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The Top Ten Best Hit Songs of 2023
- As part of his #10 pick, Taylor Swift's "Cruel Summer," Todd talks a lot about going to see the Eras Tour:Todd: I saw the biggest pop star alive at the peak of her career, that's something I can tell my kids about—and hopefully explain to them why they can't go to college. [muttering] Those tickets were not cheap.
- After remarking that his #9 artist, Usher, is "ehhh—years old" (but still younger than he thoughtnote ), he points out that "Good Good"'s featured artist, Summer Walker, was not even born yet when Usher made his first album.Todd: Yeah, I'm not talking about age-gap stuff; you can go elsewhere for that.
- As an intro to his #8 pick, Lizzy McAlpine's "Ceilings," Todd points out that TikTok is—paradoxically—adding depth to popular music thanks to popularizing slow, moody songs like this one via sped-up remixes.
- On McAlpine herself, Todd says she "sounds like she's auditioning for the Boygenius JV squad."
- Failing to remember what Disney Channel show his #6 artist, Sabrina Carpenter, got her start on:
- Giving her outro to the song a Slow Clap.
- Todd also saw Sabrina Carpenter live in 2023, and noted he was the only straight adult male there who wasn't escorting his daughter.Todd: [I'm] surprised I didn't get arrested.
- After going a long while in his Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 2023 video about how much he hated Morgan Wallen's "Last Night" (culminating in him putting it on #1), Todd reveals that he also put Wallen on this list on #5 (for "Man Made a Bar"). His gesture that just screams "Don't judge me!" is what really sells it.Todd: Shut up, disembodied voice of social media that haunts my psyche!Disembodied Voice of Social Media: CAAAAAAAAAAANCEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLL...
- There's also a little unintentional humor in the choice of the clip that introduces his pick... it's Luke Bryan introducing the song before it's played at an award show, and yet for some reason Peyton Manning is next to him.
- Todd (after reminding us that he didn't even have a #4 for his Worst list, so he put in David Guetta's "Baby Don't Hurt Me" at the last minute) starting the #4 Best entry with a tirade about Ryan Gosling's turn as Ken in Barbie (2023) and heavily hinting that he has picked "I'm Just Ken" for that spot until...Todd: Yeah, that was a good bit. Anyway, here's the Billie Eilish one. [cut to the actual #4 pick, "What Was I Made for?"]
- After discussing how beautiful and heartbreaking the song is, Todd remarks how he put an oddly high number of sad songs on this year's list. When trying to parse out why, he plays a passage of "What Was I Made For?" on his keyboard, then realizes it transitions seamlessly to Morgan Wallen's "Man Made a Bar".Todd: Oh God, there's a cursed mashup for you that someone should make. "What Was a Bar Made For?" Don't make that.
- How he actually pulls out a Billie Eilish doll, drawing the parallels between her and Barbie.Todd: It comes with a whole bunch of Grammys, and a garbage can you can throw them all into. I don't have all her fashion accessories out with me right now, but you should see her in a crown!
- After discussing how beautiful and heartbreaking the song is, Todd remarks how he put an oddly high number of sad songs on this year's list. When trying to parse out why, he plays a passage of "What Was I Made For?" on his keyboard, then realizes it transitions seamlessly to Morgan Wallen's "Man Made a Bar".
- When discussing the #3 entry, Victoria Monét's "On My Mama", Todd brings up an interview on Genius where Victoria states she would like to see her daughter singing about her someday, which leads to this gem using the lyrics themselves:Todd: Well, that's a lot of pressure to be putting on your kid.
Victoria: But I, I know you think I'm fine / Might be too fine to hit it from behind
Todd: See? That's a great line, but I wouldn't want to hear my kids singing that.
Victoria: Your opinion is irrelevant
Todd: [meekly hanging his head down] Oh. Okay. - On his #2 pick, Noah Kahan's "Dial Drunk", Todd comments that the song belongs in a category that he dubbed "stomp-clap-hat music", even though Noah doesn't wear a hat, persumably not wanting to cover up his beautiful hair.
- Todd proclaims his love for the song, and then immediately warns the ladies out there to take loving this song as a red flag.
- Todd reveals the #1 song, Olivia Rodrigo's "Bad Idea, Right?", also contains his #1 "song stops on the word 'stop'" stop of 2023. And flashes his top 10 list of such stops. And gives 8 honorable mentions. (He's familiar with all of these as a consequence of his ongoing project to make a list of every popular song that uses that trope.)
- After noting how some fans did get annoyed at him for putting "vampire" on the worst list (and making fun of the song's overwrought cursing), he ends by admitting that — as "fuck it, it's fine" proved — Olivia does know how to swear.
Beyoncé - "Jolene"
- At the start of the video, Todd talks about a poll
he posted on X about the cover he is about to discuss, and shows a screencap of the poll results with a caption indicating the source as "Twitter (formerly Twitter)". - Todd comparing Beyoncé covering "Jolene" as an attempt to prove her country bona fides to someone claiming to be an expert in traditional Japanese music and trying to prove it by singing the Pokémon: The Series theme.note Todd: You can at least pick the second most obvious anime theme! That's the first reaction, at least.
