NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

In 2005, The Fray scored their first hit with “ Over My Head ” (Cable Car). The song peaked at number 8 on Billboard’ s Hot 100 and topped several radio charts. While that song received critical acclaim from Billboard and Stylus Magazine , the piano-based pop-rock quartet band from Denver, Colorado, would be much less memorable today if it wasn’t for their second hit. After seeing the band live in Los Angeles, the music supervisor for the medical drama Grey’s Anatomy Alexandra Patsavas featured the song “ How to Save a Life ” in an episode in the massively popular ABC show. After the song’s feature in the episode, fans downloaded the ballad on iTunes.   I PRAY TO GOD HE HEARS YOU. The kickstart to the success of “How to Save a Life” has been credited to Grey’s Anatomy. But before the song was a single, it was the title track to The Fray’s debut album . How to Save a Life is peak mid-’00 piano pop rock. Every track is inoffensive and could be played in any coffee shop or grocery sto

It was the beginning of a rough year. In January, my favorite band from when I was in high school announced they were breaking up by the end of the year. I was in the middle of a hellish teaching contract in South Korea, and it looked like I could never see Anberlin perform again live. Before disbanding, the band would release their seventh studio album, Lowborn . Of course, the break up didn’t last and Anberlin got back together only four years later to play a reunion show and began touring the year after that. Then in 2022, the band released Silverline , a 5-song EP; another EP, Convinced , last year; and will release their eighth studio record, Vega , on August 2nd, which will be a combination of Silverline and Convinced with two new songs featuring the band's new touring vocalist, Matty Mullins . I FOUND PEACE IN A FOREIGN ATONEMENT.  At the end of 2013, lead singer Stephen Christian told his bandmates that he would give Anberlin a year to say farewell. Christian talks about

Twenty-one years ago,  Linkin Park  released their sophomore record,  Meteora .    Throughout the band's career, their sound would shift to various styles of rock music, but  Meteora  is not much of a departure from the band's debut  Hybrid Theory .  The album did, however, embrace Asian musical instruments on several tracks. At the time of its release,  Meteora  not only debuted at number 1 on  Billboard's 200 Album charts  but also set the record for the most units sold in a week beating  Celine Dion 's  One Heart .  In 2003, Nu Metal was the ruling dynasty and Linkin Park was the king of the music. I CAN'T FEEL THE WAY I DID BEFORE.  Speaking of deluxe editions, you can stream Linkin Park's 20th anniversary edition of  Meteora-- 95 tracks of live performances, B-sides, and demos; some of which have been released like their  Live in Texas   record and some remastered tracks which had never left the vault. Personally, I don't have fond memories of this reco

In 2016 ,  Yellowcard  called  it quits, echoing many other bands in a changing music industry. Best known for their fourth album,  Ocean Avenue , Yellowcard headlined Warped Tour and were at the top of the genre thanks to  MTV 's  Total Request Live  and placements in video games. But the band that had once been played on pop and rock radio, soon saw waning promotion, particularly in their later years. With albums underperforming and internal conflict in the band, they released their self-titled final album in 2016. They have only reunited in a  controversial lawsuit  against rapper  Juice WRLD , which the band later dropped after the rapper died in 2020. YOU TOOK MY EDGE, SHARPENED IT IN CASE.  My experience with Yellowcard was much like most of their fair-weather fans.  Ocean Avenue  was novel and fun. It was a time when bands could experiment with the format of a rock band to include something like, say, an electric violin on every track substituting for guitar leads. Their sec

  Fireflight became a massive Christian Rock band in 2006 when their video for the single “ You Decide ,” which featured Josh Brown of the band Day of Fire , became the most-requested video on TVU that year. The band debuted on Flicker Records after touring for years after being founded by husband and wife Glenn and Wendy Drennen in 1999. Glenn was the guitarist and Wendy the bassist of the band, and she would become the backing vocalist when the band added Dawn Michele as the group’s lead singer. The band followed up the runaway success of their debut album The Healing of Harms with Unbreakable . While Unbreakable was a success for the band, the members talked about the difficulty of making their follow-up album. Dawn Michele told Stars & Stripes making the record was “one of the most difficult times in our lives.” IT STARTS TONIGHT. Just as ForeFront Records was in search of the “more Christian” alternative to successful Christian-adjacent acts, Flicker Records signed a

Michelle Chongmi Zauner was busy in 2021 promoting her band Japanese Breakfast ’s third album, Jubilee , and her memoir Crying in H Mart , a heartbreaking work chronicling the illness and death of her mother . The book is far more than a music memoir--readers need not be familiar with Zauner’s band to appreciate the writing or the story--the singer does talk about her musical background and how she happened upon a music career after her mother’s death when she had mostly given up on the prospect of being known for her music. Before Zauner formed Japanese Breakfast, she had been the lead singer of the Emo rock band Little Big League . The band formed in 2011, recorded two studio albums, and dissolved in 2014 following Michelle’s mother’s cancer diagnosis as Zauner left the band’s home base of Philadelphia to be with her family in Eugene, Oregon. PACIFY HER RAGE. Japanese Breakfast was Michelle Zauner’s side project that she started in 2013 when still in Little Big League. She says that