NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

In 2015, Troye Sivan released Wild , an EP of six songs. Three of those songs would be released on Sivan's debut full-length, Blue Neighbourhoods , while the other three would be included on the deluxe edition of the album. Wild was Sivan's second EP signed on a major label, though the then-teenager had been singing, writing his own songs, and producing his own music since he was 12 years old. As a YouTube generation musician, Sivan had grown followers on the platform, his viewers watching his journey discovering his sexuality. Sivan came out in 2013 just before his career took off. LEAVE THESE BLUE NEIGHBORHOODS. The eponymous lead single from Wild  alludes to the upcoming album with the line "blue neighbourhoods," which Sivan has discussed to mean the mundane life in suburbia. In Sivan's case, the city of Perth, Australia is where the singer was raised. Perth is a major city in Australia, with over 2 million people, yet the city is separated from the other ma...

In 1997 Christian Rock band Sixpence None the Richer released their third,  self-titled record . Founded by singer Leigh Nash and guitarist/songwriter Matt Slocum , the band took their name from C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity from an anecdote in which a child buys his mother a gift from his allowance. Lewis said that the mother was sixpence none the richer. The band signed with Christian Rock legend Steve Taylor 's record label Squint Entertainment to release the band's runaway successful third record. The record two inescapable singles, " Kiss Me " and a cover of The La's ' "There She Goes."  KISS ME UNDER THE BEARDED BARLEY. Last year, Good Christian Fun talked about the legacy of Steve Taylor. In the '80s Taylor was for his radical songwriting that occasionally got him banned from both mainstream and Christian retailers. His songs often call out the hypocrisies in evangelical culture, using satire on songs like " I Blew Up the Cl...

  As we wind down on “love month,” I thought I’d share one of my favorite albums  filled with love songs, Paper Route ’s sophomore record The Peace of Wild Things . I’ve written about many of the tracks before, but here I’d like to give a home for future posts as well as give a brief reflection on each song. As I’ve discussed, The Peace of Wild Things takes its name from a poem by poet, farmer, and conservationist Wendell Barry whose themes discuss the importance of people returning to nature and reducing reliance on the industrialized world. However, Barry’s more radical themes do not seem to impact the record.  The songs that I’ve written about before will have a link.  1. “ Love Letters ” starts the record with the imagery of Adam waiting for Eve in the Garden of Eden. The song isn’t quite a straight-forward love song, with singer JT Daly claiming, “This time I’m different.” The rhythmic drums also distract listeners from thinking in terms of genre—is it rock or ...

  In 2009, Mae embarked upon an novel musical project for the time. After being dropped by Capitol Records , the band decided to make music independently, releasing a new song every month on their website . Fans could donate as little as a dollar to receive each song with the profits from the songs going to a different charity each month. In addition, Mae compiled the songs in three EPs, (m)orning , (a)fternoon , and (e)vening .   WHEN YOU SING, DO YOU SLIP AWAY? The EPs  (m)orning ,  (a)fternoon,  and  (e)vening  cleverly created an acrostic with the band’s name with the three main divisions of a day’s time. All of Mae’s records have been conceptual in their pursuit of a multi-sensory aesthetic experience . Songs and records themselves evoke connections between phenomena. In terms of (m)orning,  the band posted on the message board of their   website :         Morning represents the beginning to the day, the beginni...

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 g...

I'm not a fanatic about space, like many children, I was fascinated with the prospect of traveling to other worlds when I looked out at the sky. From learning about the  nine  eight planets from  The Magic School Bus  to watching Hale-Bopp in the late '90s night sky, the universe seemed like such an interesting place. After school it was   Star Trek: The Next Generation   reruns then to PBS for  Bill Nye the Science Guy  and  Arthur . Fast forward to February 1, 2003 (20 years ago). The space shuttle Columbia disintegrated upon re-entering the Earth's atmosphere. This grounded America's space program for two years.  YOU MADE ME CRY.  This is my memory of the attitude towards the '80s. I talked a little about this when I covered New Order 's  " World (The Price of Love), "  but my memories of the views of the '80s in the late '90s and '00s (what a time warp!) were of awkwardness, terrible hair, men in shorty shorts with hai...

It's been 21 years since the post-grunge " Hanging By a Moment " was the number 1 song of the year. Although the Christian Rock band  Lifehouse  never actually topped the weekly charts, the song had so much statistical force via radio play and record sales that the song became one of the rare cases when a single that peaked at number 2 could   actually claim the number 1 position for the year.  No Name Face   featured three singles, but none were as big as "Hanging By a Moment." For the band's follow-up, Lifehouse signed a Christian music marketing deal with Sparrow Records.  Stanley Climbfall   was nowhere near as successful as the  No Name Face,  but a sophomore slump didn't plunge the band into obscurity. In 2005, the band released their self-titled album which boasted their number one hit which was appearing in every TV show that year, the prom/wedding favorite, " You and Me ."  I WAS YOUNG BUT I WASN'T NAIVE.  " Blind ," the ...

