NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

  In 2013, the Jonas Brothers decided to stop making music together. The eldest brother, Kevin Jonas appeared in a reality TV series about his married life with his wife Danielle Jonas . The middle brother of the trio Joe Jonas formed a band called DNCE . Nick Jonas , the youngest member of the family trio, got involved in several ventures. He guest-starred in a few television episodes and was hired as the musical creative director on his friend Demi Lovato ’s Neon Lights Tour. After the tour, he was cast in the boxing drama Kingdom . In 2014, he released his second album, X2 , which completely rebranded the singer from a squeaky-clean teen heartthrob to a sexy twenty-something. YOU’RE TOO SEXY, BEAUTIFUL. In 2005, a year before The Jonas Brothers released their debut album It’s About Time , Nick Jonas released a Christian self-titled album as Nicholas Jonas on Columbia Records ’ Christian division INO . The album is now out of print and unavailable on streaming services. Nick also

It seems like after BTS topped Billboard ’s Hot 100 with their solo tracks and their features, K-pop has become an unstoppable force in America and Europe. Of course, BTS didn’t fall out of a coconut tree. With over three decades in the making, Korean idol pop music has slowly made strides first in Asia and then to Western audiences. One of the ways that K-pop was able to take hold in America was through collaborations with American recording artists. Singer BoA collaborated with English boyband Westlife in 2003 on the song “ Flying Without Wings .” Artists such as Omarion , Lil’ Kim , Snoop Dogg , and Missy Elliott were just a few examples of Western artists collaborating with K-pop idols in the ‘00s and ‘10s. When a Western artist collabor-ated with a Korean artist, the massive K-pop fanbase fell in love with the non-Korean artist, but only a few of the Western artist’s fans became a fan of the Korean artist due to limited marketing outside of Korea. MAKIN’ EVERYONE JEALOUS LIKE

  I was talking with my Gen X coworker last year about music, and somehow  Jonas Brothers  came up. He asked me, as a defender of pop, if the band of brothers had ever made a good album. I thought about the question. Of course, I can’t consider the teeny-bopper music from the band’s early days. But I  could say that  Nick Jonas ’ latest record  Spaceman   was a masterfully produced album by  Greg Kurstin  blending ‘80s and ‘90s R&B with contemporary electronic pop. I thought that the  DNCE  record was fun. I thought that “ Sucker ” was a great  Ryan Tedder  production and showed potential for where the Jonas Brothers could go, although  Happiness Begins   was a bit of a disappointment. But no, I couldn’t say that I liked any Jonas Brothers album. ROCK FOR ME TO STAND ON.  But that all changed when Jonas Brothers released  The Album   last May. But being able to call this album great comes with years of breaking down some of my musical biases and hang-ups. The first is a discussion

My mom didn't let me play video games unless they were educational. So I didn't grow up on  Mario  or  Donkey Kong  at home. Instead, I got to play educational games like  The Oregon Trail   or  Math Blaster .  My favorite game, though, was  Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego ? Despite the implausible premise of being a detective, tracking down a criminal who stole intangible cultural heritage, I loved flying around the world to fifty countries--some of which no longer exist--listening to strange music, and discovering the cultures that made the world so interesting.  IT'S GONNA TAKE A LOT TO DRAG ME AWAY FROM YOU.  TOTO  is often classified as a Yacht Rock band today, a somewhat pejorative term for the smooth-sounding light rock of the late '70s and early '80s. The term "Yacht Rock" actually comes from a YouTube mockumentary from the early age of YouTube. Music critic  Chris Molanphey  goes to great pains to define the imaginary genre in his episode of

As promised, here is my Top 10 list for albums of the year. It’s a bit late and I’m sure that in time, the importance of this list will change and that albums I hadn’t listened to would chart. I decided to give preference to the albums I blogged about most but I also slipped in a few that I thought would be culturally significant. There were a few cuts that I thought hurt a little, Olivia Rodrigo ’s GUTS , the Barbie: The Album soundtrack, and boygenius ’s The Record .   I wanted to include some albums that didn’t make the critics’ picks lists to give light to some underrated artists. I hope you enjoy these albums as much as I did—and am doing now. 10. The Show by Niall Horan . It’s funny how the other One Direction members have been totally eclipsed by Harry Styles . While Styles is certainly talented, and his production team has incorporated some of the most interesting elements into mainstream pop, former bandmate Niall Horan has been sadly overlooked. The Show is an album by an