NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

  " Wonderful Christmastime " was rated as the worst Christmas song by   Ultimate Classic Rock . Recorded when 37-year-old rock legend   Paul McCartney   was recording his polarizing second solo record, just before the disbanding of his second band,   Wings ,   McCartney II  was a synth-pop, new wave record in a time when former   Beatles   fans were yelling, "Stick to the classics." Recently, critics have come to understand and even praise   McCartney II  for its pioneering in electronic music. The intentionally simple lyrics help to draw attention to the synths and the overall Christmasy atmosphere of the song. THE CHILDREN'S CHOIR SINGS A SONG.  "Wonderful Christmastime" has been covered by many artists, including  Diana Ross ,  Demi Lovato ,  Hillary Duff ,  Jump5 ,  Chicago and Dolly Parton ,  Pentatonix ,  Family Force 5 ,  Jars of Clay ,  Eleventyseven , and so many other arti...

  We haven't heard a rock song from English Alternative-turned-pop act   Coldplay   since...ever, come to think of it. Even when the band was considered cool in the early '00s, they weren't exactly known for distorted guitars or thundering bass. And years of refining their sound in a time when rock music's cultural impact retracted into the underground solidified Coldplay as the 21st century's definition of pop-rock. But in 2019, the band decided to break with their established sound and put out something a little more experimental, a two-disc record titled   Everyday Life .   The album was released with only three sparsely promoted singles and no planned tour to support the record, which didn't really matter since all tour plans would be canceled early the next year, anyway. THERE'S A MAN WHO SWEARS HE'S GOD.  Coldplay's previous album,  Music of the Spheres ,  doesn't hold to a set genre. Lead singer  Chris Martin  has called the ...

My musical history started with hymns and classical music playing in the house, and sometimes classic and alternative rock in the garage. After going back to church, my mom stopped listening to secular music, well  contemporary secular music,  and tried to convince me that rock music was evil when I started liking the sound of it. Little by little, she started listening to modern music--first CCM, especially  Michael W. Smith 's  This Is Your Time   album because of the bagpipes. Then she started listening to music she grew up with, the soundtrack to her teenage rebellion. These were the smooth pop songs of  Hall & Oats  and  Elton John  and some rock bands like  Boston  and  Journey . MY MISSIONARIES IN A FOREIGN FIELD.  All of these songs' artists could be heard on local light rock radio stations along with contemporary hits by  Kelly Clarkson ,  Train , and of course  Coldplay . When my mom heard " Vi...

Alex Warren was nine years old when his father died of terminal kidney cancer. Before his passing, Warren’s dad left Alex with a love for music. Alex’s father bought his son a Fender guitar and introduced him to the music ‘90s and ‘00s groups such as Coldplay , Train , and Linkin Park . His mother’s alcoholism after his father’s death caused Alex to leave home as a teenager, even sleeping in a friend’s car for a time. Alex pursued music in the age of YouTube , Instagram , and TikTok . In 2019, he was a founding member of a teen TikTok collective called The Hype House . In 2021, he began releasing music. His first single, “ One More I Love You ” dealt with his father’s death. Warren signed to Atlantic Records in 2022 and has released music steadily while creating other content on YouTube and TikTok. THEN YOUR SHADOW GROWS LONGER ON THE GROUND. Yesterday, Alex Warren announced his debut album will be released on September 27th. You’ll Be Alright Kid (Chapter 1) will feature ten tracks...

I was first introduced to  Tove Lo  when the Swedish singer appeared on  Coldplay 's colorful, ebullient record,  A Headful of Dreams . Track five's duet, " Fun ," is one of the more subdued tracks on the record. Given that my mom and even my grand-mother love  A Headful of Dreams,   I assumed that Tove Lo was also a "safe for mom" artist. It turns out that Tove Lo is a pretty sexual artist, known for flashing her breasts in concert, which to be fair, isn't as big of a deal for her European audiences. WILL MY OBSESSION PLEASE DIE.   Ebba Tove Elsa Nilsson , better known as Tove Lo, released her fifth record,  Dirt Femme ,   last year. Unlike her previous records, Lo released  Dirt Femme  independently on her own label, Pretty Swede Records . The album deals with the singer's growth over the years and her marriage to Charlie Twaddle. But the liberated singer lays down some ground rules for her marriage in the second tr...

Pride month is coming to a close. Today, I’m posting the Apple Music edition of my pride playlist. Kicking off this edition is Stand Atlantic with the opening track on their 2020 album Pink Elephant , “ Like That .” To me this year Pride is a celebration of the way I am. I’m not against flamboyance and I think that there are years that are suited for grand celebrations. But this year, when I feel like so many people cannot understand that people like me exist, I feel like it’s important sometimes to go back to the basic explanation. That’s why I included songs like Coldplay ’s “ People of the Pride ” and Depeche Mode ’s “ People Are People .” I hope you had a great Pride month that you celebrated in your own way.  

  Fireflight became a massive Christian Rock band in 2006 when their video for the single “ You Decide ,” which featured Josh Brown of the band Day of Fire , became the most-requested video on TVU that year. The band debuted on Flicker Records after touring for years after being founded by husband and wife Glenn and Wendy Drennen in 1999. Glenn was the guitarist and Wendy the bassist of the band, and she would become the backing vocalist when the band added Dawn Michele as the group’s lead singer. The band followed up the runaway success of their debut album The Healing of Harms with Unbreakable . While Unbreakable was a success for the band, the members talked about the difficulty of making their follow-up album. Dawn Michele told Stars & Stripes making the record was “one of the most difficult times in our lives.” IT STARTS TONIGHT. Just as ForeFront Records was in search of the “more Christian” alternative to successful Christian-adjacent acts, Flicker Records sign...

Back in 2010, we learned that yes, a pickle can get more likes than  Nickelback , a band that had become the most hated  "butt rock"  band in the mid-'00s. In fact, the conclusions of the social media study found that a pickle had more likes than Oprah Winfrey or other beloved figures. It turns out that internet users' hate outweighs Internet love, or the terrible outweighs the good. In 2014, the most hated rock band would become  U2  after their release of  Songs of Innocence   was forced into every  iTunes user's library. People tried everything to scrub the songs from their shuffle. Today, people have mostly forgotten about Nickelback, and Apple Music no longer comes standard with that U2 album, so people have other musical axes to grind. Justin Bieber has grown up and is no longer blaring in our cultural continuousness. So who is the most hated band these days? After the 2019 Super Bowl,   Maroon 5 , for taking to the stage when the NFL w...