Tone Madison’s favorite songs of 2023, pt. III

A small collection of Madison songs that made a genuine impact.

Few years in recent memory have felt quite as alive as 2023 when it comes to new local music releases. While keeping up with the year’s explosive pace of releases was a time-devouring endeavor, the result was worthwhile. As a result of the bounty of new releases, our year-end coverage will be the most extensive it has ever been, because we firmly believe that everything we’re showcasing deserves this type of notice.

To start things off, we’ll be covering our 45 favorite songs that Madison-area artists released in 2023. Even at that number, there were still songs we wish we could have included in this section. But a line (probably) has to be drawn somewhere, or we’d be going on about 2023 until a few more calendar years pass.

Madison music has seemingly always been overlooked, despite consistently bristling with a varied richness. Attempting to monitor each new release drives that point home even more plainly, with the crop of material released over the past 12-plus months constituting a melting pot of genre and artistic perspective. Great records and songs have appeared across an enormous array of genres, delivered by a generous spectrum of artists, and were released by artists who populate wildly different age ranges (a few of which were cross-generational).

After a long string of behind-the-scenes deliberation, several rounds of cutdowns, and a few rounds of voting, Tone Madison was able to whittle down well over a thousand songs into 45 favorites. These are those favorites.

Part I can be accessed here and part II can be accessed here.

PART III

Bereft, “The Great Emptiness“

No track to be released in 2023 carried the emotional weight of Bereft‘s “The Great Emptiness,” a heavy, heartfelt tribute to the band’s late guitarist, Alex Linden. In what would become Linden’s last performance with Bereft, “The Great Emptiness” was performed in an unfinished state at Crucible on December 8, 2021. Three days later, Linden passed away. The surviving members of Bereft ultimately saw fit to guide the song towards a concrete finish to honor Linden.

Across roughly 18 minutes of runtime, Bereft dig unfathomably deep on a sprawling, stunning doom-metal masterpiece, and achieve a bit of finality on their own terms. “The Great Emptiness” is a staggering accomplishment, a fitting way to honor Linden, and an unforgettable final chapter for a band that deserved more time together. —Steven Spoerl

Carly Cooper, “Like A Drug”

Warm synth hums and a cool guitar tone open Carly Cooper‘s “Like A Drug,” with the indie-pop songwriter’s gentle vocal delivery establishing a tender calm. As the first verse of “Like A Drug” leads into a lighter-in-the-air chorus, the listener’s drawn further in via some genuinely outstanding production and adept execution from Cooper. “And oh / It feels like a drug / And oh / I can’t get enough,” sings Cooper in one of the most earworm-ready choruses of 2023. It’s not difficult to imagine a lot of listeners will connect with the sentiment as they reach for another replay. —SS

The Flavor That Kills, “Nerve”

“Nerve,” the latest single from funk-indebted rock band The Flavor That Kills, is as raucous as anything they’ve produced over their 10-plus years. A thumping rhythm section and bouncy guitar work trampoline vocalist Ryan Corcoran’s vocals further and further skyward on “Nerve,” creating an exhilarating push-and-pull dynamic. “Tell me what you’ll do to me / Make me wait / And make the waiting hurt?” yelps a bleary-eyed Corcoran, as the music—a collaboration between The Flavor That Kills and Farren Jecky—injects the song with a nervous, frenetic tension. In just over two minutes, “Nerve” establishes itself as a soaring highlight destined to be a live staple for years to come. —SS

Jonathon Millionaire, “Panic Dixie Mean Girl”

When not busily shitposting on LinkedIn, Jonathan Millionaire does a high-energy emotional punk take on good ol’ Midwest rock n’ roll. You know the thing: Catchy shout-sung hooks with background shouting as counterpoint, driving drums and buzzsaw harmonized guitar riffs. The bridge gets quiet and you feel things, then it chugs back into the final section with a catchy-ass tappy riff. Great production by the band themselves makes this all click into shape; every piece of it rings out crystal clear, and that’s deceptively hard for the genre. —Dan Fitch