- Even better, the clip of "traditional Japanese music" Todd uses is actually a cover of "Bad Apple!!".
- Continuing his "theory" note that Idina Menzel was "Becky with the good hair."
- On Dolly's spoken-word cosign in the song:Dolly: Hey Miss Honeybee, it's Dolly P.Todd: Fun fact: Dolly was throwing up a gang sign when she said that line. —Now that's probably not true. I just wish I could feel more certain that it wasn't true, you know?
- When expressing bafflement with the bombastic final part of the song and its lusty cowboy male choir, Todd plays it over footage from the choreographed Texas dance number in North.
- On her "lobbying for a Best Album Grammy since before this album even came out," Todd quickly flashes the following subtitle:Her main competition when I started this video was Taylor Swift and then she released it just as I was finishing it up, and yeah I think we can officially label Beyonce the frontrunner now because jfc
- The song Todd uses for the outro? "Gay Dean."
Drake and Kendrick's feud to end all feuds
- During Todd's usual piano intro, the title card reads "FUTURE ft. KENDRICK LAMAR - LIKE THAT" — that is, before the screen becomes crowded by all the other tracks released during this feud. Finally, they are cleared away and what's left is, "A 40 hours of diss tracks review."
- Made more hilarious by some details such as "DRAKE - 6:16 IN LA WAIT SHIT THAT ONE'S KENDRICK" and "CRAP DO I INCLUDE THE J. COLE STUFF"
- Todd says that while when all was said and done he found it too "weird and ugly" to be enjoyable, he admits that early on he didn't take it seriously, to the point he was actually rooting for Drake a bit, but not because he likes Drake. He just kind of roots for the underdog.Todd: If you put Glass Joe against Mike Tyson, I root Joe. This is about to be the most shameful detail I've ever admitted, but I swear to God, I was rooting for Machine Gun Kelly versus Eminem, and that was not because I thought he deserved it, I just take no pleasure in seeing Eminem destroy another pathetic contender. I don't need to see the Chiefs win another Super Bowl.
- Todd then admits how initially odd it seems to think Drake - arguably the #2 largest musician alive - is the underdog here, which says more about how Drake is currently perceived and his expectations for how he can fare against Kendrick on a technical level.
- Given Drake had previously compared himself to Michael Jackson in terms of surpassing his number of hits, Kendrick fires back by pointing out Prince lived longer (and implying he was the more talented of the two, in what is obviously supposed to be a parallel to Drake and Kendrick's celebrity versus artist personas). Todd promptly notes that even though Drake and Kendrick resemble Prince and Michael Jackson's approaches to musical output, they're the exact opposites when it comes to the speed they take to make things - Drake drops long albums quickly as Prince used to, whereas Kendrick tends to disappear for several years before returning with a fine-tuned album as Michael Jackson would.
- Todd theorizes that other rappers are joining in this and other feuds because rap hasn't been tearing up the charts lately.Todd: I like plenty of 21 Savage songs, but I'm not gonna get excited for a new 21 Savage record. I know what he's gonna do at this point. He's gonna say "21, 21, 21...".
- Furthermore, many of the rappers attacking Drake have collaborated with him in the past!Todd: Yeah, no new friends, no old friends, no friends... Please be my friend. Yeah, it was like watching the assassination of Julius Caesar. "Et tu, Futuré?"
- Furthermore, many of the rappers attacking Drake have collaborated with him in the past!
- Todd weighs in on how, after an uncharacteristically bad 2023 for the genre, interest in rap music suddenly ramped up with a feud between Megan Thee Stallion and Nicki Minaj, leading to a barrage of diss tracks, and to the feud that is the central theme of the video:Todd: If I were your stock broker, I would tell you to invest in livestock futures, because beef is doing big, big business right now.
- The basic division between Drake and Kendrick is Drake is the pop star, while Kendrick is the artist. But one area Drake can attack Kendrick on is his weak guest verses with Maroon 5 and Taylor Swift. For all that Drake has done, at least he wasn't on "Bad Blood". Todd also notes Drake attacking Kendrick on making pop star features is pretty funny given some of his biggest hits are pop songs, even if he never featured on songs as bad as Maroon 5's or "Bad Blood".
- At one point, Todd hesitates before talking about "the elephant in the room":Todd: You've heard them, I've heard them, we've all heard them, Kendrick was obviously gonna bring it up, so let's talk about it... All right, for years, there have been rumors that Drake is Canadian.
- Followed by dubbing a verse where Kendrick mockingly imitates a Toronto accent over a clip of the Canadians from South Park.
- Todd notes that the beef is much more serious than most rap feuds since there is a chance that Drake might genuinely be guilty of what Kendrick's accusing him of when feuds are usually about proving technical skill instead of the disses themselves.Todd: It's not supposed to matter if it's literally true that your mama's so fat when she gets on the scale it says "to be continued."
- In an otherwise relatively-somber episode, where Todd confesses hypocrisy for engaging in the beef by making the video, and mentions how heavy and uncomfortable the levied allegations between the artists are, Todd still ends with the tag song "Thank Heaven for Little Girls".
- The typical copyright text disclaimer at the end ("[X media] is owned by [Y distributor]; this video is owned by me") takes a swerve.This video is owned by me
