NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

If you make a list of the most iconic singer-songwriters, the list would include all of  Ed Sheeran 's influences. In fact, many would have had no problem putting Ed Sheeran on that list, if it weren't for his huge mainstream pop hit " Shape of You ." If it weren't for the 2017 song, Ed Sheeran would still have been a driving force in the music industry, penning verses for pop artists and singing semi-acoustic ballads and rapping a few bars here and there. Some listeners are still scarred from the repetitive chorus with its contrived masculine rhyme, so much so that they would prefer not to hear the song's follow up. It's unfortunate enough that I couldn't take songs like " Perfect " or " Castle on the Hill " seriously. And when Ed Sheeran announced that he was back in June of last year, I was less than thrilled. But in September, thanks to musical algorithms, AppleMusic played " Shivers " when playing similar songs to  Ja

  I was wrong about twenty one pilots , and the reason I'm willing to admit that is after I spent time with their album released last year, Scaled and Icy , I realized that this duo was much more than who I thought they were.   Mostly gone--but not entirely--are the emo rapping and trap beats that turned me off of the group when they debuted. The lyrics on Scaled and Icy, though, are emotional, and singer Tyler Joseph masterfully weaves clichés, esoteric messages for fans, current lingo, and new turns of phrase all to a funky piano/guitar groove. Scaled and Icy is in the vein of Paramore 's After Laughter , on the surface it's fun and light-hearted, but when you spend a little time with the lyrics, you're bound to discover a surprising depth. THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH THIS. I was thinking about albums of the year and how last year I didn't seem to have one. In 2019 I was obsessed with Mike Mains & the Branches ' When We Were in Love . And although I di