playful 'heavy!', a sweetness that is undercut by the screaming guitars.

I wanna love everyone
Empty every bullet out of every gun
Please take me back to where we began

Somehow, it feels right - that’s because you are inside your Rage; it’s mostly screaming and guitars here. The vocals do a brilliant job at emphasising the brutality of the instrumental - you can dig it.

Meanwhile, a motorcycle on fire has crashed through the window and set the fancy rich people on fire. You down your champagne and make your escape through the broken window.

Outside, everything is on fire (blame climate change). You run through one of those fancy hedge mazes (damn rich people and their ostentatious hobbies) and hear growling, truly guttural groans, and… Indian folk music? Bloodywood’s Gaddaar starts playing, a hard mix of metal and Indian folk and rap, and you think - bloody good soundtrack for the apocalypse. You keep running as they scream about political corruption - you have a few of those in your country you feel like screaming about.

Jhaaso mein fas ke
Jan saare sanke
Vaado ke bhram mein humko
Chhod chaad ke jhaada palla

Stuck in their web
We struggle for sanity
Trapped in an illusion of a better tomorrow
We were used and then brushed away like dirt

You trip on a root in the hedge maze and fall, and fall, and keep falling, the anger burning at your skin. You’re dirty, broken and mad - and someone, somewhere’s gotta pay for what they did to you. There’s a dizzying, erratic piano that takes over the guitars. You look around - a burning, volcanic landscape. There is magma flowing besides you, just as Fiona Apple’s Shameika flows above you.

I didn't smile, because a smile always seemed rehearsed
I wasn't afraid of the bullies, and that just made the bullies worse

The instrumental goes off the rails and fades away, a sort of buzzing sound as the drums and piano finally quiet down. A chorus starts - a boisterous communal grief. The magma has charred and hardened. Your Rage has burned itself (you) out. All that you are left with is Emptiness.

The chorus sounds ironically heavenly compared to the words, which speak of heaviness you're well acquanted with, an enormity that somehow manages to contain itself in a single block of ice.

J'ai parfois eu des pensées suicidaires, et j'en suis peu fier
On croit parfois que c'est la seule manière de les faire taire
Ces pensées qui me font vivre un enfer

I've had suicidal thoughts a few times, and I'm not proud of it
Sometimes you feel it'd be the only way to silence them
All thesе thoughts putting me through hell

Now you feel cold. There is only soot and dust here. You look up - there are no stars. If there were stars, you might have held hope there was something better out there.

The subdued Fire Flies by Gorillaz eases your loneliness, but only a little. It is midnight and you are now in your bedroom, which is just as grey as the outside, with nothing but the glow of your monitor to comfort you. You are alone - because of course you are. You’ve always been alone.

Sometimes I follow a firefly
It takes me into the night
Baby, I just survive

There’s a drumline in the distance. You can’t stand this greyness anymore - you destroy your bedroom just to get rid of it. You jump out the window (did you never learn how to use a door?). The sound grows and grows and you run towards it until - wait, we’re back in Rage? Awesome!

(But why, you’d ask yourself, if you weren’t so busy smashing your neighbour’s car with a lead pipe.) Because life isn’t a neat narrative, but it is a cycle - as you cycle through Rage and Emptiness and Rage again, getting burnt out, getting a little better, and again, and again.) With the manic, frenzied destruction of My Chemical Romance’s Destroya, you're all set for continuing the cycle.

You don't believe in God, I don't believe in luck
They don't believe in us, but I believe we're the enemy

The final chords fade away, and almost immediately start up, just… reworked. You are still firmly in Rage land, as Ashnikko’s Cry comes up. You feel like destroying something else and stalk the grey streets, looking for someone to blame for the misery of your life.

I'm a tough bitch, but I’m sensitive

The chords change again as Lil Nas X’s Life After Salem starts, and you think you might just about avoid ending up in Emptiness again. That place scares you too much to put into words - so no choice but to keep the fire burning. Time to Rage, Rage, Rage - but you’re tired. So tired…

All of my feelings are gone
I left them all on the floor

You get on a train, going as far away from Emptiness as you can. But it’s the local service and just takes you to the neighbouring region. You are now travelling through Discontent. As you sit on the train, looking out the window as the decay and rot takes over the land, you notice your body and realise - it always feels just that little bit uncomfortable; ill at ease. You no longer remember the words to describe happiness. And there’s a voice at the back of your mind (how lovely, it’s in your mother’s voice as well), going 'you’ve run out of time' - out of time to have success, money, family, friends, a purposeful living. You are travelling through Discontent, to the tune of Raleigh Ritchie’s You’re a Man Now, Boy.

