NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

  Today's song needs very little introduction. Most of the time I pick pretty obscure music for my playlists, sometimes even having to add the lyrics or even create the artist's Genius page. However, 2015's " Hello " is a song that everyone's mom and grand-mother knows. Furthermore, Adele is pretty much one of the least controversial figures in pop music, as shown masterfully in an SNL sketch.   "Hello" is definitely meme-worthy. Six years after its release, the emotion of the song has long since felt cliche; however, some days a cliche is really the best thing to describe your feelings. IT'S NO SECRET THAT THE BOTH OF US ARE RUNNING OUT OF TIME. Today, I woke up to the news that my dad had had a mini-stroke and was in the hospital. After a trip to the emergency room, he was discharged and given some instructions to come back to see a specialist and to make some lifestyle changes. This is all happening on the other side of the world, and with the...

  In 2016 raw rock band was pronounced dead in their final studio album Showbread Is Showdead . The cause of death was detailed in the band’s Labeled episode . The music industry, overcommitment with crowdfunding, and the band’s controversial views throughout the years are all contributing factors to the bands demise. As one of the last unabashed Christian Rock acts, Showbread pressed the genre way beyond the bounds of 'acceptable' music for Christian kids and incorporated literary, philosophical, and industrial/metal influences that were typically shunned by the church. Showbread is responsible for starting conversations around Nihilism, anarchy, patriotism, and idolatry, and gave Christian kids a vocabulary to enter those conversations with their references to literature, philosophy, and horror movies.  NOBODY KNOWS WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT. I recently heard a podcast lambasting Skillet's Alien Youth  album . The hosts joke about how Skillet 's John Cooper listene...

  I n Western North Carolina, we had two modern rock radio stations. From upstate South Carolina there was 93.3 “ The Planet,” an Active Rock radio station that played lots of ‘90s rock and neo-90s rock. They loved grunge and post-grunge. They played Nickelback , Seether , P.O.D. , Flyleaf , Puddle of Mudd , and that kind of music. Then there was Charlotte’s 106.5 “The End ,” an Alternative rock station. While playing much of the same music, they also featured some newer groups, such as Silversun Pickups , Thirty Seconds to Mars , and the occasional The Almost or Saosin song. The Starting Line was one of those emerging bands that was starting to be picked up on radio. The first single, “ Island ,” from the band’s third and final (latest) LP, Direction , was a kind of break out for the band to mainstream alternative rock. The band had toured on their two previous albums and built up a fan base thanks to venues like the Vans Warped Tour , but some band members grew tired of touri...

  The Internet has launched many music careers, particularly over the last twenty years. Plug in the DSL and log on to the MySpace page, check MP3.com , visit the band's Pure Volume account, see the latest video on YouTube , watch the singer get big on TikTok , and maybe get featured on a Podcast--it's a brave new world only limited by Comcast (and certain regions of North Carolina where they refuse to lay the cable). While platforms have come and gone, YouTube has been a consistent place where singers have gotten their start. Justin Bieber, Charlie Puth , and  Rebecca Black  are some of the big-name acts that started out as YouTube stars. However, sometime in college, I started going down the rabbit hole of YouTube cover artists, starting with Tyler Ward . However, one cover has another in the sidebar, and you have to click on it. What does an acoustic version of " Like a G6 " sound like anyway? SO TIRED OF TEARS . I can now say that I love many kinds of music. W...

  When I first heard of The All-American Rejects and their single " Swing, Swing ," I thought they would just be one of the many garage bands that would continue to make cheap videos on Fuse for a few albums before quitting the music industry. I was wrong. The band’s sophomore album Move Along blew up, hitting the Top 40. The band’s major label follow-up to Move Along , When the World Comes Down, had their biggest hit “ Gives You Hell ,” and the other two singles “ I Wanna ” and today’s choice “ The Wind Blows ” were moderately successful, but the band’s fourth record was mostly overlooked. While the TV show appearances ( Smallville Season 6 ) and the tours with Taking Back Sunday and Anberlin may be over, the band's legacy tells of a time when power pop, punk rock, and pop rock impacted the Top 40. I'LL LEAVE WHEN THE WIND BLOWS. Originally written for Gwen Stefani , "The Wind Blows" is one of The Rejects' most poppy songs. The production is inter...

  Like Further Seems Forever , The Juliana Theory was legendary in the early pop-punk/emo scene. Also like FSF, The Juliana Theory has ties to hardcore. Lead singer Brett Detar started as the guitarist for Christian metal pioneers Zao , however, as he explains on Theory's episode of Labeled, the band was perfectly content listening to Third Eye Blind on the radio in the van while out on tour. When Theory formed, they signed with Tooth & Nail Records but opted not to be marketed to the Christian Rock format. This decision both helped and hurt their career. On the one hand, they toured with other Tooth & Nail artists and performed at Cornerstone, on the other hand, their initial record sales were quite low. There has been much bad blood between the band and the record label, especially when the label made money on selling their song " We're at the Top of the World" (To the Simple Two) to Disney to be featured in a Disney channel original, Motorcrossed , an...

