So I’ve had this really creepy plastic baseball bat for years, from my grandparents’ old Halloween decorations collection… it looks neat, no doubt, but what’s its story, I wondered? I could probably just Google the punny name on its hilt (“Ghouliville Slugger”), but where’s the fun in that? I’d rather do what I do best: pop on some Photoshop and then essentially just write a lore entry for a nonexistent horror game!
You’ve heard from the best, now hear from… well, me! I’m no Fantano or Pitchfork, but I do have Airpods in at most hours–along with a well-used car stereo–so I heard plenty of music in 2023 for which praise is due. To complement my Top Games of 2023 list from the other day, then (a brief movie one is on my Letterboxd – expanded video adaptations of both pending!), here’s some quick ‘n dirty takes on my favorite albums and singles which hit my ears this year:
TOP ALBUMS OF 2023
#10) Noah’s Ghost, Lost Nights
Low on the list out of principle ’cause I didn’t get around to listening until I was driving home from a NYE party, but still: Solid vocal and instrumental synthwave of the eerie Stranger Things-adjacent variety, all wrapped in an endearing package honoring the same retro aesthetic.
#9) Hackney Diamonds, The Rolling Stones
Half a century and change after their biggest hits, there’s admittedly more hack than diamonds in this LP, but having the boys back in town with new material felt like a cause to rock all the same. And we got a Lady Gaga feature, no less!
#8) Badlands, Magic Sword
In a genre full of nostalgia-mongering and fantastical imagery, Magic Sword has cornered the market on a specific yet indelible mood: Music to quest to. With eerie synth tones and song titles like “Nowhere Else to Run,” “A Dark Task,” and “There is Still Good in You,” how can you not want to don a cloak of your own and journey towards what lies on the horizon?
#7) Halloween Mixtape II, Magnolia Park
Back in my day, if you wanted Halloween-themed emo music, you had Blink-182’s “I Miss You” and maybe a Panic! at the Disco track or two. Leave it to young guns Magnolia Park, though, to dole it out on the regular! Amid tracks which explicitly name-check the holiday and other suitably spooky subjects, raucous yet wistful opener “The End: An Emo Night Rhapsody” more than earns its subcultural pretension, 408 collab “Manic” is an infectious ode to a dysfunctional relationship, and “Life in the USA” makes for a darkly funny, unapologetically political dig at late-stage capitalism.
#6) The Jaws of Life, Pierce the Veil
If Vic and the gang put out a new record, you know it’s gonna be on this list somewhere. Shouty lead single “Pass the Nirvana” had me wary when it dropped in 2022, but I came around to its sound on the release proper, and numerous other tracks keep PTV’s quality-over-quantity discography going strong: The thunderous yet dreamy promises of “Even When I’m Not with You,” the cacophonous pleading of “Emergency Contact,” and the aching reflections on Chloe Moriondo duet “12 Fractures” were particular highlights.
#5) The Maine, The Maine
I’m always a little wary when a band well into their career releases a self-titled album. Are we in for a bold, image-defining musical experience, or just a going-through-the-motions contractual obligation? With The Maine, however, it’s neither, as their 2023 eponymous LP may well be my favorite yet. From the indignant yet bouncy chorus on “Blame” to the downright danceable “Leave in Five,” The Maine remain an indelibly entertaining missing link between radio-friendly pop rock and heart-on-the-sleeve, Hopeless Records catharsis. Generous of them, too, to write the theme song for every college party I ever peaced out on with “How to Exit a Room.”
#4) Desert Hearts, W O L F C L U B
It’s a crowded scene out there for 80s-throwback acts, especially in my library, but WOLFCLUB stands apart from the pack (no pun intended) by having… well, just really darn good hooks. As ever, young love, sleek cars, and dark nights are the imagery du jour, but with tracks like soaring, insistent opener “Crystalise” and breathless call-and-response “Shoreline” (complete with a sax solo!), they simply outrun the competition.
