NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

I was first introduced to  Tove Lo  when the Swedish singer appeared on  Coldplay 's colorful, ebullient record,  A Headful of Dreams . Track five's duet, " Fun ," is one of the more subdued tracks on the record. Given that my mom and even my grand-mother love  A Headful of Dreams,   I assumed that Tove Lo was also a "safe for mom" artist. It turns out that Tove Lo is a pretty sexual artist, known for flashing her breasts in concert, which to be fair, isn't as big of a deal for her European audiences. WILL MY OBSESSION PLEASE DIE.   Ebba Tove Elsa Nilsson , better known as Tove Lo, released her fifth record,  Dirt Femme ,   last year. Unlike her previous records, Lo released  Dirt Femme  independently on her own label, Pretty Swede Records . The album deals with the singer's growth over the years and her marriage to Charlie Twaddle. But the liberated singer lays down some ground rules for her marriage in the second tr...

  Shakatak  formed in 1980 in London. The jazz-funk has consisted of several changing members in their over forty-year career, but three of the key members— Jill Saward ,  Bill Sharpe , and  Roger Odel —have remained in the band throughout its run, and bassist  George Anderson  joined the band in their first year. After a few minor hits in 1980, the band scored their first major hit in the U.K., “ Easier Said than Done ,” which featured the band singing in unison with an easy instrumental line. The single also helped the group achieve international success in Australia and Europe. Subsequent releases would bring the band success in Japan and the United States as well.  YOU CAN TAKE YOUR LOVE AWAY. “Easier Said than Done” is a very simple song with a repeating verse throughout the song. After each verse there is an instrumental break featuring a funky bass and piano improvisation. It’s a song that I could imagine being played at a grocery store back whe...

    In 2018  Nick Jonas   and  Priyanka Chopra Jonas   married in two ceremonies. The ceremonies took place in India and represented the religious backgrounds of both the Bollywood-turned-Hollywood actress and the singer/actor. The first ceremony was Christian, taking place on December 1, and the second was Hindu on December 2. In 2019, Nick and the two other  Jonas Brothers  released their first album in ten years. Nick's solo career had heated up after the Jonas hiatus, but a reunited Jonas Brothers was even more commercially exciting. In 2021, Nick Jonas was back with a solo record, this time dealing with the themes of isolation due to the pandemic, but mostly about his love for his bride. I'M ON MY KNEES AND I CAN'T STOP NOW.  From the moment I heard Nick Jonas's second single from  Spaceman ,  " This Is Heaven ," on his  Saturday Night Live   performance, I started making connections to what I knew about the Jonas Bro...

It shouldn’t work. But it does. We seem to be in a maximalist era of pop music. Big club sounds drowned out the folky acoustic songs that we were listening to during lockdown. I can’t explain it. But somehow the producers behind a K-pop group NewJeans has made simple ‘90s-styled adult contemporary extremely catchy. Relying on subdued instrumentation but never skimping on the beat, the group also offers solid vocal performances but never do the singers belt above loudly above the song’s instrumentation. The group has followed a kind of chill disco since their inception in 2022 over the course of some 20+ songs. This year, the Ador girl group has released two singles and two B-sides and are said to be releasing an album later this year, though whether it is an LP or an EP, we have yet to find out.    IT’S LIKE BITING AN APPLE. Of course, we’ve discussed how the squeaky-clean “ Bubble Gum ” pop singers NewJeans are not without controversy. Not only are the girls the center of a...

  I was talking with my Gen X coworker last year about music, and somehow  Jonas Brothers  came up. He asked me, as a defender of pop, if the band of brothers had ever made a good album. I thought about the question. Of course, I can’t consider the teeny-bopper music from the band’s early days. But I  could say that  Nick Jonas ’ latest record  Spaceman   was a masterfully produced album by  Greg Kurstin  blending ‘80s and ‘90s R&B with contemporary electronic pop. I thought that the  DNCE  record was fun. I thought that “ Sucker ” was a great  Ryan Tedder  production and showed potential for where the Jonas Brothers could go, although  Happiness Begins   was a bit of a disappointment. But no, I couldn’t say that I liked any Jonas Brothers album. ROCK FOR ME TO STAND ON.  But that all changed when Jonas Brothers released  The Album   last May. But being able to call this album great comes with ...