Kat And The Hurricane, “On My Way Back”

Perhaps it’s fitting that such a turbulent year gave rise to an indie-pop summer anthem that is both joyous and somber. Kat And The Hurricane—the self-described purveyors of “sad lesbian music”—hit the ground running in 2023, with a major tour and the release of this appropriately epic track. 
“On My Way Back” showcases the growing sonic and songwriting maturity of one of Madison’s hardest-working bands. You have to love a song that pairs a story of trauma, shame, and healing with extremely catchy synth and guitar hooks undergirded by hefty drums. A song to put on repeat while driving with friends down a long highway, the wind whipping in your hair, and the endless horizon before you. —Emily Mills

Murphy Kaye, “Spinning”

Formerly Milwaukee-based songwriter Murphy Kaye moved to Madison in November 2022, and released “Spinning” just a few months later in mid-January. “Spinning” is a clear-eyed, gritty run of a darkly-tinted, folk-indebted strain of indie rock. “If you want to / Go back to / what you’re used to / then, hey / I won’t stand in your way,” sings Kaye in the song’s chorus, painting a picture of a relatable, weary resignation. “Spinning” invites comparisons to an impressive array of artists (Lydia Loveless and Beat Happening were two that came to mind), but by the track’s end it feels like a distinct new artistic vision. Kaye’s first track as a Madison resident is a winner, and hopefully there are many more tracks to come. —SS

Loveblaster, “Without Work“

Over the past two years, slowcore band Loveblaster has been releasing a slow drip of singles. “Without Work,” released in late December, reaffirms the now-trio’s status as one of Madison’s best new bands. Marley Van Raalte, Abby Self, and Combat Naps‘ Neal Jochmann (a late addition to the band) harmonize beautifully and pick their way across the elegiac “Without Work” with grace. “The language of love / Is a language without words / But closing the door makes it worse,” sings Van Raalte in the lead-up to the track’s core vocal hook: “No love comes without work.” Immediate and extremely absorbing, “Without Work” is a quiet knockout. —SS

Luke McGovern, “Yellow Jacket Rebirth”

Luke McGovern released a smattering of superlative work in 2023. “Yellow Jacket Rebirth,” though, felt as if it was tapping into something genuinely special. “Yellow Jacket Rebirth” is another slow-burn indie-folk gem from McGovern, and is elevated by its modesty. It’s also a track that’s intrinsically connected to Madison, endearingly referencing a certain local contemporary in its opening moment.  “My friend Sigra, she is the / The Queen of Madison / Grants the wasp a new life / With an aster inside a pendant,” sings McGovern over a gently finger-picked acoustic guitar figure. In a little over two minutes, “Yellow Jacket Rebirth” manages to convey a small, plaintive sense of intimacy that leaves a large impression. —SS

Pilot Gemini, “People“

Pilot Gemini slots perfectly into the growing interest in vintage power-pop with “People,” the sublime opening track from the emergent quartet’s debut EP, Give It A Whirl. Part of the central appeal of power-pop is that the bands who engage with it have a reverence for its history and an extensive understanding of the genre’s overall construction (tones, theory, mix levels, etc).  “People” is a demonstration of that knowledge, with its perfectly-placed tension-and-release dynamic, pure vocals, and bright, jangly guitar figures snaking through key passages over a subtle, ambient, keys-driven hum. Like all the best power-pop, “People” sounds hopelessly romantic, and it’s charming enough to make more than a few people fall in love. —SS

Question, “Money Calling”

Local rap label No Disguise had a handful of exceptional releases in 2023, with Question’s “Money Calling”—which boasts a feature from No Disguise founder Flame The Ruler—firmly in those ranks. “Only focused on the dollar / Stacking it by the hundreds / Did some things I ain’t proud of / Trying to get past all the trauma,” raps Question in the first verse over chilled-out production, laying a foundation for both introspection and clarity. “Tell ’em to back it up / About the money / I’m tryin’ to stack it up,” adds Flame The Ruler in a fiery guest spot, keeping the track’s focus directly on the struggles that frequently accompany the route to any sort of financial stability. —SS

