NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

In the summer of 2003, a rock station in LA started playing an inside cut from  The Ataris '  So Long, Astoria ,  an album built on the 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 , ...

Waking up and doom-scrolling rarely starts the day off right; however, sometimes an article so shocking will shake you to your core. “Oh my god,” my spine tingled at the color in my partner’s voice. As a member of the elder gay community (35+), I  had gone to bed early on Saturday, October 29, and my partner was playing phone games in bed. At about two on Sunday morning, I woke up and lazily checked Instagram. There were cute Halloween costumes, recipes, and seasonal lures online, and the world was set to enjoy a post-pandemic holiday of gathering together. For South Koreans, that celebration was happening as we were in bed in Itaewon, Seoul’s international district where young people in their teens and 20s gathered to listen to music and party. However, by 2 a.m., the party ground to a halt.   I CAN’T EXPLAIN IT. The Seoul Halloween crowd crush of 2022 killed 159 people and injured 196. About 100,000 people inundated Itaewon’s alleyways that evening. The hilly terrain and the...

As the Christian Rock releases from  Tooth & Nail  have been ebbing in the current music market, the new  Tyson Montsonbocker  record is no exception. Motsenbocker explained on the  Black Sheep  Podcast  that his third record,  Milk Teeth ,  moves away from spiritual subjects but the songs are more rooted in stories about people he knows and about growing up and realizing that life isn’t exactly what his parents and teacher told him life would be.  LEARNED THE BACKSEAT LESSONS IN A WHITE CHURCH VAN.  But steering away from Christian and spiritual themes Tyson Motsenbocker doesn’t necessarily divorce  Milk Teeth  from his Christian upbringing. Instead,  Milk Teeth  sounds something like  Phoebe Bridgers ,  Lucy Dacus ,  Julien Baker , or certain  Buzzfeed  writers who write wistfully about episodes from evangelical pasts. For Motsenbocker on  Milk Teeth,  that evangelical pas...

In 1999, Seether formed in Pretoria, South Africa, under the name Saron Gas. After a successful independent first album in their home country, American label Wind-Up Records became interested in the band, signing them. The band changed their name to avoid the association with sarin gas, a toxic chemical Nazis used in chemical warfare. The band chose Seether because of the 1994 song of the same name by Veruca Salt . Seether’s breakthrough in the United States came with the release of their album Disclaimer and their Active Rock single “ Fine Again .” Disclaimer also featured an acoustic version of “ Broken ,” which would become the band’s biggest pop hit.  I WANTED YOU TO KNOW, I LOVE THE WAY YOU LAUGH. In 1997, Alan and Diana Meltzer founded Wind-Up Records. The label’s first successful act was Creed with their 1997 record, My Own Prison . The label became a trendy label, churning out Hard and Active Rock hitmakers, including Finger Eleven , Seether, and Drowning Pool . The la...

Ennik Somi Douma , known professionally by her Korean name, Jeon Somi (저소미), was born in Canada to a German-Dutch Canadian and a Korean mother. Somi’s parents moved back to Korea when she was a toddler. Her father had met her mother while he was studying taekwondo in Seoul. The two married and moved to Canada until her mother experienced homesickness for her home country. Life in a mostly homogeneous country wasn’t easy for Somi, though. Like her father, she began studying taekwondo. She decided to study in an elementary school that allowed her to study the martial art. Being of mixed ethnicity, Somi experienced bullying and discrimination. Her dream of becoming a singer began after watching Rihanna ’s music video for “ Don’t Stop the Music .” When she was nine, she got into Korean pop, particularly admiring Park Bom of 2NE1 . YEAH, I’M SWEET AS SHIT. Jeon Somi had early exposure to appearing on television and performing. She made her first television appearance when she was four. KB...

In 2000, DC Talk announced their intermission, a hiatus that has outlasted their 15-year existence. According to Toby McKeehan , better known by the stage name TobyMac , Michael Tait and Kevin Max wanted to record solo projects and McKeehan wanted to pursue DC Talk. But then McKeehan was approached about recording the theme song for a film called Extreme Days . McKeehan crafted his debut solo record with that single , the genre-bending Momentum . The album was filled with hip-hop, rap-core, soul, and funk. Eventually gold-certified, Momentum started the career of the reluctant solo artist in DC Talk who became the most commercially successful of the trio. SOMETIMES I FEEL GOD IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT. In 1984, Rockwell released his number 2 Billboard Hot 100 single “ Somebody’s Watching Me .”  Rockwell, born Kennedy Gordy , wrote the track when his father, founder and CEO of Motown Records Berry Gordy , challenged him to write a chart-topping hit. The one-hit-wonder has oft...