Every year, I keep a playlist on Spotify (and from 2024 onwards, on Deezer) where I add new and old songs I've fallen in love with. I like giving them an album cover as well as a name. This year, I called it 23 Good Eggs because I went to visit an old friend in Brighton, a few days before she gave birth to her first child, and she described every person in her life as "a good egg". I just loved the expression and thought - all these songs are good eggs to me.

The album's cover features my friend Vini, who was like a father figure during my first month back in the UK, taking care of me, feeding me, taking me for walks, bike rides and swims - generally making sure I was OK. I snapped this pick in Hackney Downs one morning, just as he had bought us some coffees and pastries for our breakfast.

I narrowed the playlist's 92 tracks down to 10 songs released in 2023 which I love, in no particular order.( Read more... )