NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

I've broken several traditions I've established with my blog. Many of my songs don't feel like they fit in with a particular season. This year, I didn't post U2 's " New Year's Day " on January 1.  But one tradition that lives on this year is celebrating Cities Day. On February 20, 2007, Anberlin released what many fans claim as their masterpiece, their third album Cities. Today, brush your forelocks aside, and let's explore the album track-by-track!  1. ( Début ). For about a minute and a half, Anberlin introduces us to a dark world in an instrumental composed of city sound effects and noisy guitars. The song reminds me of  Jerry Martin 's  Sim City 4   soundtrack. (Début) leads into " Godspeed ." 2. " Godspeed " is a pretty jarring song to follow any track, but following yesterday's sleepy song is especially going to give my listeners a slap in the face. "Godspeed" is a cautionary tale about the rock star li

On the  first season of the  Labeled Podcast ,  Aaron Marsh  talked about his writing process for  Copeland 's debut album,  Beneath Medicine Tree . In early 2019, he returned to the podcast to talk about the band’s latest album,  Blushing . If most listeners casually picked up the two records, forgivably, they'd assume they were listening to different bands.  Beneath  is a guitar-driven product of late '90s/early '00s emo rock. The album has mostly an optimistic tone.  Blushing  is a dark electronic-influenced album with darker lyrics. Marsh told  Labeled  host  Matt Carter  that rather than writing lyrics that are easily pinned to real people, like his ex-girlfriend Paula (in the song " When Paula Sparks ") he doesn't "want to write songs about [his] private life." He says, instead, "I want to write poetic songs about my private life." The band's fourth album,  You Are My Sunshine ,  does just that. Listeners don't know the

The Vanguard Room is a recording studio in Lakeland, Florida, run by Aaron Marsh , best known for his work with Copeland . Besides recording Copeland, Marsh has recorded and produced artists such as Anberlin , This Wild Life , Anchor & Braille , The Myriad , and many others. In 2019, The Vanguard Room released the album, A Lakeland Christmas, Vol. 1 , a project funded by Kickstarter . The ten-track record features local artists from Lakeland covering Christmas tunes. None of the artists featured have a large streaming following, but the Aaron-Marsh-produced record is beautiful nonetheless. Today, we'll look at the John Denver song " Christmas for Cowboys " performed by Dan Sharrett of nora's breakfast club , originally from Denver's Rocky Mountain Christmas album. BACK IN THE CITY, THEY’VE GOT DIFFERENT WAYS--FOOTBALL, EGGNOG, AND CHRISTMAS PARADES. Starting in about October, I started listening to Spotify’s country playlists. It’s a genre that I have to b

Hawk Nelson released two Christmas EPs in the earlier part of their career, starting with 2005’s Gloria . The four-song EP featured two original songs with familiar choruses and two covers--the sacred “ I Heard the Bells ” and the secular “ Last Chrismas .” The original songs, “ Alleluia ” and “ Gloria ” were also divided into sacred and secular. While all of the songs on the EP are interpreted with a mid-'00s emotion, the two original songs are especially emotionally charged. “Alleluia” is a song about the nativity that uses the tune of a liturgical chant for the chorus. “Gloria,” on the other hand is a cheesy Christmas love song that talks about Santa giving the speaker a girl for Christmas named Gloria. Singer Jason Dunn adds a lot of emotion into the first verse, which feels strange given that the song can’t be that serious. The song ultimately interpolates the chorus of the French carol, “ Angels We Have Heard on High ,” because the girl that the speaker wants for Christmas

  It was a rainy summer break during my Freshman year of college. I was still driving my '91 Toyota Corolla, and that was the summer that I binged the first three  Copeland  albums. It started with 2003's  Beneath Medicine Tree ,  the indie/rock concept album about love and loss. About a month later I bought, 2005's  In Motion ,  which was a little more musically diverse. The next year's  Eat, Sleep, Repeat ,  was closer to musical theater than rock. Each Copeland album had its own unique mood. Today's song, " Coffee ," comes from  Beneath Medicine Tree,  which is the most immature of the Copeland albums. Lyricist and singer  Aaron Marsh  was fine-tuning his craft at writing sappy love songs, and this album's lyrics tended to be a little too over the top. The song " Coffee " appears as track 9, with a story as cliche as they get--two small-town kids falling in love while talking all night at the diner. The brief brush drum solo toward the end

  The list of albums turning 20 this year makes me feel really, really old. Earlier this week, I covered the youth group classic The Beautiful Letdown . Anberlin released their debut record Blueprints for the Black Market , which also made a huge impact on my teenage life. But then there were albums that came out that year that I didn’t listen to until later. I had known Copeland from their first low-budget video “ Walking Downtown ,” but it wasn’t until their third record, Eat, Sleep, Repeat , that I started listening to the band. The spring of ‘06 when I was about to graduate from high school I started buying Copeland’s CDs, picking them up on discount if I could from Best Buy. The first two records were perfect late spring/summer listening.  I AM STARVED FOR HER ATTENTION . Copeland’s Beneath Medicine Tree has the most delicate lyrics of all Copeland records. The loose concept of the album deals with the death of lead singer Aaron Marsh ’s grandmother and the hospitalization of h

Every band tackled the Covid-19 pandemic in different ways. Many bands are selling live-stream tickets. Some have decided to give free concerts on social networking. Cleared from the time-consuming task of driving across the country, setting up equipment, and tearing down only to drive to the next city, musicians have been able to produce music in new ways. It doesn't hurt that all of their equipment and professional microphones are in their basements. Two years ago,  Emery  produced a show on their  Twitch channel , in which they played their songs. They often had guest vocalists from other bands, such as  Hawthorne Heights ,  Silverstein , and  Dave Elkins   of  Mae . Emery reimagined some of their songs and the guest vocalist's band's songs too. The collaboration of " Embers and Envelopes " was a beautifully updated take on Mae's first single.  TO WRITE THIS DOWN AS MEANS TO RECONCILE . The word "reconcile" is an awkward term to put in a song. But