The 20 Best Songs Released by Greater Cincinnati Musicians in 2023

By Brent Stroud on Thu, Dec 28, 2023 at 10:52 am

This list is in no particular order — only what seemed to flow the best when (hopefully) listened to completely as one long mix of some of the best new music Greater Cincinnati musicians released in 2023.

Some of these songs were released either as a single from an EP or album, and some are just standalone releases by artists either currently located in Cincinnati or native to the Queen City.

This list should be evidence of what the city has to offer when it comes to original music and an example of the scope of variety working within Cincinnati’s many music communities. Hopefully you discover something new and support these artists in whatever way you can. Go to shows, buy records or downloads, listen with your windows down in summer, hum the songs walking the halls at school or work. This community of music matters as much as any other.

Whether you know every artist here or none, we hope you listen to all of the tracks here as one long varied playlist of Cincinnati sounds in 2023.

Listen to this playlist with all of our favorite local songs from 2023.

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Photo: Kae Savage

“Eye Wanna Be Ur Dog” by KAE Savage

This catchy reworking of The Stooges classic “I Wanna Be Your Dog” was destined for a spot as one of the best songs of the year the day it came out over the summer. KAE Savage blends grunge and psychedelia with a touch of R&B using drum machine beats, backing call-and-response guitars that perfectly blend the swagger of hip-hop with the rawness of punk — all cooked up single-handedly into a catchy three minutes of bedroom pop bliss.

Photo: Andy Licardi

“Green Chartreuse” by Tweens

Cincinnati favorites Tweens released a handful of new songs over the last year and each one could be on this list, but “Green Chartreuse” shows multiple sides of the band’s sound, all at once. At times defiant and at times tender, the new recording packs all the candy-sweet pop delivered with punk attitude that fans fell in love with to begin with, along with the slowed-down bridge that shows the lesser-heard, more vulnerable side of the band. Leader Bridget Battle’s ‘60s soul-pop mixed with Americana songstress vocal delivery brings the song to life and carries it through to each section of the song, equally endearing at every turn, so you fall in love with the band all over again.

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Photo: Alexzandra Roy

“Jefferson Highway” by Maura Weaver

Everything about this song says that it deserves to be on a “best of” list — the songwriting, harmonies, production and video all work perfectly together. The emotional sweep of what sounds like a pedal steel leads a layer of instrumentation that kicks in and complements Weaver’s melodic vocals, blending to make up a recording and song on par with anyone in this city and well beyond it. It was released as a single in the fall of 2023 and taken from Weaver’s album, I Was Due For a Heartbreak, which came out in September on Don Giovanni Records. The lush and melody-heavy song is as colorful as the video that accompanies it, featuring Weaver as a pastel clown running from (or chasing) something. Not since Smokey Robinson and The Miracles have the tears of a clown sounded so sweet.

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Photo: Provided by Mol Sullivan

“Eggshells” by Mol Sullivan

Mol Sullivan is one of the most written-about and, deservedly, praised artists in the city. She has put out a handful of vibrant and imaginative videos that do well to match her inventive and effortlessly pleasant songs over the last year. “Eggshells” is a contemplative baroque pop of the highest order and features Sullivan displaying her power of melody with lush vocals coloring the sound over top spare instrumentation. The track will be featured on her upcoming full-length album, GOOSE, out in January 2024.

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Photo: Alexzandra Roy

"Motorbike" by Motorbike

Motorbike formed and released their self-titled debut album this year, featuring members of Vacation, Tweens, The Drin and more backing Welsh transplant Jamie Morrison on vocals. The band is at once nuanced and immediate. The interlocked drums and guitar-driven punk swim around Morrison’s vocals, sometimes adding counter melody, but most often, punches of rhythm like cylinders of an engine that push the songs further into flame.

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Photo: Shane Lamb

“Motor of the Universe” by Spiderhand

“Motor of the Universe” touches on the fears and anxieties of recent times with the urgency and perfectly unsettled tension and immediacy of the work that singer Vivien Rusche did with her band The Dents in the first generation of punk. The Dents are featured on the cover of the compilation of early punk from Cincinnati released in 2019, We Were Living In Cincinnati: Punk and Underground Sounds from Ohio’s Queen City (1975-82). Rusche is as vibrant and charged as ever on this record, and several songs on the album could have fit on this list. “Opposite” or “Wednesday” are great and deserve a listen; go ahead and listen to the rest of the record, Monkey Back Guarantee, while you’re at it. It’s more than worth it.

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Photo: Willie Caldwell

“Magic Mystery Love Song” by Annie D

Displaying her talent as a multi-instrumentalist and vocalist, Ann Driscoll, now known as Annie D, builds an ethereal and inspired piece of pop mastery with this recording. Not only does she show her depth and scope as a songwriter, but also the level of ingenuity a pop song can contain.

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Photo: Eric Stein Facebook

“Till There’s Nothing Left” by Eric Stein

Cincinnati musician Eric Stein has had a storied career as part of The Griefs, The Greenhornes and his Grotesque Brooms over the years, but his songwriting has never wavered, only becoming more and more potent with time, honing the craft to levels likely not touched by many local artists outside of Guided By Voices or a handful of other celebrated local legends. This song, like many other recordings that pass through the walls of his home studio, will stick in your head for days, to much delight. Each part is catchier and more distinct than the last.

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Photo: Jeff Hoffman and Beef

“Gimme More” by BEEF

The fuzzed-out and angular but danceable rock and roll drive of “Gimme More'' is indicative of BEEF’s spaced-out garage punk sound. The band quickly made a name for itself after a move from Richmond, Virginia, in recent years. The track is from the band’s self-titled record released on Feel It Records in August.

