NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

  I'm taking a break from writing this week and just delivering playlists. I don't have any parasocial commentary on  NewJeans . I don't know much about this group of teenagers and feel too old to relate to it. Th eir massive 2023 hit " Super Shy " gained critical acclaim around the world and was shortlisted by many critics as a favorite song of the year. I nstead, today, we're looking at the big songs from the last two years and songs that might be big this year.  NewJeans has not yet released a song in 2024. Their output in 2023 was impressive. But I thought I would go back to where it all started in posting my  Spotify edition of  2024+, with their song " Attention . "   The 2022 song fits my requirements for songs released within the past two years.  The Apple Music edition will come later.  I will also reveal my favorite song from last year at the post's end! 1. “ Nothing More ” by Anberlin . I was iffy on the latest Anberlin EP, Convinc

Sometimes love feels like work. Sometimes conflicts aren’t so easily resolved. I once heard a saying on a podcast from a marital counselor: “Do you want to be right or do you want to stay married?” I’ve themed many of my songs for this month around love as a kind of cheesy Hallmark countdown to Valentine’s Day—my thirteen-year-old self doesn’t understand me. Today, though, we’re focusing on the hard times, the fights and the make ups. Here’s the Apple Music Edition of a playlist I made two years ago. Enjoy it with some dark chocolate. It’s going to be a long night on the couch.  Listen on Apple Music

This Is All I Know is the final album by Number One Gun . The band from Chico, California, became one member-- Jeff Schneeweis —in 2007 on the band’s The North Pole Project . The other members went on to form the band Surrogate and work with other bands such as Emery .  There was a lot of controversy surrounding Number One Gun's last album, related to the late fulfillment of crowd-funding. Some backers for the 2014 album claimed as of 2021 they hadn’t received what they had been promised. After releasing This Is All I Know, Schneeweis declared that Number One Gun finished and started releasing music under the moniker Lael . This Is All I Know is the end of the Christian Rock era. HEAVY IS UPON US. Just as Anberlin had announced their farewell in 2014, several other bands called it quits. In 2017 the band Yellowcard , along with Anberlin drummer Nathan Young, recorded their final album and gave their farewell tour. After Anberlin ended, Stephen Christian was busy first in Nash

This Is All I Know is the final album by Number One Gun . The band from Chico, California, became one member-- Jeff Schneeweis —in 2007 on the band’s The North Pole Project . The other members went on to form the band Surrogate and work with other bands such as Emery .  There was a lot of controversy surrounding Number One Gun's last album, related to the late fulfillment of crowdfunding. Some backers for the 2014 album claimed as of 2021 they hadn’t received what they had been promised. After releasing This Is All I Know, Schneeweis declared that Number One Gun finished and started releasing music under the moniker Lael . This Is All I Know is the end of a Christian Rock era: a band that stuck around even though they never particularly stood out as anyone’s favorite band. HEAVY IS UPON US. Just as Anberlin had announced their farewell in 2014, several other bands called it quits. In 2017 the band Yellowcard , along with Anberlin drummer Nathan Young, recorded their final albu

  " Cadence " was the third single from  Anberlin . Vocalist  Stephen Christian  talks about the band overhearing him playing the song on an acoustic guitar one day. Thinking the song was too mellow for Anberlin, he thought the song would be better suited for his solo project,  Anchor & Braille , but t he band loved the song and placed it as the penultimate track on their debut record,  Blueprints for the Black Market .  The song is inspired by Christian's time in college when he roomed with his brother, Paul. The brothers talked about life, philosophy, relationships, and God, and the song was a culmination of those late-night conversations. The song features some of the best drumming on the record. Before the band's  livestream  of the album  Nathan Young , who was fifteen at the time of recording  Blueprints,  tells a story about how producer  Aaron Sprinkle 's brother  Jesse , drummer of  Poor Old Lu  and later  Demon Hunter , was brought in to record drums

Last month, The Japanese House released their long-anticipated follow-up album to 2019's Good at Falling . The solo project of Amber Mary Bain , The Japanese House collaborated with a number of musicians from Bon Iver 's Justin Vernon and The 1975 's Maty Healy and George Daniel to MUNA and Charli XCX on their latest project, In the End, It Always Does . The English singer-songwriter Amber Bain offers a hybrid between the acoustic and highly processed, like if Bon Iver recorded and produced Joni Mitchell. It's simple. It's zen. It's nice music for a rainy or slow humid summer day. I'M STILL LOOKING OUT FOR ME. Before releasing In the End, It Always Does, The Japanese House released the lead single, " Boyhood ." The instrumental direction of In the End, It Always Does feels less processed than The Japanese House's earlier work. Singer Amber Bain had talked about using The Japanese House to mask the person behind the music. I've written

  We haven’t talked about the latest Anberlin EP, Silverline . Last summer, the band released their first project since 2014’s supposed-to-be swan song, Lowborn . This time, Anberlin has partnered with Equal Vision Records , rather than with their old family at Tooth & Nail . Rather than releasing a full-length record, the band decided to release it in two parts, Silverline and Convicted , which will arrive at the end of this month. On an episode of Lead Singer Syndrome , Stephen Christian said that the band had decided to release the album in two parts because he “didn’t understand the music industry these days.”  YOU KEEP GETTING CLOSER BUT YOU’RE SO DISTANT INSIDE. Anberlin isn’t the first band to release their albums as a series of EPs. When Mae became an independent artist, they released their ( m)orning , ( a)fternoon , and ( e)vening , which later combined into ( m)(a)(e) . Relient K released their K…Is for Karaoke record in two parts. Acceptance ’s latest record was re

Today, we're listening to Tension by Anchor & Braille . Years ago, I wanted to hear Stephen Christian as a pop singer. I heard his vocal potential in the middle of Anberlin 's hardest rock. There were glimpses even on songs like " The Feel Good Drag ," showing that Christian wasn't just a baritone grunge singer. When Christian first released music under Anchor & Braille, the music was more acoustic indie on Felt , but started to gravitate to pop music. Anberlin, too, also released poppier music on albums like Vital . But 2016 saw Anchor & Braille releasing an electronic pop record in the vein of M83 and Washed Out  on Songs for the Late Night Drive Home .  1. " No Ordinary ."  Anchor & Braille's fourth record, Tension, continues Stephen Christian in the pop vein. The album's opener is a beautiful '80s/'90s-styled love song about not being able to sleep so enamored by the person that you love. 2. " Black Sea "