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This week, we are continuing our 2023 media review by taking a closer look at Spotify’s top 10 songs from last year. There were some familiar names that made the list as well as some new comers, but over the past few years, the music field in particular has consistently had the worst track record for putting out unhealthy and basically trash takes on relationships. Was 2023 the year that turned that around?
Spotify's 10 ten songs of 2023 were:
10. “Anti-Hero” by Taylor Swift
9. “Shakira: Bzrp Music Sessions, Vo. 53” by Bizarrap and Shakira
8. “Calm Down” by Rema and Selena Gomez
7. “Creepin” - by Metro Boomin, The Weeknd and 21 Savage
6. “Cruel Summer” by Taylor Swift
5. “Ella Baila Sola” by Eslabon Armado and Peso Pluma
4. “Seven (feat. Latto)” by Jung Kook
3. “As It Was” by Harry Styles
2. “Kill Bill” by SZA
And number 1. “Flowers” by Miley Cyrus
Let’s kick off the review with 10, Anti-Hero by Taylor Swift. For years, critics and non-swifties have been saying that every time Taylor dates someone new, she’s just building inspiration for her next hyper-feminist breakup song and, on the surface at least, Anti-Hero seems to tackle that criticism head on.
“It’s me. Hi. I’m the problem, it’s me.”
In the song and accompanying music video, Taylor describes feeling like it’s only a matter of time before the ghosts of her past relationships turn up to haunt her, only to realize that her past problems are just her. Is this a healthy sign of maturity and growth? Possibly, but not necessarily. It’s one thing to recognize your flaws and own them, it’s a very different thing to actually do something about them, and the song really doesn’t say much about that second half. In fact, in the lyrics and especially in the video, Taylor does an impressive sleight of hand in portraying herself both has the villain or “anti-hero” as well as the victim, and this is the part that I think a lot of people miss.
“Did you hear my covert narcissism I disguise as altruism, like some kind of congressman?”
Ironically, this is a common defense mechanism of a narcissist. “Well, I guess I’m the problem. I’m always the problem. I never do anything right. You’ll probably just end up leaving me and hating me, just like everyone else.” Even in their apologies, narcissists will somehow find a way to turn the narrative around and point out how they are the real victims. Does that mean I am saying that Taylor Swift is a narcissist? No. But, she does call herself one in her own song and if a liar tells you that they are a liar, you should probably believe them. Let's go over the other top 10 song by Taylor from last year, “Cruel Summer.”
Back to form, Cruel Summer is a song about a doomed relationship. In the first verse, she describes a “Bad, bad boy, shiny toy with a price” saying “you know that I bought it.” So, she’s already established that before the relationship had even begun, she knew she would probably end up paying for it later, but she goes ahead with it anyways. Later in the song, she’s describing riding home in the wake of the breakup:
I'm drunk in the back of the car
And I cried like a baby coming home from the bar
Said, "I'm fine," but it wasn't trueI don't wanna keep secrets just to keep you
And I snuck in through the garden gateEvery night that summer just to seal my fate
And I scream, "For whatever it's worth
I love you, ain't that the worst thing you ever heard?"
He looks up, grinning like a devil
Everything about this song is a juxtaposition. The pop-heavy, sweet as can be sound of the music and Taylors voice floating over the choruses is in sharp contrast to the actual words she’s singing, similar to the youthful hope of fun and freedom that summer promises set up with the word cruel right before it. You should be happy, but you’re not. Love should be celebrated, but in this context, “ain’t that the worst thing you ever heard?”
Coming in at number 1 nearly a full year after its release is “Flowers” by Miley Cyrus. In this song, she describes what many assume to be her perspective on her failed marriage to Liam Hemsworth.
We were good, we were gold
Kinda dream that can't be sold
We were right 'til we weren't
Built a home and watched it burn
This is a sad lament of a song about love lost like her previous hit, “Wrecking Ball.” This time, an older, maybe colder Miley triumphantly reminds or convinces herself that she can provide herself with all of the things she was looking for in her former husband and, she can do it all better than he could. This song was welcomed by the droves of Miley’s fans as the perfect clap back and response to her ex and all the people who have tried to drag her over the years. With “Flowers,” she has proven that she is strong, independent and doesn’t need anyone else to make her happy...
But, is that true?
Contrary to the message of “Flowers” and so many of the common messages we hear in the world today, it is demonstrably false that independence and self-sufficiency will lead to long term happieness. In fact, according to one of the longest running studies of its kind, Harvard University has proven that the most consistent factor leading to human happiness is healthy relationships.
Part of another study has shown that specifically happy and healthy marriage relationships resulted in a protective effect, insulating the individuals involved, all in their 80’s, and allowing them to experience consistently positive moods even on days when they were suffering from greater physical pain! Our culture would like us to believe, especially us women, that we are stronger on our own. That we don’t need anyone else and we especially don’t need a man to make us happy. While it’s true that marriage, in and of itself, is not enough to guarantee lasting happiness for anyone, it might actually be the work of building in to a mutually selfless, sacrificial, committed marriage relationship that gives us, as humans, a unique and particular avenue for living out our true purpose and thereby, finding fulfillment and satisfaction in life.
Overall, these songs, and just about all of the others on the top 10 list, make me kind of sad. Jung Kook’s “Seven” describes the lustful, dehumanizing view of sex and relationships that our world has been selling increasingly more blatantly for decades while many of the others on this list describe the loss, confusion, and hopelessness that that type of lifestyle actually brings. This isn’t anything new. We’ve known from the beginning that we were never meant to live solitary, selfish and self absorbed lives and that we would never be happy on our own, but, like Taylor Swift, many of us have become our own worst enemies – self destructing our relationships just before we move on to the next person and do it all over again. 2024 is a new year. Maybe it’s time for a new approach, or better yet, an old approach that we’ve been deceived into believing doesn’t work anymore.
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