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Photo: Danny Phantom

“Take It Back” by Leggy

One of the city’s most celebrated bands, Leggy released Dramatica earlier this year. The record is their most realized to date, taking their punk-infused pop sound to another level with higher production, layering overdubs of vocals, keyboards, guitar parts and effects. “Take It Back” has the same lustrous feel as the earlier album single “Lipstick on the Mic” but with more moving parts and layers like a decoupage collage of sound. Singer/guitar player Veronique Allaer’s guitar is much more limber than usual, and her vocal parts are painted throughout, giving an accented glow here and there, all anchored by her lush lead vocal and the deceivingly hard-hitting and angular rhythm.

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Photo: instagram.com/pinksiifu

“It’s Too Quiet..’!!” by Pink Siifu and Turich Benjy feat. Pher, Nick Hakim, and Kamilah

Cincinnati hip-hop-connected artists, Pink Siifu and Turich Benjy, joined forces to release the well-received It’s Too Quiet..’! on Oct. 31. The collaborative album got high-profile write-ups from publications like Pitchfork and Stereogum, and the two can be seen in recent social media posts with the album cover being advertised in Times Square. This song, the title track off the album, features the two each taking their own distinct sections and melding them together as one, like two segments or chapters of a story. The first, featuring Turich Benjy in full force, star-making rapid-fire delivery before an abrupt transition that flows right into Pink Siifu’s laid-back, nonchalance filtered through slight distortion and backed by a digitized slow-burn melody and accompaniment like some sort of harmonious, futuristic-sounding dystopia.

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Photo: Alexzandra Roy

“Kitchen” by Strobobean

Local art-pop band Strobobean released this song in the spring around a string of tour dates. The layered kinetic pop of “Kitchen” builds with each turn from one section to another, never taking any overly conventional paths while simultaneously going down as easily as a late-night snack. The song moves onward like a trance before crescendoing into more harmony and background vocals than you can count, with Katrina Eresman’s lead vocal and guitar countering the seemingly now untethered rhythm section of bassist Rae Fisher and drummer Jake Langknecht.

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Photo: Provided by Cold Stereo

“I Tried To Warn You” by Cold Stereo

Cold Stereo has perfected guitar and electric organ heavy nuggets of power pop bliss. The band, backed by drummer Tommy Biddle’s driving metronome-perfect drums, propels this less than two-minute track right into near-anthemic territory. Just like leader Todd Uttley asks the band at the start of the recording, “Do you feel good?” you can now also answer, “Yes.”

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Photo: Alexzandra Roy

“Domination Dominique” by Mary Henry

One of the newest bands on this list, Mary Henry blends guitar, bass and drums-driven, pop-adjacent punk rhythm with horror-show synthesizer and organ-soaked dissonance. This song touches on the explosiveness of other standout tracks like “Toast” while demonstrating their often dark, atmospheric sound. It’s also an inventive, dynamic and catchy song, hopefully an introduction for even more people to one of the city’s rising bands.

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Photo: instagram.com/choncyband

“Company Man” by Choncy

Another one of the youngest and newest bands on the list, Choncy released their debut full-length album, Community Chest, on local label Feel It Records in February of 2023. This frenetic and explosive track edges from garage punk to near full-blown hardcore. The peaking, in-the-red bass and guitars counter each other in punchy, staccato driving rhythm backed by near-dance-punk drums, with vocals getting looser and looser while the band pushes harder and harder. With songs like “Company Man,” Choncy shows potential to move right on up the ranks.

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Photo: Bruno Cervera, Unsplash

“Eyes Only For Space” by The Drin

The Drin has found a fair amount of success in recent years. This track, from the band’s record, Today My Friend You Drunk the Venom, released at the beginning of the year on Feel It Records, shows some of the experimental elements the record incorporates. The dark, cold wave, industrial sound the band is known for is all present, with the addition of an atmospheric, reverb-soaked, dub reggae rhythm with a contemplative vocal set to a slow burn that’s all atmosphere, like slipping into a fever.

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Photo: Provided by Hello Sapien

“I Guess” by Hello Sapien

Hello Sapien, the project from multi-instrumentalist Adam Stone, brings a complete vision and ready-made sound to Cincinnati music with this song and the accomplished debut album it comes from, The Casual Observatory. The piano and acoustic guitar-driven songs are often storytelling adventures with grand instrumentation and well-crafted turns of phrase and tune.

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Photo: Adriana Noritz

“Traffic” by Fruit LoOops

“Traffic” is the latest single off the band’s recently released record, You’re Somebody’s World, from Torn Light Records. It’s in line with the band’s unhinged and combustible noise rock sound that seems to pull from industrial clatter and noises from the digital age as much a generation of punk and rock and roll.

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Photo: Hailey Bollinger

“RnB Vibe” by Siri Imani feat. Auntie JoJo and Cleocrt

Siri Imani heads up a community-defining operation with her Imani Productions, hosting events all over town on a regular basis and with Triiibe Foundation, an organization that helps feed those in need and empower the community through outreach. As an artist she also guests on shows and recordings across genres, such as with harpist Victoria Lekson or with singer/songwriter Jess Lamb. This track, featuring Auntie JoJo and 2023 breakout singer Cleocrt, is a throwback to R&B slow jams with Imani handling the hook.

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Photo: facebook.com/toontownmusic

“Beverly Hills Kentucky” by Toon Town

Toon Town’s sound is soaked in muddy Ohio River water and lit by the lights of Northern Kentucky‘s past excess in gambling and nightlife. This recording seems as informed by all the living that happened in the Beverly Hills Supper Club that stood in Southgate, Kentucky, as much as the disaster that was its fate. The video, shot in the historic gem the Hilton Netherland Plaza Hotel and riverside with riverboats going by, only adds to the storied charm.

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