#3) Intellectual Property, Waterparks
I don’t consider myself a sonic tastemaker at the best of times, but I was still surprised to see Waterparks’ latest LP pop up on multiple critics’ worst-of lists for 2023, because… this thing slaps? I get it–rambunctious production, goofball lyrics, and random stylistic transitions aren’t for everyone, but the loopy, corny, often horny energy of tracks like “Funeral Grey,” “Brainwashed,” and “Self-Sabotage” is just too infectious for me to pooh-pooh.
#2) The Heavy Box, Derek Sanders
We didn’t get a new Mayday Parade record in 2023, but we did get the next best thing: Another acoustic outing from frontman Derek Sanders! Despite its five-track run, this box is heavy indeed — “Home” is a melancholy reflection on the road to peace, “Howell Canyon” evokes The Postal Service with its thrumming percussion and laments that “we exist to only fall apart,” and the sparse instrumentation of “True Story of a Boy Whose Exploits Panicked a Nation” encloses a heartbreaking look back at a life literally or figuratively reaching its end… while also continuing Sanders’ cute tradition of naming songs after Calvin & Hobbes quotes. Cap it off with a reunion with classic Mayday compatriot Jason Lancaster on “For Dear Life,” and you’ve got an EP which all transported me back to 2013–not a place I ought to linger, in truth, but a comfort in certain troubled moments all the same.
#1) Emotaku, Sunrise Skater Kids
Four words: emo songs as anime themes. As prolific as the overlap is between weebs and scene kids, it’s amazing no one capitalized upon this peanut butter-and-chocolate combo before, but bless SSK for giving it a go, turning pop-punk hits by Yellowcard, My Chemical Romance, and more into even peppier J-pop bangers, complete with translated lyrics. Enjoy the back half, too, where each track is convincingly condensed into what could well be the opener to your new favorite slice-of-life series! Now for someone to actually produce the shows that’d go with these…
TOP SINGLES OF 2023
#10) “Burning Rubber,” Arcade High
Nothing too complicated here–just another rad, funky throwback perfect for neon-lit night drives, from the dudes who arguably do it best.
#9) “Mess it Up” (Purple Disco Machine Remix), The Rolling Stones
As alluded to above, I won’t pretend Hackney Diamonds is a newsworthy return to form for the rock titans, but to just have (1) a disco remix (2) of a Rolling Stones song in the year 2023 felt like a rift in time had opened in the best way.
#8) “Nobody Tells You When You’re Young,” Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness
To have weathered my twenties to the sound of Everything in Transit by Jack’s Mannequin, only to reflect along with frontman McMahon on the things only growing older can teach you… it’s nice. Not uplifting, but nice.
#7) “Tell Me I’m Alive,” All Time Low
For all their overproduced earlier work and off-stage scandals, I stand by my conviction that All Time Low can always be counted on to fire off a rowdy earworm about being an unambitious screw-up. Their 2023 record may have been too familiar to make my Top 10 in aggregate, but this all-too-relatable lead single of the same name stands tall (or, maybe, slumps against wall) just the same.
#6) “After Destruction,” Descartes a Kant
I don’t know exactly what’s going on here, but it’s loud, it’s vaguely sci-fi, and I have a thing for orange hair, so color me pleased.
#5) “More Like a Crash,” Mayday Parade
We did get some new Mayday Parade singles this year, at least! And the first was the best, or at least the most promisingly unique: “More Like a Crash,” in which classic Mayday heartbreak (“guess it’s been a while since I had nothing to do”) crests before the trademark guitar breakdown with a holler of the title line, feeling right out of their rawer Black Lines period. Eager to see where the overall sonic direction of their next project goes!
