NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

In the summer of 2003, a rock station in LA started playing an inside cut of from The Ataris' So Long, Astoria, an album built on late '70s and early '80s nostalgia. The band's first single, "In This Diary" reached number 11 on the Modern Rock chart. They were set to release the second single, "My Reply," but the accidental hit "The Boys of Summer" overshadowed anything the band would produce in their twenty-five year career. A cover of Don Henley's 1984 number 1 hit, The Ataris' punk-rock reworking took the single to number 20 on the Hot 100 and number 2 on the Modern Rock chart, unable to beat Linkin Park's "Faint." Eighteen or thirty-seven summers later, "The Boys of Summer" remains a melancholy reminder that summer is over and that we all are getting older.     I SAW A BLACK FLAG STICKER ON A CADILLAC. Written by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' guitarist, Mike Campbell, "The Boys of Summer"

Many credit the formation of Seo Taiji and the Boys in 1992 as the birth of K-pop. Singer Seo Taiji had been a member of a heavy metal group in '80s but decided to experiment with electronic music and choreography. Seo, in essence, started the ripple, whereas, today's boy band was part part of a forming Korean wave, or Hallyu (한류) that seems turning into more and more of a tsunami every year. The boy bands and girl groups of early '00s were known by Korean enthusiasts. Korean cinema was known by film buffs. But in 2012 when Psy's " Gangnam Style " hit the Internet, the wave officially hit everywhere. In the late '10s, BTS and other K-pop groups started placing well on Billboard's Hot 100, performing on American television shows, and featuring on American pop albums. Then in 2020, Korean director Bong Joon-ho cleaned up the Oscars with his film Parasite  (기생충). Korean dramas, too, are part of the wave. While they haven't broken through in their orig

Dutch DJ Armin van Buuren 's sixth studio album Embrace was released in 2015. The album topped the Dutch charts and reached number 4 on the Billboard US Dance/ Electronica charts. " Heading Up High " was released as a single in February 2016. The song featured Dutch rock band Kensington . The band had formed in 2005 and had modest success in the Netherlands and Belgium. Like groups like A-ha , Scorpions , and Blindside , Kensington prefers to record songs in English rather than their native tongue. "Heading Up High" reached number 40 on the Dutch charts. It's a pop song, but it also has clear rock origins. These days, EDM has mostly ignores rock, yet 'rock bands' such as Imagine Dragons  and Coldplay have incorporated more and more electronic elements to stay relevant. The smokey, rock-vocal style of Eloi Youssef makes for an interesting dance track along with the the synthetic sounding electric guitar.  WHEN YOU'RE HOLDING ONTO ALL THAT YOU

Last month I talked about Eisley , the named-for- Star-Wars  sister-cousin band from Tyler, Texas. Their major label debut garnered indie cred, but due to some issues in the music industry, the band's label de-prioritized their sophomore release, delaying it almost a year from its recording and mastering. As for promotion, the record label pulled radio support as they weren't sure which format to market the band and canceled plans for a second music video to the band's only non-radio single " Invasions "  and never released the video for today's song, " Many Funerals ." Eisely can be added to the list of Christian-adjacent bands, such as MuteMath , Copeland , Mae , The Juliana Theory , and Anberlin , that were failed by major labels. Some of these groups saw initial success, whether radio, video, or touring, but ultimately they were left abandoned by the major label. Although RadioU plays some of their latest singles, by the end the  Room Noises cy

  In 2013, vocalist Hyolin from the K-pop girl group Sistar released her debut solo record. Sistar had debuted just three years earlier and only lasted until 2017. Songs like "Push, Push," " Touch My Body ," and " Shake It " made them some of the sexiest K-pop songs of the time. On 2013's Love & Hate , Hyolyn worked with Korean Hip-hop producers and featured several Korean Hip-hop acts. Listeners can draw comparisons between Hyolyn and Ariana Grande . Both singers are light lyric sopranos with a whistle range. But singers introduce a light femininity to a hip-hop backdrop. Both singers' performances are permeated with an overt, proud sexuality. YOU'RE A SELFISH GUY WHO ONLY THINKS ABOUT HIMSELF. "One Way Love" talks about a rather toxic relationship, that sadly, often turns into a toxic marriage. While, the intro, confusingly and in English, is spoken by the male perspective, the rest of the song is the female perspective. Hyol