In college, one of my literature professors made the argument that people either tend to subscribe to classicism or romanticism. After taking several classes for my major with that professor, one of my classmates analyzed the aging professor based on his own claims, and that classmate said that Dr. Sylvan was a Romantic at heart repressing his romanticism with stoic classical form. And at the time that I was in college, one of the biggest records was Coldplay 's Viva La Vida or Death and All of His Friends ,  an album that I would argue is " The Scientist " trying to experiment with romanticism and yet only being no more than 75% convincing.  DREAMING OF THE OSAKA SUN. “ Lovers in Japan ” is the fifth track on Viva La Vida, sharing a track with the shorter song “Reign of Love.” Coldplay’s lead singer, Chris Martin, said of the song in 2008 to Entertainment Weekly :  “ No one associates romance with Japan…Everyone thinks Japan is just about Hitachi and neon signs, but ever...

  I'm working on a new system for my blog so that I stop saying the same thing over and over again. I don't always have time to research an album cycle or the artist around the time of the album cycle, but I have written considerably about certain albums and artists. I want to provide links to those posts in album posts, like today's. I haven't written a lot about the tracks on Anberlin 's seminal record Cities , but it still is one of my favorite albums. In the future, this post can be a jumping-off point for other tracks on the record. I could write books on each track and my experiences with them, but today you'll just get a few sentences about each. Enjoy the album as it turns sixteen today. 1. ( Début ). For about a minute and a half, Anberlin introduces us to a dark world in an instrumental composed of city sound effects and noisy guitars. The song reminds me of Jerry Martin 's Sim City 4 soundtrack. (Début) leads into " Godspeed ." 2. ...

Like most of the NoiseTrade music that I've talked about, you may not know who Cary Brothers is. However, since 2003, the singer-songwriter's music could be heard in the background of some of the biggest TV shows and movies, including Grey's Anatomy and its spin-off, Private Practice , The Vampire Diaries , Smallville , and One Tree Hill to name a few of the shows Brothers' music has appeared in. His song " Blue Eyes " was featured on the Garden State   soundtrack, which was the highest-selling record Brothers' had contributed music to. In 2010, Brothers released Under Control , the album's final track " Can't Take My Eyes Off You " is an intensely romantic song fit for intensely romantic television scenes.  MY ARMS WILL GROW, CHEST EXPANDING. "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" was not only a part of NoiseTrade's 25 Love Songs collection but also part of the overwrought end of Smallville. After ten seasons with many misst...

One of the biggest challenges of writing about music that I often run into is there isn't always a lot to talk about. Just because it's a good song, doesn't mean that it is a conversation piece. New music is particularly hard to write about. It takes a lot of research, and it takes quite a few listens over some time to pick up the nuance. Furthermore, I mostly write about old music because I have memories associated with it. These memories are acquired over time, and can't be forced onto a song every Friday with the new release cycle. But when a song has layers of meaning, or in this case, layers of history, not only is it easier to write about, but also I can connect with the song on a deeper level. I won't be able to get into all of the layers that I want to in this short post, but I'll see what I can accomplish.  I'M CAUGHT UP IN YOU.  In 2019,  Taylor Swift  announced that she would be re-recording and releasing new versions of her back catalog. This was...

  Formed in 2006, Lady A , then known as Lady Antebellum, scored a massive Country crossover hit from their sophomore record , the title track " Need You Now ." The band named themselves after doing a photo-shoot dressed in Southern pre-Civil War-era clothing, but following the 2020 George Floyd protests decided to change their name to Lady A due to the nuanced connotations the term  Antebellum held in the cultural consciousness at the time. I SAID I WOULDN’T CALL, BUT I’M A LITTLE DRUNK. Lady A isn't the only country group to change their name because social issues. Dallas-based trio formerly known as The Dixie Chicks dropped the word dixie from their name, simply becoming The Chicks . Of course, not everyone was satisfied with the name changes for either band, but Lady A's was particularly polarizing. Country music listeners tend to be politically conservative, and some viewed the trio's name change as erasure of Southern heritage. Some accused the group of givi...

  When I first  blogged about BTS , I talked about my gateway drugs into K-pop.    Shinee  was one of them. The first song I heard from them was " Everybody " which oddly made me think of industrial rock. Later I heard their song " Stand By Me " when I started to watch the drama  Boys Over Flowers .  I'm sure I'll talk about my love-hate relationship with Korean dramas later. If you listen to " Stand By Me ," don't you hear hints of  Rick Astley 's " Never Gonna Give You Up "? Then in 2015 one of the biggest songs in Korea was Shinee's song " View ." Some of the genius in Shinee's producers is making hit songs that  sound  vaguely familiar. Sometimes you can pin a pop song comparison, other times you're left racking your brain wondering where you heard that song before.  FOREVER YOURS.   Key  (born Kim Ki-bum) is one of the vocalists of Shinee. As the group's career started winding down, Key started actin...