NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

When your first American hit is the second biggest song of the year, how do you follow that up? When your signature song has been called bubblegum and immature, how do you change your image to show that you're an adult with adult relationships, without getting X-rated? These were two questions  Carly Rae Jepsen  answered in her follow up to  Kiss   in  E-MO-TION .  If those two questions were on the interview, Jespsen would have the job on the merits of her 2015 effort. And as I enter the fifth year of my playlists and the third year of the blog, there are certain perennial favorites that show up maybe too often for some. I chose “ Run Away with Me ” at the beginning of the year for four of those years because of the fresh renewal this song gives me as my winter vacation begins. YOU’RE STUCK IN MY HEAD, STUCK IN MY HEART, STUCK IN MY BODY.  Sure, if your introduction to  E-MO-TION  was the first single " I Really Like You " turned you off as another " Call Me Maybe &

  Coming to the end of the year, it's time to remember some of the musical highlights of 2022. I listened to a lot of music this year and maybe more new music than last year. But there certainly were albums that slipped under the radar. I had every intention of digging into  The Weeknd 's  Dawn FM   , but somehow I was never in that dark of a mood to resonate with the characteristics of that record. Today, I'm going to reveal my controversial list. Enjoy! #10 . The Loneliest Time  by Carly Rae Jepsen . The latest from the " Call Me Maybe " singer is a record that isn't immediately catchy and could easily fall between the cracks of all the big releases of this year. The diverse singles showed different camera angles of a maturing pop singer who has solidified her status in music nerd-dom and gay music listeners alike. And with her first explicit labeled song, Jepsen is distancing herself from former tween-friendly aesthetic. I'm sure next year I'll be d

  Christopher Michael Taylor, better known as Sohn , is an English singer, songwriter, and producer. The London-born musician moved to Vienna in 2007, signed to the British record label, 4AD , and released his debut record Tremors in 2014. The Guardian gave the record a mixed review, criticizing the singer's flare for the dramatic on certain songs, particularly on the track " Paralysed ," but  praising Sohn's musicality. SOMEBODY BETTER LET ME KNOW MY NAME. The minimal sounds of Sohn's Tremors can start to usher in winter. The first single " Artifice " is the most exciting the album gets, and thus stands out on the album. Sohn has released three LPs, including this year's Trust, but his listenership is only at about 460,000 a month on Spotify. Before releasing Tremors, Sohn remixed Lana Del Rey 's " Ride ," and he has produced remix tracks for The Weeknd and Honne . The vocals on Tremors are vaguely reminiscent of early Fleet Foxes

We're a less than a fortnight away from both Taylor Swift 's Midnights and  Carly Rae Jepsen 's upcoming release of her record  The Loneliest Time . Yesterday, Jepsen released the disco-infused ballad title track from the record, a collaboration with LGBTQ+ legendary singer Rufus Wainwright leading up to album's release. I didn't immediately love the song like " Beach House " and " Talking to Yourself ," but it seems that The Loneliest Season is shaping up to be a cohesive record about loneliness; perhaps more cohesive than her previous record,  Dedicated,  which dealt with crushes, being in relationships, breaking up, and sex.   WHERE THIS GOES, HOW THIS GOES.  " Happy Not Knowing " is the sixth track on Carly Rae Jepsen's 2019 record  Dedicated. Listening back to the record puts me back in 2019. Everyone was talking about how great it was before Covid changed everything, but do we really remember? I remember everything feeling u

We’ve been waiting for a new full-length record from the teen pop queen Carly Rae Jepsen since 2019’s Dedicated or 2020’s Dedicated Side B if you consider a b-sides record a canonical release. Coming on October 21st is The Loneliest Time , Carly Rae Jepsen’s fifth studio record. “ Talking to Yourself ” is the third single from the record, following the light, breezy “ Western Wind ” and the comedically catchy late-summer hit “ Beach House .”  YOU WERE NEVER JUST MISERABLE. In 2022, Carly Rae Jepsen released the funny holiday single, “ It’s Not Christmas Till Somebody Cries ,” talking about the mixed bag that being around the ones you love brings. It seems that The Loneliest Time builds on that 2020 single’s theme.   Given Jepsen’s release date leading up to the holiday season and the album artwork featuring what looks like harvest decorations, the album seems at least partially referring to compounding feelings of loneliness from wanting to meet the one and being single around frien

An understated track on Carly Rae Jepsen 's seminal record E-MO-TION , " Let's Get Lost " comes to life in Jepsen's concerts. While most solo artists work with a revolving set of musicians, Jepsen's core band has stayed fairly consistent, with guitarist and fellow songwriter Tavish Crowe , drummer Nik Pesut , and keyboardist Jarod Manierka remaining in her band since 2010 and bassist Adam Siska staying in the band for ten years until 2020.  I WAS NEVER ONE TO PUT MY TRUST IN SOMEONE ELSE COMPLETELY. In June when I was writing about Carly Rae Jepsen as the foundation of my Pride playlist , I listened to the B-Side Chicks podcast that described one of her concerts. Before going to the concert, he wondered who would be attending a Carly Rae Jepsen concert. Would it be tweens? The mostly clean bubblegum lyrics of the " Call Me Maybe " singer could warrant a younger audience. Instead, the podcaster discovers a venue filled with incredibly "hot d