Written by Sia, recorded and popularized by Rihanna, and today covered by Australian singer Josef Salvat, "Diamonds" is a powerful song, no matter the version. When Sia sang the song in James Corden's Carpool Karaoke, I thought it would have been a great pre-"Chandelier" mainstream introduction to Sia. But Rihanna took the song to number one, something that a less popular Sia may have not been able to do in 2012. Two years later, Josef Salvat released a slower piano-ballad version. The piano makes the song sound urgent and more desperate than Rihanna's version. The song was used for a Sony commercial, helping the singer gain international recognition. "Diamonds" borrows the metaphor from "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star." Lyrically, the song sounds both happy and sad. On one hand, the singer is talking about shining and reflecting light; however, the distances between two bodies in space makes me think about loneliness. When Rihanna "ch

No '80s New Wave playlist is complete without a song from  Tears for Fears . The band was a huge hit producer on a few of their albums; however, like  Third Eye Blind  in the late '90s, Tears for Fears peaked early in their career in the mid-‘80s. Their  second #1 hit , "Everybody Wants to Rule the World," is their "grocery store classic," meaning it's so popular they play it in the grocery store. "Head Over Heels" is a song about falling in love getting older and not meeting the expectations others set out for you. Sinit ger Roland Orzabel said of the song "It is a romance song that goes a bit perverse at the end." One does wonder why there's a gun and who the second verse is about. Is it him or her? Two memories are strongly connected to this song. First was the cover by Christian band  Kids in the Way . Second was the opening montage of 2001's  Donnie Darko . ONE LITTLE BOY, ONE LITTLE MAN, FUNNY HOW TIME FLIES.  Roland Orz

" Midnight City " is perhaps the only song that most listeners know of French musician Anthony Gonzalez 's project, M83. Originally a duo with Nicolas Fromageau , producing shoegazer electronica, Gonzalez took over the group and Fromageau went on to form the band Team Ghost after M83 's sophomore record, Dead Cities, Red Cities & Lost Ghosts . M83's best known record is Hurry Up, We're Dreaming for it's roots in '80s nostalgia, hitting 2011 right when older and middle-aged millennials were missing their childhoods. Over the course of Gonzalez's tenure, M83 albums hit and miss. Hurry Up was definitely a hit. I also hope to devote some time this year to Saturdays= Youth , which is arguably the act's best record. But today's song comes from an album made with the synth from Thriller and the drum machine from "I Wanna Dance with Somebody." WAITING IN THE CAR. Los Angelos is the " Midnight City " Gonzalez is referring to

  When you take an aging hipster singer-songwriter who isn't bound to a genre, you get a bunch of weird albums. Ryan Adams is that kind of musician. His breakthrough song, " New York, New York " could place him comfortably with the likes of John Mayer . With a career that included punk, metal, and folk experimentation, he decided in 2015 to cover Taylor Swift 's latest record 1989 in its entirety. Most of the album sounds like a 41-year-old trying to sing a 25 year old's tunes. Where Swift shines, especially the three major hits: " Shake It Off ," " Blank Space, " and " Style ," Adams falls flat. However, a few of the duller tracks, like "Out of the Woods" and "Wildest Dreams" as well as the often forgotten tracks like "All You Had to Do Was Stay," "This Love," and of course, today's song, the album closer "Clean," Adams reinvents the tunes in an interesting way. It's as if A

