NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

  In 2001, Mat Kearney and his friend Robert Marvin arrived in Nashville, Tennessee. Since college, Kearney wanted to pursue a musical career as a singer-songwriter. Marvin’s dream was to become a music producer and Nashville was the place to be. Kearney and Marvin had worked on music before they arrived in Nashville. Marvin got right to work in the Christian music industry, producing and working on albums by ZOEgirl , Stacie Orrico , TobyMac , and Newsboys . In 2004, Kearney released his debut album Bullet on the Christian label Inpop Records . Several of the songs on Bullet were reworkings of Kearney’s hip-hop EP West in November , which he had released independently in 2003. The co-writing team of Kearney and Marvin and Marvin’s production introduced Christian music to the genre-bending artistry of Mat Kearney. I CAN STILL SMELL THE POMEGRANATES GROW. Today, Bullet is not available on streaming services. Mat Kearney was a success with Christian Hit Radio and Christian Rock Radio

Last year,  Lau ren Daigle  returned with her first record since 2018’s blockbuster sophomore record,  Look Up Child .  Daigle’s music has been featured in movies and television shows from  Blade Runner 2049  to  Grey’s Anatomy ,  which makes the singer stand out from other artists in her genre, Contemporary Christian Music, a genre she dominated with the number-one Christian song for  sixty weeks  for the crossover hit, “ You Say .”  WE KNOW THE FUTURE’S BURNIN’ BRIGHT.  Maybe like me, you spent a part of the ‘10s backsliding from your evangelical upbringing. Don’t worry, I’m not here to tell on you. You probably stopped listening to  DC Talk  and  Michael W. Smith , and maybe became a “ Bad Christian ” with  Emery , followed  Michael Gungor ’s journey, or went full-out atheist like  Underoath . Somewhere along the way, what was playing on Christian Radio sounded like a bad version of what was popular two years ago on the pop station, only mellower. Somewhere along the way,  Hillsong

In 2005, The Fray scored their first hit with “ Over My Head ” (Cable Car). The song peaked at number 8 on Billboard’ s Hot 100 and topped several radio charts. While that song received critical acclaim from Billboard and Stylus Magazine , the piano-based pop-rock quartet band from Denver, Colorado, would be much less memorable today if it wasn’t for their second hit. After seeing the band live in Los Angeles, the music supervisor for the medical drama Grey’s Anatomy Alexandra Patsavas featured the song “ How to Save a Life ” in an episode in the massively popular ABC show. After the song’s feature in the episode, fans downloaded the ballad on iTunes.   I PRAY TO GOD HE HEARS YOU. The kickstart to the success of “How to Save a Life” has been credited to Grey’s Anatomy. But before the song was a single, it was the title track to The Fray’s debut album . How to Save a Life is peak mid-’00 piano pop rock. Every track is inoffensive and could be played in any coffee shop or grocery sto

The best music doesn't happen in isolation but rather comes out of a community movement. I would define community, when it comes to music, as a mixing of artists who bring different ideas together ideas from various genres. The result of a musical community is stronger musicianship by all those involved. Collaboration, the meeting of minds, happens naturally. Throughout the course of my blog, I've talked about various communities.  Tooth & Nail , Christian Rock, and evangelical communities are definitely the biggest themes. Tegan and Sara grew out of the Northwestern Canadian/American Indie Rock community in the late '90s, and by 2013 became pop stars.   HERE COMES THE RUSH BEFORE WE TOUCH.  Many fans may have been introduced to  Tegan and Sara  when Meredith Grey and Christina Yang danced to their early acoustic,  angry girl music in  Grey's Anatomy ' s earlier seasons.  The musical duo of Calgary-born identical  twins  Tegan  and  Sara Quin  started on the aco

Formed in 1994 first as Shrug and then as Polarbear but finally changing their name to  Snow Patrol  due to other bands by their former names, the Northern Irish band became very popular in the early '00s. Their first single " Run " was a hit in the UK. But in America, the band would become famous because of their song " Chasing Cars " when it was included in the  season 2 finale of  Grey's Anatomy .  " Chasing Cars" is the song most people know by Snow Patrol, and most wouldn't be able to associate the name with their hit song. The band continues to produce music, most recently releasing 2018's  Wildness .    TRAIN THIS CHAOS, TURN IT INTO LIGHT . If you've had time to get into Taylor's Version of  Red ,  you may have noticed a feature by Snow Patrol's  Gary Lightbody . Once the Indie Rock band became recognized, the band members started working on pop music, and Lightbody writing for  Taylor Swift  and  Ed Sheeran . The Snow P

  Sleeping at Last   is a band that almost made a song of the day two days ago for their   cover   of " Chasing Cars " until I made time to listen to the Snow Patrol version and their music, eventually settling on " You're All I Have."  Like   Snow Patrol , Sleeping at Last came to fame, albeit not Snow Patrol-level of fame, from a well-placed appearance in Season 3 of   Grey's Anatomy .  The indie-rock band turned solo project of singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist   Ryan O'Neal   has had many songs included in the ABC drama and its spin-off,   Private Practice .  Their cover of   "Chasing Cars" was used to add a dramatic counterpoint in the series, as the audience had already heard the original in the Season 2 finale. O'Neal stays busy producing lots of music, composing albums based on larger concepts, such as the solar system, the Enneagram, emotions, land, oceans, and many other topics.  WAR IS OVER, IF YOU WANT IT.  In the band

  OneRepublic had finished recording their second album, Waking Up , but had two more days with the studio. But the band’s bassist/cellist Brent Kutzle told lead singer Ryan Tedder that he wanted to stay in the studio to flesh out an idea he had. That night, Kutzle wrote the band’s biggest hit from the album, “ Good Life .” Waking Up’ s singles paled in the shadow of OneRepublic’s first hit “ Apologize ,” which reached number 2 on Billboard’s Hot 100 . “Good Life,” the album’s third U.S. single, reached number 8 on the Hot 100. The album’s first two singles, “ All the Right Moves ” and “ Secrets ” failed to reach the top 10.  Besides radio play, “Good Life” was played in many television shows and commercials. This upbeat song has optimistic, sincere lyrics, making it refreshing among often negative or trite optimism in pop music. SOMETIMES THERE’S BULLSHIT THAT DON’T WORK NOW. I remember a time in the early ‘00s when so many bands and artists on the radio were Christian or Christia