I've talked about Labeled podcast quite a bit. Their tagline: "The stories, rumors, and legends of Tooth & Nail Records," certainly applied to their pilot episode: "Further Seems Forever: A Tale of Three Singers." Further Seems Forever is a band that is seen as a landmark band in '00s emo and Christian Rock, paving the way for the bands that have stuck around, such as Anberlin, Emery , and The Classic Crime, to name a few. However, FSF's turbulent relationships with lead singers kept the band a bit of a legend for hipster music fans and a bit of a bands' band, rather than a prolific force. The musicians of a Christian hardcore band, Strongarm, formed with emotional singer-songwriter Chris Carrabba, who left after the release of the band's first release to release music under the moniker of Dashboard Confessional. The band found singer Jason Gleason to replace Carrabba, but Gleason left the band by the recording of the band's third album. ...

  Cruel to Be Young was one of my college albums. I wrote a bit about the two Jonezetta albums back in January.   Rather than being an '80s/ Killers sounding album, the band went '70s/laid back, hippy sounding music. According to Randy Torres episode of Labeled, the inspiration behind this album was The Shins , which was another college favorite of mine. While Aaron Sprinkle and Randy Torres may have had a great time making this record, it may have been the demise of Jonezetta as fans were expecting something catchy and dancy. Interestingly my college friends liked this album, but not their debut, but my hometown friends, loved Popularity and couldn't get into Cruel to Be Young. Jonezetta's follow up album reminds me of my youth--being 21 years old at its release, and how cruel it was to be a young Seventh-day Adventist. ALL THE DIFFERENT REASONS WHY YOU SLEEP ALONE . I’ve railed on purity culture so much without giving any person anecdotes. I speak from experienc...

  In case you missed it, the summer of 2009 was called the summer of chillwave. Chillwave is a kind of electronic music that borrows from ‘80s nostalgia to produce a mellow, psychedelic music that aims to relax the listener. The genre uses lo-fi, a musical technique that takes what sounds like musical or sound mistakes and incorporates it into the sound, kind of like noise pop, but in a more subliminal, relaxing way. If you were to search for Chillwave, you'd definitely come across Washed Out . Their song " Feel It All Around " was released in July 2009, before the EP Life of Leisure  in September 2009. The song and EP are said to be the best example of Chillwave. "Feel It All Around" was used as the opening theme for the show Portlandia, and when family members started watching Portlandia, the entire family was turned on to Washed Out, which is very rare for my family. Even my mom was listening to Life of Leisure.  JUST UNWIND. In the fashion of a true millenni...

  Anchor & Braille has been Anberlin 's lead singer Stephen Christian 's side project for a while. Some of Anberlin's songs started out as Anchor & Braille songs. In 2009, Christian collaborated with Aaron Marsh and a few other hometown musicians including Louis DeFabrizio of Gasoline Heart and released A&B's debut record Felt , an album that feels like if Christian were the lead singer of Copeland somewhere between their In Motion and Eat, Sleep,   Repeat releases. Anchor and Braille's sound would very greatly over their occasional four albums as well as the make up of the 'band' would just become Stephen Christian collaborating in the studio with other musicians. I have yet to listen to 2020's Tension  from start to finish, but of the three albums, Felt feels the best. You can tell that it's the same singer of Cities and Never Take Friendship Personal struggling relationships.  SHE MAKES THREATS I HOPE THAT SHE SEES THROUGH. Felt...

  In the story of Tooth & Nail Records , which became the definitive Christian Rock label in the early ‘00s, Aaron Sprinkle became the main producer for record after record for the label. Sprinkle is not only responsible for producing records, he also stylized bands and artists who would have otherwise been nothing alike. So, when he we wasn’t busy launching successful bands into the scene, what was he doing in his free time? Sprinkle recorded a number of solo records and two with his band, Fair . Sprinkle’s solo efforts were never as successful as the bands he recorded, and life in the studio took a toll on the musical genius. WHERE IS IT THAT YOUR PEACE COMES FROM? " Disappearing World " was the only hit from this 2010 album named after the title track.. Whenever Fair--three of Sprinkle's friends from his previous band, Poor Old Lu--put out a project, it was a limited release. One single to Christian radio, maybe a video, maybe a couple of local shows. And then ...