Everyday Sunday was a Christian Rock band from Ohio that grew in popularity thanks to RadioU and TVU , which aired their played their independent music alongside other major Christian rock acts. The band signed to Flicker Records in 2002 before the label folded and then signed to Peter Furler 's Inpop Records before going independent in 2013. The band was mostly forgotten with the countless Christian Rock bands of the early '00s, until lead singer Trey Pearson made headlines in May 2016. Pearson had recently divorced his wife of seven and half years. The couple had two children and the divorce was amicable, but Pearson came out to his wife and his family as gay. In May 2016, he came out publicly--career suicide for almost everyone hoping to stay in the Christian music industry. But with a changing music climate in which independent artists have a larger platform and with a broader LGBTQ community and allies both in and out of the church and in and out of the ex-vengelical

We Are Scientists formed in 2000 when two college students in Berkley, California met at bass guitarist Chris Cain's Dawson's Creek viewing party. Cain and guitarist/vocalist Keith Murray became good friends. Their mutual interests included comic books, films, television, and stand-up comedy. The nerdy pair went on to create nerdy music, blending music and comedy into their live shows. The band's biggest hit "After Hours" is from their second album, Brain Thrust Mastery. The song was featured in the video game Tony Hawk: Ride  and in the movie Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. Today's song, "Let's See It," was featured in an episode of Gossip Girl. " Let's See It" analyzes a couple's argument in terms of science, faith, and fate. "The evidence is gonna suggest that [the speaker] will let [the listener] down." He "muster[s] the faith that [the speaker] won't let [the listener] down." But he must be r

In recent years, YG Entertainment boyband Big Bang has had quite a share of scandal. From the accidental drag on the wrong kind of cigarette for rapper G-Dragon to T.O.P's military drug scandal  to Seungri's involvement in an underground gambling and prostitution ring , the hit machine that was Big Bang has been canceled by many former fans. Taeyang, however, is the only member free of controversy.   Rise was Taeyang's second solo LP, and the album was huge in 2014. Paste included the album in their article " 10 K-pop Albums for People Who Don't Like K-pop, " and as a former K-pop skeptic myself, this album was the slippery slope that got me into the genre. Taeyang's Rise sounded like nothing I had ever heard before. The surging pulse of the EDM drum machine, the minor-key tonal hip hop was perhaps reminiscent of some era of Linkin Park.    PUT YOUR HANDS UP LIKE THE COUNTRY'S BEEN LIBERATED. Taeyang's Rise album starts with a sample of Tears for

Howard Benson has two Grammys for his production and quite a few Dove Awards, the Christian version of the Grammys. Benson started producing hard rock bands in 1989. Ten years later, his production for P.O.D.'s The Fundamental Elements of Southtown went multiplatinum. P.O.D. kept producing records with Benson, and other rock acts followed. Benson's early records have that early 2000s hard rock style you can hear in bands he produced like Crazy Town, Blindside, Trust Company, My Chemical Romance, Flyleaf, and Hoobastank. But little by little, Benson was developing pop sensibilities. In 2005, Benson produced The All-American Rejects' Move Along and Hoobastank's "The Reason" was a pop mega hit. He went on to work with Kelly Clarkson, Daniel Powter, Daughtry, and Rascal Flatts, as well as being a go-to producer for hard rock acts like Red, Skillet, and Of Mice and Men. But somewhere in the middle, lies Benson's alternative and pop-punk records, like Relient K,

  The idea of a remix album has been around since the 1970s. In 1987 Madonna released her remix album You Can Dance , the second most-selling remix album ever after Michael Jackson 's 1997 Blood on the Dance Floor: HIStory in the Mix.   Jennifer Lopez 's remix album J to tha L--O! The Remixes , in  2002, was the first remix album to top Billboard 's Hot 200 album sales charts.  There have been some notable rock remix records. Nine Inch Nails released Further Down the Spiral in 1995, remixing their classic album The Downward Spiral. In 2001 Limp Bizkit released New Old Songs , which sold 500,000 copies. However, I argue that it was another platinum remix album that was followed by a slew of Christian Rock artists to copy their style. The band is Linkin Park and the album was Reanimation , a reworking of their 12x platinum debut Hybrid Theory.  HE'S IN THIS PLACE TO QUESTION WHO YOU ARE. Reanimation featured collaboration between rockers and underground rappers. While t