NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

There are not many songs that get the promotional treatment that Harry Styles ' " Adore You " received when Columbia Records released the second single from Fine Line   in 2019. Before the single was released, a Twitter page title "@visitedora" appeared.  Then a website for the fictional tourist island appeared, though it wasn't advertised as a fictional location. There was no place to book a ticket and Google Maps wasn't able to find the location.  WOULD YOU BELIEVE IT? Harry Styles released a trailer for "Adore You" on December 2, 2019 and then dropped the single and music video on December 6. In the music video, Styles treats viewers to a storytelling video about a boy (played by Styles) who is rejected by the residents of the small island, Edora. The boy befriends a magical fish, saving the fish from a fish market. Along the way, the "Adore You" music video introduces viewers to a number of colorful characters who live on the g...

Last year, Harry Styles released his third album, Harry's House . Last month, I talked about the former One Direction 's second album, his musical dark horse Fine Line . I've listened to this album a lot--or at least started listening to it a lot--in hopes that it will make me fall in love with it similar to how I fell in love with Fine Line. While I have started to pick up on the musical nuance in this record, I still think that Fine Line is superior. But here's a house for the tracks that I talk about on this record. I’ll furnish the house with more information as it is later!   1. " Music for a Sushi Restaurant " kicks the album off in the best way possible. I've heard so many music snobs slam this song as a soundtrack to shopping at Target , and that's partially true. It's "music for whatever you want." The somewhat shallow lyrics about the speaker's oral fixations set a tone for the album's lyrical depth. Things don't g...

Pop is having an incredible year. Starting out with Sam Smith 's genre- (and gender) blending Gloria to this month's yacht-rock inspired The Album by Jonas Brothers , what I once would consider guilty pleasures I would argue now rival the musical staples of my hipster past. The year isn't even half over, and I still haven't digested many of the albums that have come out. But if the two singles, " Heaven " and " Meltdown ," Niall Horan  released before his rumored June release of The Show  have any bearing on the upcoming album, I'll be adding this to my list of albums that completely blindsided me with awesomeness.  WHEN IT ALL MELTS DOWN, I'LL BE THERE. These days, I've been listening to Spotify's curated playlists at work. "Meltdown" is a song that has been added to several of the new hits playlists, so I started hearing it quite often. I thought the song was catchy, but it initially got lost with the other tons of songs...

Today we finally do it. We look at Harry Styles ' Fine Line track by track. So far, I've published three posts about Styles' 2019 record. This record set expectations high for last year's Harry's House , which has a higher Meta Critic rating but has also been criticized for its bi-polar nature between the beginning and ending of the record. I think that the dynamics on Fine Line are more evenly dispersed. To compare the two albums, I was surprised by the catchiness  and musicality of Fine Line, beginning my listening experience with Styles both unaware of his previous album and One Direction career and heavily biased against the former boy band singer--I've come around to both his eponymous record and One Direction career. Listening to  Harry's House, however, I brought my expectation from listening to Fine Line , but felt disappointed by the derivative sounds that the artist often used in One Direction. Keeping that in mind, let's appreciate Fine Li...

I've written a lot about Harry Styles since I discovered his talent on " Sunflower, Vol. 6 " last August. Whereas Fine Line was kind of a sleeper hit record for me I was expecting a lot from Harry's House . In some ways, the record met my expectations, creating an old-time vibe that borrows from obscure Japanese jazz records and seventies singer-songwriters like Joni Mitchell who even wrote a song titled " Harry's House / Centerpiece " on her 1975 record The Hissing of Summer Lawns .  In other ways, the record feels a bit haphazard, blending the '80s sound of " As It Was " with '70s folk and disco. There's certainly a mood of the record, but it's not always the mood I'm in. THERE'S A HAZE ON THE HORIZON, BABE. . Take for example the second track and second single " Late Night Talking ." On the album, " Music for a Sushi Restaurant " sets up a tangy, tasty concoction of sounds. Lyrically, it's ...

Released as a single in May of 2020, the second track on Harry Styles ' Fine Line , " Watermelon Sugar " was bound to be a hit. The song was saved as the fourth single from Fine Line after the more wintery singles, " Lights Up ," " Adore You ," and " Falling ." Fine Line was already massive before "Watermelon Sugar." It currently holds the record for the biggest sales week of a solo male British singer. And while Styles'  rock-influenced eponymous first solo record also topped Billboard 's album sales , Fine Line  packs a more memorable punch. And it's that sugary, sweet sound that landed the album in  Rolling Stone' s " 500 Greatest Albums of All Time ." TASTES LIKE STRAWBERRIES. If the world had been normal in 2020, "Watermelon Sugar" would have simply been a tasty treat. The pop charts would still have its TikTokers and Doja Cats . He'd still contend with Olivia Rodrigo , and maybe Sam Smi...