  This is the story of three women and how they interpreted their interpretation of a dream pop classic. The version I chose is a cover, which resembles a cover of this song. Until today, I thought that this song was a Nancy Sinatra original. Played in the opening scene of Kill Bill Vol. 1 , the Bride is shot and left for dead outside a dusty El Paso chapel. This scene kicks off an other delicious installment of Tarantino 's brand of gratuitous violence and overall badassery that the filmmaker is known for. However, if we're looking for the original tune, think a little more sixties psychedelia with more instrumentation. Finally, the version that goes to the YouTube playlist, by a YouTube-famous Canadian-Honduran singer, Daniela Andrade . This song with its simple song structure and easy lyrics, packs a lot of heat. I WAS FIVE AND HE WAS SIX. Written by her husband, Sonny Bono , "Bang Bang" (My Baby Shot Me Down) was one of Cher ’sfirst hits, and her first platinum ...

The 2014 film Boyhood was a highly acclaimed film with an incredible Rotten Tomatoes score, yet nobody talks about it anymore. The film was shot over the course of 12 years from 2001 to 2013 using the same actors and feels like a piece of turn-of-the-century Americana, a kind of early 2000s rendering of a Norman Rockwell painting of the imperfect white, working-class American family. The film not only explores boyhood and coming of age, but also parenthood and the complications of raising a family while trying to better oneself and the struggles of co-parenting through a divorce. The events and pop culture throughout the years are woven into the human themes. The soundtrack for the film is a combination of famed indie artists of the early '00s and popular music of the time. Seamlessly joining the soundtrack was virtually unknown folk-rock band Family of the Year , with their song " Hero ." I DON'T WANT TO BE YOUR HERO . "Hero" appears in the movie toward t...

  When Emery 's Matt Carter and T oby Morrell started their blog BadChristian  in 2013, they started out as a Calvinist alternative to what was considered Good Christian theology which carried over to religious entertainment and eventually led to exploring other world views, theories, and discussions often considered taboo to church folks. The blog turned into a podcast, a listeners' community, and even a record label, which released albums by Emery, Kings Kaleidoscope, Abandon Kansas, Sherwood, House of Heroes, Lowercase Noises, and today's band, The Classic Crime, whose frontman Matt McDonald is a friend of the show and former podcaster. The albums released on the BadChristian label showed an alliance in Christian Rock. No longer was Focus on the Family or the Family Christian Bookstore (RIP) going to determine what was holy and what was profane.  EVERY DROP OF HOLY WATER COMES FROM THE OCEAN. The evolution of The Classic Crime is quite fascinating, as told on the L...

  In 2015, Sufjan Stevens released his saddest album. The songs on  Carrie & Lowell give listeners insight into the folk singer's upbringing and his process of dealing with the grief of losing an abusive parent. Stevens' mother Carrie had passed away in 2012 from cancer, and "Death with Dignity," the album opener, finds the lyricist struggling for the words to tell the story. He says "I don't know where to begin," showing how something deeply personal is hardest to talk about. The song structure is unique in that there is no chorus, but rather five verses--this is a fact I never noticed in all the times I listened to the song before I wrote about it last year. "Death with Dignity" is best in the context of the entire album, but if you don't have the time to dive into the depths of sorrow, the song is a sweet twinge of sadness to throw into an otherwise happy playlist.  AMETHYST AND FLOWERS ON THE TABLE. I was on the fence about the 2016...

  Shoegaze  is a sub-genre of rock music that employs heavy distorted guitars to create what is called a "wall of sound." Shoegaze came out of psychedelic rock and often creates a hypnotic effect. Not every group that uses "the wall of sound" is necessarily a shoegazer act, but some bands that have famously used this effect are  Oasis ,  The Verve , and the  Smashing Pumpkins . The etymology of  "shoegazing" is said to be a description of the guitarists of these bands because they mostly stared at their shoes. While music critics don't often place  Silversun Pickups  in the subgenre of Shoegaze, what else would  you classify their 2009 hypnotic hit " Panic Switch "? IT'S NEVER WORTH MY TIME . Silversun Pickups topped the Alternative Rock chart with this song. Released in 2009, their sophomore album  Swoon   challenged my 2001 Corolla's stereo in all the right ways between home and school. The band drew controversy when they were nom...

  You could probably derive 2000s Christian Rock and Christian Rock adjacent bands from two sources: Linkin Park and Jimmy Eat World. Yesterday was an example of how Linkin Park influenced Christian Rock. Today's example is Jimmy Eat World, particularly their 2001 hit "The Middle." The first single released from Never Take Friendship Personal   sees Anberlin remembering their poppier tracks from Blueprints for the Blue Market, but taking a much more mature approach to writing the lyrics. Rather than a complaint about how "Girls speak in code" and cliches that sound a bit sexist in today's world, "A Day Late" relies on storytelling about something that could have happened in the past, and really shouldn't happen now. SO LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT... Never Take Friendship Personal was an album all about relationships, and it was a perfect album for high school. While certainly not as big as Fall Out Boy , I found the lyrics on Friendship  to be th...