The first single from Ariana Grande 's second record, My Everything ,  in 2014, " Problem " established Grande as a pop power force. Grande certainly has talent. While appearing in the Nickelodeon teen show Victorious , Grande uploaded covers to her YouTube channel , which landed her a deal with Republic Records in 2011. Her debut record, Yours Truly , was released in 2013 and featured a few modest-charting hits. Listeners could feel a similarity with Mariah Carey from Yours Truly, and for some reason, Republic Records went bigger with Grande's follow up, My Everything, the next year. EVEN THOUGH I HATE YA, I WANNA LOVE YA. Rock bands typically have one producer for an entire record. The goal is to produce a cohesive record that is to be enjoyed in one play. Pop records used to be produced like this, and sometimes indie and major pop albums still are. But in order to get a hit, record labels often turn to multiple hitmakers to diversify a pop record. Ariana Grande&

In 2019, Carly Rae Jepsen released her fourth studio record, Dedicated . But the fifteen songs that made it onto the standard edition of the album were nowhere near the amount of songs the surprisingly prolific songwriter wrote for the album. Jepsen revealed that she wrote over 200 songs during the two album cycles of E-M0-TION   and Dedicated. In an interview with Vox , Jepsen said that she turns to her friends and family with whom she has listening parties where she "feeds them and gives them copious amounts of wine so that they have opinions about the music." While many of these songs will never be released, in the tradition Jepsen set with E-MO-TION, she released a B-sides record for Dedicated, titled Dedicated Side B.   HE WAS BORN IN VEGAS. Years ago, I was impressed when I heard that a band wrote 70, 100, 200, etc. songs for a record. Years later, through listening to more and more interviews, I found out that the myth was debunked. Several bands have said that they h

Formed when the lead singer of Korean rock band Eastern Sidekick 's lead singer Oh Ju Hwan (오주환) started working with Zee (지) of From the Airport to produce a synth-based solo project, ADOY the project quickly turned into band with drummer Zozo (조조 or Cho Sang Yeon/ 조상연) and Ju Hwan's high school friend Jang Da Young (장다영) joining the band. In an interview with Arirang  (see below), Ju Hwan explains that the band got the name for the band by reversing the letters of his cat Yoda's name, hence ADOY is simply Yoda backwards. He goes on to explain that Yoda played a pivotal role in determining the band's sound.   ALL THE COLORS LOOK BACK. ADOY formed in 2016 and their  debut EP  Catnip   was released in 2017. The album's name relates to the role that Yoda played in helping the band determine their sound. When the band wrote their first songs, they determined which songs would go on the album by how Ju Hwan's cat Yoda responded to those songs. If Yoda liked the s

  After her major breakthrough hit, " Lights " in 2010, Ellie Goulding became an international star. The UK singer has had a slew of hits following "Lights." In her two singles with Calvin Harris , " I Need Your Love " and " Outside ," Goulding shows her radiance, singing bright EDM. While "Lights" remains her biggest Hot 100 hit, Goulding's second biggest song was released prior to her third record Delirium . While that song appears as track 9 on the eclectic record, it was the film Fifty Shades of Grey that " Love Me Like You Do " is associated with, not Delirium.  WAIT, I COULD HAVE REALLY LIKED YOU.  In 2015, I thought Delirium was a great record, on par with Carly Rae Jepsen 's Emotion . But   in the years since its release, I certainly haven't revisited Delirium as much as Emotion. Both records are long, but Emotion seems more cohesive and in retrospect. Delirium feels long listening to it in 2022. From th

Following up  E-MO-TION nearly four years later,  Dedicated sees Carly Rae Jepsen evolving as a singer and artist. The tracks on Dedicated are meant for dancing, perhaps even more than the singers two previous blockbuster albums, E-MO-TION and Kiss .  Maturing into often more sexual lyrics, Jepsen sings about adult topics in a mature way on  Dedicated. The album spawn five singles, including today's song " Too Much ," which Jepsen wrote about a girl at a party whose boyfriend criticized her for getting into dancing "too much."Jespsen writes "Too Much" as almost an anthem of pride, disclosing before she takes on a new boyfriend that she has an excessive streak and that if he should enter a relationship with her, he should know that. A FIRE IN RAINY SEASON. With Jepsen's song about full disclosure, "Too Much" leads the beginning of our Pride Playlist 2022, a playlist of 30 songs celebrating LGBTQ+ Pride month. The songs on this playlist