The best songs of 2023

Illustration by Jed Chisholm for NPR

It's pretty impossible to keep up with all the amazing tracks that drop in any given year — but that didn't stop us from trying. On this edition of All Songs Considered, host Robin Hilton sits down with NPR Music's Hazel Cills, Sheldon Pearce and Anamaria Sayre to play, debate and celebrate the year's best songs, from Olivia Rodrigo's "Bad Idea Right?" and J Noa's "Autodidacta" to Alana Springsteen's "Twenty Something," Victoria Monet's "On My Mama" and more.

View NPR Music's complete list of the year's best songs — 123 in 2023 — here, along with our picks for the year's 50 best albums here.

Featured songs:

Olivia Rodrigo: "Bad Idea Right?" from GUTS

Peso Pluma & Eladio Carrión: "77" from GÉNESIS

Lana Del Rey: "A&W" from Did you know that there's a tunnel under Ocean Blvd

Louis Cato: "Unsightly Room" from Reflections

100 gecs: "Dumbest Girl Alive" from 10,000 gecs

J Noa: "Autodidacta" from Autodidacta

Noname: "namesake" from Sundial

Alana Springsteen: "twenty something" from TWENTY SOMETHING

boygenius: "Not Strong Enough" from the record

Silvana Estrada: "Milagro y Desastre" (Single)

Victoria Monet: "On My Mama" from JAGUAR II

billy woods, Kenny Segal: "Year Zero (feat. Danny Brown)" from Maps

Fuerza Regida, Marshmello: "HARLEY QUINN" from Pa las Baby's Y Belikeada

Sampha: "Spirit 2.0" from Lahai

Troye Sivan: "Rush" from Something To Give Each Other