NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

Hurry Up, We're Dreaming contain's M83 's biggest hit, " Midnight City ." Everything on Hurry Up, is calculated to give listeners, including M83's sole member Anthony Gonzalez, the maximum amount of nostalgia. After a song-length, mood-setting intro, "Midnight City" builds on a riff for three minutes before climaxing in a saxophone solo, unheard in most music since 1988.* Track three, "Reunion," builds on layers of guitars and harmonies by one singer. This guitar-based M83 is a bit rare in their catalogue, as most of M83 is programing in synthesizers with touches of guitar here and there. But a guitar-based track is no-less nostalgic. It's that '80s chord progression heard in New Wave rockers and glam hair metal that sounded so cool to a young Gonzalez, listening to music in his bedroom growing up that bleeds into this song. The lyrics beg for a reunion with a loved one who has gone away.  A NEVER-ENDING DANCE. For today's post

In October of last year, The War on Drugs returned after four years with their critically-acclaimed album, I Don't Live Here Anymore . The title track and lead single features indie pop group Lucius as backing vocals on the chorus.  Like their previous works, such as  A Deeper Understanding  (2017) and    Lost in the Dream   (2014),  The War on Drugs is able to play two chords back to back for six minutes and create a song that you never want to end. Those two chords create a warm cadence that's like a bonfire on a cold fall night. And that's reason enough to curl up with a blanket and enjoy The War on Drugs all day long. I NEED A CHANCE TO BE REBORN.  However, unlike their previous works, today's song " I Don't Live Here Anymore ," to me, sounds like an anachronistic '80s or early '90s hit. It's kind of like what Mic the Snare said about " Blinding Lights ": "It's just like that one song. Uh? Which one?" Is it "

Earlier this year, I talked about Carly Rae Jepsen 's E-MO-TION   as an album I could listen to without skipping a track, which is quite a feat for a 12-track regular edition, 15-track deluxe edition. However, when I first started listening to the album, I couldn't stand one track. A lot of listeners really, really, really couldn't stand the lead single, " I Really Like You " but I found the track enduring and quite in-line with the singer's debut single, " Call Me Maybe ." Tracks in the middle of Jepsen's third record changed things up with maximalist '80s nostalgia: funky bass-lines, larger-than-life drums, and synths to fill in the atmosphere surrounding Jepsen's crisp vocals. SO TIRED OF HEARIN' ALL YOUR BOY PROBLEMS . Enlisting a slew of Swedish songwriters and producers; listening to Robyn , Cyndi Lauper , Prince , and Kylie Minogue for inspiration; and collaborating with the HAIM sisters, Sia , her band, and long-term collabo

Some music critics have called this the song of the 21st century. If you're sick of this song, I don't blame you. If you're from Canada, you got an extra dose of Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe," when it charted in October of 2011 and hit number 1 in February, several weeks before it charted in America. It was the song of the summer of 2012, spending 9 weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100, and it was rated as the second most popular song of the year, behind Gotye and Kimbra's "Somebody That I Used to Know." We have to thank Justin Bieber for tweeting about this song when he heard it while touring in Canada. Personally, I do get sick of songs, but I have never gotten sick of this catchy disco-infused track. It's  maybe my guiltiest of pleasures. Whenever I hear it, it makes my day, and it would have been my song of the day when I heard my students singing the song in class, but another ear-worm, " Careless Whisper " beat it out. The mo

Carly Rae Jepsen is tattooed in the history of bubblegum pop for "The Song of the Summer" of 2012, "Call Me Maybe." Jepsen hasn't matched the success of "Maybe," but she keeps making music, and her fans adore her. I wrote back in January about her song " Run Away with Me" and how much her album Emotion meant to me in 2015. And while most people are sick of "Call Me Maybe," it always makes me think about Arrested Development  where George Michael can't help his feelings for his cousin Maeby Funke, but that's a post for another day. So to end a particularly streak of guilty pleasure songs, why not talk about the theme of Fuller House , sung by Carly Rae Jepsen? WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO PREDICTABILITY? Along with Alf and The Cosby Show, Full House is one of my earliest TV memories. First airing in September of 1987 when I was a mere three months old, Full House is a show I haven't rewatched as an adult, but there is certainl

A meme is a piece of cultural information that is spread through copying and imitation. These days we know memes mostly as the funny or political pictures people post online. However, by definition, Gotye 's 2011 hit, " Somebody That I Used to Know " is on the level of musical meme-hood. The mega hit which has charted in the top songs of the decade, has left the artist, though, as a one-hit wonder. Gotye has yet to release a follow up record to Making Mirrors , but somehow no one can forget this song. It's been covered, remixed, and parodied all over the Internet, and listeners still can't get enough. Last year, YouTuber Hildegard von Blingin' released a " bardcore " version of the song. Bardcore is a style of music imitating Medieval/Renaissance music, using older instruments and often adapting lyrics to sound more Chaucerian. While the line "send a wagon for thy minstrel and refuse my letters" didn't quite beat the synth wave remix b

This album, though... I can listen to it from start to finish without skipping a track. This feels like a confession. At some point I'll probably make a case for " Call Me Maybe ," which I still haven't gotten sick of, but for today, let's enjoy this banger, the first track on Carly Rae Jepsen's finest album. Starting with an almost kazoo-sounding saxophone riff--though not strange at all--which plays under the vocals when Carly cuts to the chorus. Somehow I happened to find this album while riding on a bus one weekend exploring something new. This was in 2016 when I lived on campus of my school, so every weekend for my sanity I had to go on an adventure. This meant lots of time on the rural-to-city bus. I listened to a lot of music while on the bus and waiting to transfer. At this point I spent quite a few weekends looking for something new whether it was coffee houses, interesting restaurants, different areas of town, new places to watch the flowers bloom o