I'm not growing up, I'm aging
My mind's incarcerated

You travel until the radio changes to Halsey’s I Am Not a Woman, I’m a God. Your heartbeat speeds up - you try not to think about it, because there's a Beast inside you. You've always associated your personhood with the monstrous, the ravenous, the unfathomable. You don’t want to admit she’s there - and so the Beast screams.

Every day, I got a hollow where my heart goes (…)
Maybe I could be a better human with a new name

Night time falls. You can no longer see out the window, yet still brace your head against the glass pane. You contemplate, you reminisce, you agonise. Lana del Rey’s Money Power Glory pathetically pleads for all the things you think (hope) might make you whole - even though deep down, you know they are just what would make you feel safe against the horrors of being human.

The sun also rises on those who fail the call
My life, it comprises of losses and wins and fails and falls

The song changes, and now it’s William Shatner telling you in It Hasn’t Happened Again, almost as a reply to the previous song, that all those dreams and hopes for money and power and glory? You achieved nothing (you are nothing). Once again he mentions sleep, and you think - sleep, yes - but without the waking up part.

As the carillon sang its song
I dreamt of success
I would be the best
I would make my folks proud
I would be happy
It hasn't happened yet (...)
I'm there not halfway between sleep and death
But looking into eyes wide open trying to remember
What I might have done, should have done

You get off the train at the last stop. You don’t know where you are - but it no longer matters (has it ever, really, mattered?). You walk off as a purely instrumental track, Hozier’s Song of Nyx accompanies you through the night. You’re not sure if the haunted chants count as instruments - but hey, to each their own. You are sick and tired of Discontent, but don’t want to go back the way you came.

There’s music coming from an alleyway. You venture in and gratefully receive the neon lights, the thumping bass and the colourful drinks of the nightclub. Ah yes - you found a way out!

It’s time to get Dancey.

Once you’ve tired of trudging through the empty darkness, then why not hit the dancefloor? Oh, make no mistake, the darkness is still there - you carry it with you everywhere you go, in a trendy little off-the-shoulder purple satchel - but if there’s no inherent meaning in being alive, then might as well get down. You ask the DJ for a total banger, and they put on Danger! High Voltage by Electric Six. What a perfect way to kick off a post-apocalyptic boogie!

Fire in the disco, fire in the Taco Bell
Fire in the disco, fire in the gates of Hell

And as the flames lick at your local fast food chain, off you ride into the distance with the strangers you met at the club - and go to the next one, one of the weird ones with foreign music. They’re playing Käärijä’s Cha Cha Cha, and even though you don’t speak a word of Finnish, you just know that he is singing about throwing down some piña coladas in order to get past his icy exterior and finally get to feel something while dancing. You can totally relate.

Rankka viikko ja paljon pitkii päiviä takan
Mielenkiintona piña colada ja rata
Ilta on vielä nuori ja aikaa kumota
Tää jäinen ulkokuori on aika tuhota (…)
Nyt lähden tanssimaan
Niinku cha-cha-cha
Enkä pelkääkään tätä maailmaa
Niinku cha-cha-cha

A rough week and many long days are behind
There's only bar and piña colada on my mind
There is some time for a few, the night is still youngish
Time to demolish this icy shell (…)
Now I'm going to dance
Like a cha-cha-cha
And I'm not scared of this world no more
Like a cha-cha-cha

You hop to another bar. You keep pouring drinks down your throat and bopping your head to the really catchy rap song edamame by rappers bbno$ (how do you even pronounce that, you ask a stranger at the bar. they don’t answer because it’s too loud - also they’re a figment of your imagination. you’ve caught up to that by now, right?… right.) and Rich Brian (oh that’s a much easier name to pronounce! but why are you still haunted by the existence of rich people even here, at the end of the world.