#4) “Childhood Eyes,” Yellowcard
Among the many bands experiencing a renaissance thanks to emo-era nostalgia, none were perhaps more surprising–or welcome–than Yellowcard reneging on their 2016 final bow with a new EP. Of particular note was this track, in which the band openly carries forward their original youthful energy without sounding desperate or pandering. Another pop punk group that tried to make a comeback in 2023 should blink their own eyes and take note…
#3) “LosT,” Bring Me the Horizon
Some songs capture a specific emotion so well that it’s almost like a part of you has been carved out and pressed on vinyl. Not always a pleasant emotion, mind you, but all the same, “LosT”–with its incessant guitars, glitched-out electronic segments, and furious lyrics–is the sound of that one adjective, that one feeling, running like a bull in a china shop through one’s head in moments of self-doubt. I (thankfully) can’t relate to controversial lead singer Oli Sykes watching anime while doing ketamine, but to wanting to scream “what the hell is fucking wrong with me?” after a bad day? Consider me found.
#2) “Take Me with You,” Neck Deep
Hey, remember that week or two in 2023 when some random government guy claimed he saw UFOs, and everyone decided that was irrefutable proof aliens exist? Neck Deep does, or at least they struck while the iron (or some other metallic substance not of this planet) was hot and dropped this silly little homage to The X-Files, E.T., and the increasingly sensible anxiety of wanting to leave Earth while there’s still time. I didn’t know these dudes had a nerdy novelty song in them, but it just makes their library of A-tier pop punk even better!
#1) “Eat the Acid,” Kesha
In the late Aughts, Ke$ha was widely derided as the nadir of music: trashy, airheaded, unconscionably perverse. With time, however, came change for the artist, both for good–a reappraisal of silly, sexy pop stars–and for ill: namely, a #MeToo-adjacent sexual abuse case and subsequent industry fallout. I don’t have the space, much less the education, to dissect how all of this influenced Kesha (long since bereft of the dollar sign) during the production of her 2023 record Gag Order; I just know that, for all of the bombastic tracks I showered with accolades earlier, “Eat the Acid” is the most interesting song I heard this year: a calm, haunting, hypnotic mantra about faith, isolation, and the dilemma of seeking self-actualization from without as opposed to within.
It’s just a scary story… what’s the worst that could happen?
Happy Halloween! It’s been a busier one than most for me–in-between prepping for tests, essays, and moot court competitions, I’ve scare-cly found time to even carve a Jack-o-Lantern since… ever? Now there’s a frightening thought!
Yet I still managed to utilize Spirit Halloween‘s generous two-day shipping discounts to assemble a costume. My choice: The Babadook, titular bogeyman of the 2014 Australian sleeper-hit horror flick (now streaming on Netflix!). The most critical element–stage makeup–couldn’t be ferried by plane for some probably-TSA-related reason (are the terrorists just raring to smuggle powdered explosives in canisters of Chaplin-esque grease paint?), but fortunately the local Spirit branch at Ithaca Mall pulled through. Add some black construction paper, and there you have it–instant nightmares:
But onto the main attraction: As customary, I aim to provide a scary story every year for Halloween, even if it’s a matter of hours before November. Since the last story I even wrote was 2014’s Halloween tale (“Pruritus“), I felt especially compelled to produce one for 2015–come hell, high water, or lesser academic obligations.
As such, I present another Nightmare Force “Case File.” When we last checked in with the Nightmare Force, they were (spoiler alert!) busting a child-snatching interdimensional parasite that took up residence in one of Cardinal University’s computer labs. In this installment, we learn a bit more about how they live and interact when they’re on–and off–the job. Where do “DEMONS” come from, and how can any human weapons stop them? What shocking secrets and talents does the rest of Aron’s team have? And just who really leads the Nightmare Force, and keeps their missions under wraps?
It all starts to reveal itself on Halloween night, when a sinister spirit comes calling on one average college kid who read the wrong email…
Guns. Ghosts. Gore. Graphics cards. Time to delete some evil.
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[Source for the original creepypasta of La Muerta Blanca by someone else. In the world of Nightmare Force, the idea is that this story already exists online, though I tried to put a new twist on it for this adaptation. Also, I am the polar opposite of Angela and Rip when it comes to crunching numbers–you’ll know when I probably screwed up, but hopefully the scene’s purpose in the plot will still make sense.]
Notes&Sketches 