Quokka, “Anyways”

“Anyways,” an anthemic track from Quokka’s third album, effortlessly recalls a wave of indie-leaning bands that defined the genre in the mid-2000s. Incorporating some of the elements that endeared acts like Los Campesinos!, Wolf Parade, and LCD Soundsystem to so many, “Anyways” rides a wave of tempered optimism across a series of warm synths, a bright lead keys figure, defiant strings of whoa-oh’ing, a propulsive backbeat, and a Killers-esque chorus to fist-pumping perfection. 

In a message to Tone Madison earlier this year, Aaron Grych—Quokka’s sole member—revealed that Until The Tide Returns was about “getting rapidly older, appreciating friendships, feeling an overall sense of distortion driven angst, and [knowing] the best cure for dread is getting up and dancing.” “Anyways” bears that out in kind, producing an exhilarating, nostalgia-tinted euphoria worth getting swept up in. —SS

Sister Agnes, “Sister Julia”

The beating heart of Clive Barker’s horror novella The Hellbound Heart (which served as the source material for the Hellraiser movies) and its character Julia Cotton inform the lo-fi synth-punk finesse of C Nelson-Lifson’s latest project. Shedding the more radio-ready elements of garage rock and jangle pop from their band Proud Parents, Nelson-Lifson acts as an adept one-person show for “Sister Julia.” Scuzzy, poppy, and propulsive, the aesthetic recalls early Alan Vega. In oppressively crunching down the mix’s guitar, bass, and vocals while elevating caterwauling pedal effects, Sister Agnes sets the scene for the perfect opening credits theme to a theoretical no-budget horror film themselves. —Grant Phipps

Gavin Uhrmacher, “Rings”

Glancing at the cover art of Gavin Uhrmacher (Uhrmee)’s latest record, Queen Of Saturn, you might mistake its impressionistic illustration for a mutant disco record by brotherly art-punk duo The Garden. Uhrmacher may not indulge in that group’s more anarchic tendencies, but his tempered, chameleonic sonic shifts are just as uniquely gripping. This introspective opener’s glistening synth-bed primes the waters for a fifth-wave emo-pop ballad tastefully touched up with phaser effects and autotune. As these atmospheric layers (or emblematic rings) flirt with progressive pop in unison, the hypnotic wall of instrumentation builds Uhrmacher up to reach a confession about a loved one’s influence on his undaunted wanderings, in these sounds and in life. —GP

Wurk, “I’m So Tired”

“You can’t mix Hootie and the Blowfish with My Chemical Romance” says the kind of person who is afraid of their own shadow. Take a jam-band sound and give it a bit of woeful breakdown and you’ve got yourself an eccentric, tropicali-winter experience. The gleeful jazz tone of Wurk‘s “I’m So Tired” fights against the track’s angst; an odyssey of sadness and loneliness with a pineapple drink in hand. “I’m So Tired” is a rain-soaked window pane decorated with suns and rainbows, at once a reflection of a cold reality and a warm dream. —Luis Acosta

XXX Piss, “Lord Dives”

Proud Parents‘ Heather Sawyer and Liam Casey teamed up outside of the confines of that band to create XXX Piss in 2023, releasing a blistering 13-minute self-titled album of blown-out basement pop. “Lord Dives” immediately stands out from the songs that surround it on the album by diving wholeheartedly into an outlaw country vibe. “You liar, you thief / You’ve no conscience or grief / The world’s yours and it should be mine,” drawls Casey over some treble-heavy strumming. “I’ll piss and I’ll moan / and I’ll die alone,” he repeats as the song ratchets up the distortion, creating a sense of gleeful unease as “Lord Dives” detonates. —SS