Yeah, baby in the sun like the Teletubbies (Woo)

You end up at a drag bar. They’re doing a pre-show warm-up. You’re absolutely off your tits drunk, and any semblance of gender, sexual expression or sexuality just feels all the same to you. Suddenly, you realise it’s Friday - as the hyperpop remix of the eponymous track by Rebecca Black starts blasting group. You have a vague memory of its memetic fame, then decide to sit in the middle of the dancefloor with a half-empty vodka soda and contemplate on the song’s subtle post-modern satirising of the absurdity of reality. Without noticing, you have entered the Chaos zone.

It's the fucking weekend, people
It's Friday

You get shoved and fall on the sticky floor. You lose your drink, your phone and exactly one shoe. You scurry through the legs of people far more attractive than you’ll ever be and end up next to the stage. A magnificent drag queen, announced by her full royal name of Alaska Thunderfuck 5000 (from the planet Glamtron), starts performing her hit track beautiful night (4 a breakdown). You feel very much seen as she tells you to cry on the dancefloor. You get down, sing along, sob hysterically, accidentally kick someone in the face (with the foot that still had the shoe on). You get thrown out the club.

It's a beautiful night for a breakdown
It's a hell of a night to die on the dance floor
Beautiful high 'til I come down
So I'll cry-y-y-y 'til I can't cry-y-y any more

Your carcass get thrown in the back of a taxi and you arrive back in your bedroom. It is totally destroyed from the Rage you experienced earlier - but you are too far gone to care. You lay face down on your bed and invite Sleep in.

There’s a radio playing somewhere, and you don’t know if it’s in real life or the life inside your mind. You recognise the tune - it’s that Gloomy Sunday one, right? The ‘Hungarian suicide’ song, or whatever nonsense people came up with to hide their own reticence to treat the illness rather than grieve the loss. The baritone voice belongs to Pál Kalmár, as he sings in Hungarian. You don’t know Hungarian - but you know the English version, as you sing along, two shadows singing to each other across the ether.

Gloomy is Sunday, with shadows I spend it all
My heart and I have decided to end it all

You’re supposed to be sleeping - but you’re too tired to fall asleep, ironically. Some band named Eels serenade you with I Need Some Sleep, and you think - sure do buddy, but consider this: no rest for the wicked, the rotten, the hopeless. So you lay there, sleeping and thinking about sleeping.

Everyone says I'm getting down too low
Everyone says, "You just got to let it go"
You just got to let it go

You start floating in the fog. It almost feels like water, like floating in an ocean. And Orville Peck’s anguished voice pleads with you to Let Me Drown - and you would, because the temptation of rest and respite has never been greater.

Been finding it hard to be kind
Since I've been lost out there, losing my mind
And I still keep on searching for what I can't find (...)
Never knew where was home
I slept a lifetime alone (...)
But as I get older I get more afraid

You are deep now in the realm of Sleep, in between clouds. It seems fitting to follow up with Ode to Sleep by Twenty One Pilots, that manic dual sonority that grates at your consciousness, the ironic cheerfulness of the chorus, the seeping, desperate cry to stay alive as you go further and further into Sleep.

I'm pleading, "Please, oh please!" on my knees repeatedly asking
Why it's got to be like this, is this living free? (...)
I'll stay awake 'cause the dark's not taking prisoners tonight (...)
I will set my soul on fire, what have I become?

As that last “I’m sorry” fades away, you awake in Dream. Beyond the physicality of sleep, the irreparability of your flesh prison - you are now safe and sound and dreaming, to the beautiful instrumental from Steve Universe the Movie, a piece called There's No Such Thing as Happily Ever After. But you already knew that.

Further into Dream you come across the vices of escapist fantasies - everything you’ve ever wanted to have and be and do - and you plunge right in. You bounce all over the place to Caravan Palace’s Wonderland, even though there’s a sliver of self-awareness left somewhere in that beaten-up mind of yours.

Look how the streets turn cold when I walk it
It's my rules, no man can stop it
I throw a kick so quick that'll leave you in the gutter (…)
I know all these things never happened
I'm just a random girl with gentle manners
In my dreams I rock and I rule the wonderland

Maybe this fantasy isn’t for you. Maybe what you really want is to run away, far away, from everything that hurts underneath the surface. Your parallel reality, your little pocket dimension - just need to grab your fancy shoes and leave for the exaltation you were always owed. And you have a great track as a soundtrack - Måneskin's L'altra Dimensione.

