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

여러분 안녕하세요? 오늘 새 플레이리스트를 소개할 게요. I'm going to introduce my second playlist-in-a-playlist, some of my K-pop recommendations that I've written about last year. Unlike 2021+, 추천한 K-pop will be a fluid playlist, updated as I write about other tracks. Again, I'll be restricting myself to one track per artist, but the artist may be featured on another track. For example, I had to choose between "Fake Love" or "Lights" by BTS, but I can add "My Universe" by Coldplay featuring BTS, without breaking the rules. The same goes for solo artists who are also part of a boy/girl band, so both EXO and Girls' Generation will appear along with their members D.O. and Taeyeon. Also, some of the tracks aren't in Korean, but they are made by bands that also have tracks in Korean.  I will list my original track list below and make a few comments, but I'll also leave a link to the original blog post. First, here is the playlist: 1. " Honestly " b

  Like yesterday's song , today's song also comes from 2007, but that's maybe the only similarity. Composed by Kenzie , the professional name for SM Entertainment 's songwriter Kim Yeon-jeong, the debut single of one of the biggest K-pop groups set the tone for a ten-year career of fun, bubble-gummy, uplifting songs. Composed of nine young women all born between 1989 and 1991, Girls' Generation has been been called "the Nation's Girl Group," in South Korea due to their popularity between 2007-2017. Beginning with a sample of Don Henley 's 1984 classic " The Boys of Summer, " (covered in August by The Ataris ) the song builds on the nostalgic piano and synth sample. Rather than calling back with longing for the past, this song propels listeners forward into the future. I LEAVE BEHIND THIS WORLD'S UNENDING SADNESS. I've been pretty critical of K-pop in the past for being a-political. I used to think that music in America was too p

We've talked Taeyeon before, whether it was her melancholy ballad, " Blue " or with her group Girls' Generation singing " Mr. Mr. "  Unlike solo male singers, like D.O. , female solo singers often do better than their girl groups. With the exception of Girls' Generation, Twice , and BlackPink , Korean girl groups often lose steam before the boy groups. Why? Generally speaking these days Korean teenage girls are buying most of the music, whereas teenage boys are spending most of their money on phone game credits. Girl groups serve as a kind of aspiration for teenage girls and some boys buy girl group merchandise, but for all the girl group merchandise sold, multiply it by at least ten for the cute and cuddly image of boy groups. Solo female singers are often taken more seriously in acting roles apart from their groups, and without the branding of the bubble gum image, take a mature approach to the music they perform.    SUDDENLY I LOOK AT THE CLOCK. IT&

There was a sandwich shop across the eight-way intersection in Chuncheon where I would often take lunch break. After class, I'd get a Chicken Carbonara or a Soy-sauce chicken sandwich and a cup of coffee. I might spend a little extra time there reading or looking over lesson plans before going back in to work. The cafe was run by a man around my age and his mother, and it was a nice place to eat something familiar and spend some time. The musical choice was quite eclectic: '90s pop-rock and current K-pop/Hip-Hop. It was in that cafe that I grew an affection for K-pop. I started to understand what the hype was all about. SO YOU HAVE A DREAM THAT IS BIGGER THAN A LITTLE BOY'S . In February of 2014, Girls' Generation released their electro-pop album and titular hit " Mr. Mr ." The girls had been famous for a conservative, bubble gum pop, but "Mr. Mr." takes the singers in another direction. The ear worm begins with a dirty bass synth. The music video d

When March comes, it either appears as a lion or a lamb. It's been a mild winter where I live and today there's a light spring shower. Later the rains are supposed to get harder. Is this the lion? Or is it a lamb? I've also taken a more superstitious meaning to this saying. In Korea, it's the beginning of the school year; however, March 1st is a national holiday. Will the school year start out smoothly or with its own set of thundershowers? If it starts out smoothly, is trouble ahead? Think about last year. Covid Cases increased at the beginning of the month and started to drop slightly by the end of the month as social distancing measures were put in place. However, the month began in fear and ended in existential crisis. So much uncertainty leans on this temperamental spring month as the air warms, clashing with Arctic blasts. And if you throw climate change into the mix, who knows what we're going to get? From the Texas snowstorms to the warmest February on recor