BEST OF 2023
I’m really happy to present to you my first compilation ever of the best songs of the year! Here you have the link in case you want to hit the play button just now.
2023 is not over yet, but I will be taking some time off and I thought that posting this earlier might come handy to those hungry for new discoveries, since December is typically poor on new releases if we don’t count Christmas songs.
It sounds crazy to me to think it was only this last February when I created the blog and officially launched my website. I had been curating for many years before that, with the same passion but in a more informal way, so first of all I would like to express special thanks to Xavi from SlideUp Records. While collaborating with him at the end of 2022, he was generous enough to teach me valuable insights and provide me with the confidence and inertia to follow my own path and launch what is now known as Vibey Curator.
This year has been pretty intense and I’ve been in constant research, mostly by trial and error, of a way to navigate my boat in this constant flow of new tracks in a sustainable way, without losing my essence and original motivation but trying to at least cover the fixed costs of blogging and curating, which is a more tricky task than it might look like.
I have to say that curation still feels like a pretty volatile subworld and blogging has surely seen better days, many would say it’s a terrible idea to start a blog nowadays. But the truth is that I’m finding much pleasure doing both. Especially blogging as I can allow myself to do it at my own pace, free from any kind of pressure or expiration date.
Besides promoting artists, some of the goals I had this year was to add some more transparency and honesty to this ecosystem and also do my bit to try to get a little more decent conditions for honest curators that are truly dedicated so they can keep doing their task in a less stressful way. So I’m really happy about the positive feedback I’m getting from artists for my real guide to submission platforms, which was intended to contribute to that first goal helping artists get a broader perspective and important insights to not misuse platforms. And, related to the second goal, I like to think that, amongst other people, I had my little role in unleashing some improvements that took place this year on a particular submission platform, SubmitHub. Numbers show that they benefited not just curators, but all the actors involved. There’s still work to do but there are reasons to be optimistic about the future. By the way, if you are an artist and you want to know why SubmitHub should be your first choice when it comes to submission platforms just check out the previous guide.
In any case, the most important thing is that I’ve discovered more amazing artists and songs than ever, and met many music lovers, bloggers and even businesses that truly care about music and musicians. So despite all the imperfections and contradictions, this keeps me motivated.
Back to the list. I know it is not short but I think that every one of these artists deserved to be mentioned in the post and featured on the playlist. The order is not strict but it’s not random either. It will take you on a journey from very talented local artists to diverse and exotic sounds like Armenian funk, hot grooves from the forests of Thailand, African vibes, Mongolian folk inspired jazz, Cuban flavour and New Caledonia rhythms. It also contains one of the songs of what will be Vibey Curator’s Album of the Year, which I will unveil in the next blog entry. Enjoy!
WHERE CAN YOU FIND IT:
Spotify : Best of 2023 Playlist
Apple Music : Best of 2023 Playlist