  Fleurie   is just shy of 3 million monthly listeners on Spotify. The Nashville-based singer-songwriter's majority of listeners, though, come from outside the United States from India, Turkey, Brazil, and Germany to be precise. Two years ago I talked about her cover of   Sufjan Steven 's   " To Be Alone with You ," which appears in the   Looking for Alaska   mini-series. While Fleurie has released many covers including a haunting version   Linkin Park 's " In the End " and   Gary Jules ' arrangement of   Tears for Fears ' " Mad World ," the singer also writes original songs and released her fourth LP earlier this year titled   Supertropicali .  CALIFORNIA GIRLS DON'T LOOK LIKE ME.  How to describe Fleurie's latest album,  Supertropicali?  Fleurie describes it on her Spotify page as "a world, an era, a story unfolding, all stitched together in '90s nostalgia, romance, youthful hope, and belonging." Taking inspira...

  At this point, you probably know a little about the story of how a song from 1985 became a number 1 hit in 2022 thanks to being featured in a key scene in the   Netflix   series   Stranger Things .  When one of the biggest shows on Netflix returned in May after nearly a three-year hiatus, a key scene featured the opening track to   Kate Bush 's fifth record   Hounds of Love ,  " Running Up That Hill" (A Deal with God) . The song never topped the charts during its original promotion, peaking at number 3 in the UK in 1985, and was even banned in some European countries for mentioning God in the song. Today, you'll hear countless covers of the song and hear it in   TikTok   and   Instagram   videos constantly. UNAWARE I'M TEARING YOU ASUNDER.  Kate Bush is a name I should have been more aware of given how influential the singer-songwriter is on modern electronic dance music and modern pop. I think I first came across her na...

Opening with a the late '90s pop-rock-sounding " Tides ,"  Ed Sheeran 's fourth record  =   seems to change genres with every track. Back in October of 2021, I asked the question about whether or not Ed Sheeran could successfully integrate all the musical styles he's done in the past and make a cohesive album that would appeal both broadly to all music fans and more specifically to die-hard fans. What I found today was that most of the songs individually are good. But as an album the songs don't play together save for the common themes of falling in love with his wife Cherry, the death of family members, isolation due to the Covid-19 pandemic, recovery from addiction, and the birth of his daughter Lyra.   I WANNA DRINK THAT SMILE.  The eclectic mix of singles Sheeran released before the album dropped--" Bad Habits " and " Shivers " sounding similar to  ÷ 's  singles and " Visiting Hours " recalling the more sentimental moods o...

  Sebastián Yatra was born in Columbia and raised in Miami, Florida, before returning to Columbia to begin his musical career. From an early age, Sebastián took an interest in music, learning piano, guitar, and voice. At the age of 12, he saw fellow Colombian singer Juanes in concert. That year, Yatra also starred in the lead role of Troy Bolton in his school’s production of High School Musical. At the age of 20, Yatra dropped out of college and returned to Columbia to pursue music. Today, Yatra is a very popular singer worldwide. All of his solo work is in Spanish. He is a voracious collaborator, teaming up with other musicians in the Latin pop world, singing a Spanish verse with an English—or in the case of Monsta X , in Korean—, or occasionally, an English verse. His d iscography varies from reggaeton to rock and many other genre experimentations. IT SEEMS THAT YOU STILL LOVE ME. Many of Sebastián Yatra’s songs are ballads, a tradition in Latin music that has fallen out of fav...

Fleetwood Mac  might be the most turbulent rock band in terms of member changes, feuds, and internal relationships going awry because of infidelity. The conflict, lawyers, and affidavits surrounding    Paramore  feel akin to the ‘70s rock band. In his series  Deep Discog Dives , YouTuber Nick Canovas summarized the  controversies surrounding Paramore . Perhaps the biggest rift in the band is between former lead guitarist  Josh Farro  and lead singer  Haley Williams . After the band’s third record,  Brand New Eyes ,  Farro publicly expressed his opposition to the lyrical direction Williams was taking the band. I DON’T EVEN KNOW MYSELF AT ALL.  Like many bands in the pop-punk scene in the ‘00s, Paramore began their career with ties to the Christian Rock scene. Most of the bandmates grew up Christian, and it seemed natural to integrate their beliefs into the band’s lyrics. But by the band’s breakthrough record, their sophomor...