E adesso giuro faccio le valigie
E scappo via in un'altra dimensione
Son stanco delle vostre facce grigie
Voglio un mondo rosa, pieno di colore

And now I swear I'll pack my bags
And escape to another dimension
I'm tired of your grey faces
I want a pink world full of colour

So much fun to be had! Maybe you can incorporate a bit of the Dancey dimension in here. You conjure up a club and put on a Lady Gaga remix of Fun Tonight, an absolutely giddy track that indulges your fondness for irony by unceremoniously declaring that you are, actually, not having fun tonight.

I can see it in your face
You don't think I've pulled my weight
Maybe it's time for us to say goodbye 'cause (...)
I'm not havin' fun tonight

And now you’re sad again - damnit! This wasn’t meant to happen! You’re in Dream, which is supposed to be fun and fantastic and everything being alive isn’t! But look, there’s an errant pocket dimension right at the edge of Dream, so maybe there is something there that beats even the fantastical fantasies of Dream. You float towards/through it, and you get there and it’s the pink-purple of a hazy sunset. It’s not unpleasant, and if you were awake you might marvel at the beauty of the colours - but being in Dream for so long has dulled your senses for appreciating the simple things.

There’s some simple, gentle chords strumming, as Trixie Mattel sings you Believe, contemplating whether she’s strong enough. And you can’t help but think - yes, she is - of course she is. And maybe, that awakens a new thought - maybe there’s a chance you are too. You’re no longer in Dream - you’re in Longing.

And I know that I'll get through this
And I know that I am strong

The beat is steadily increasing (or maybe that’s your heartbeat? The Beast Can No Longer Be Contained - Set Her Free.) You remember your time in Dancey and feel your body move to the music - but without the numbness of substances in your body, you’re now hyper-aware of the way your body can move. Is this still the same defective meatsack you cursed out for failing you? Your toes tap, your fingers snap, you move your limbs for the mere reason that you can - and as the climax rises of half-alive’s still feel. song, you feel the same ecstasy the singer does as he screams:

Floating in outer space, have I misplaced a part of my soul?
Lost in the in-between, but it can't keep me asleep for long, 'cause
I still feel alive

You escape through a cloud, stumbling down a ladder of seashells and falling on the hard ground. Underneath the clouds of wish fulfilment, the land is barren; but from down here, you can see the dark sky, set aflame with a million burning stars. Dream and Sleep gave you everything you wanted - but Longing showed you what you needed.

You start walking and follow the sound of violins from Sleeping at Last’s Saturn, as they lead you to Hope.

You taught me the courage of stars before you left
How light carries on endlessly even after death
With shortness of breath you explained the infinite
How rare and beautiful it is to even exist
(…) say it one more time
That the universe was made
Just to be seen by my eyes

You stumble on, tears in your eyes, dust on your face. If you pretend it’s stardust, would it make you feel worthy of living again? (and maybe it’s worth a try). The sound changes, it erupts, as Gangs of Youth sings about how The Heart Is a Muscle. Well - in that case you better get practising.

There will be no years of silence in the shadow of regret
I won’t let it so betray me, though my soul got used to it
I will look at love as more than just an instrument of pain
And will give myself completely to the moving and the strange (...)
I will not hurt like this forever, I’m responding to the call (...)
I will not play this out discreetly, it is real and unashamed
I am human now, and terrified, but want it all the same

A star explodes in the sky, light-years away, but the shock reverberates to where you are and you float inside the night. When previously you might have wished to evaporate, this time you feel solid as you wade through the clouds, with Pink Floyd’s Eclipse illuminating your way.

And all that is now
And all that is gone
And all that's to come
And everything under the sun is in tune
But the sun is eclipsed by the moon

You’re almost - where? Somewhere? You’ve thought you’ve reached the edge of something so many times, but it was just another stumble. The sun and the moon circle each other around you, and you finally realised where you want to go.

There is a spaceship - you get inside it and sit at the helm. You set the direction for the one thing you haven't got - Home. As the engine starts and the flames burn behind you, the stars sing to you in chorus in Daft Punk’s Touch (2021 Epilog).

If love is the answer, you're home
Hold on

Posted on 13 August 2024.

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