In handing out plaudits around these here digital parts, the rundown of favored albums is typically followed by a set of similarly beloved tracks from the year just past. Unlike yesterday’s top ten assemblage, what follows here is not ranked, nor is it necessarily meant to be a definitive statement that I believe these to be the five finest of 2023. For one thing, in the interest of spreading my music fan love, I tend to omit artists whose albums I already gave prime pedestal placement. (If pressed, I’d probably name Olivia Rodrigo’s “Vampire” the best track of the year, for example.) Instead, these songs are simply a few new favorites to the long, long list I’ve been mentally making since the first time I placed a needle on a record.

Beabadoobee, “The Way Things Go”

This single from Beabadobee is a bright, bounteous blast of indie pop. The song is sweet and lilting, which contrasts with lyrics’ tone of melancholy tinged with bitterness: “Can’t remember when you said you called/ Miles away, and it was still my fault/ The love you said you had, it sometime showed.” The fallout of a broken love affair has never sounded so darling.

Cable Ties, “Time for You”

Atop a propulsive, punk-pumped tune, Cable Ties stridently declare a devotion that contrasts with the mundane miseries of everyday life: “No time to change the bed sheets/ Or to screw the lids on properly/ No time to cut the burnt bits off my toast/ I’ve got no time but I’ve got time for you.” The chorus is ludicrously catchy.

Indigo De Souza, “Younger & Dumber”

Indigo de Souza’s single builds and builds and then builds some more. The wounded sentiment found in the lyrics is all too familiar (“You came to hurt me in all the right places/ Made me somebody”), and de Souza’s vocals are ravishing as she recites the path to her hard-earned knowledge.

Everything But the Girl, “Nothing Left to Lose”

This single represents a spectacular comeback for Everything but the Girl, who had been officially idle for around two and a half decades. It’s an intoxicating dance track that feels like it might go on forever. Or maybe it just deserves to.

The National, “Eucalyptus”

“What about the rainbow eucalyptus?/ What about the instruments?/ What about the Cowboy Junkies?/ What about the Afghan Whigs?” The National hit a sort of apotheosis of their potent poetry of middle-aged misery with this woeful tale of splitting up belongings at the close of a relationship. “You should take it, ’cause I’m not gonna take it/ You should take it, I’m only going to break it/ You should take it, ’cause I’m not gonna take it/ You should take it, you should take it.”

Quintets selected in previous years can be seen by clicking the “Five Songs” tag.