NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

Since Key ’s 2021 EP Bad Love , The SHINee singer has been creating dark pop with nostalgic ‘80s and ‘90s sci-fi motifs. The singer’s latest installment came last month with his third mini album Pleasure Shop . In the EP’s eponymous lead single , Key takes on the form of a cyborg, inviting futuristic humans to come “deeper into” a store filled with unique things to give a person pleasure. The cyborg invites the humans “pleasure juice,” which gives them a kind of euphoria. Kim Ki-bum conceptualized the mini album when thinking about a dystopian future. He asked the question giving a press statement just before the EP’s release: “ What if I uploaded myself, turned it into an AI program and had an argument with my AI version? How scary would it be if that AI version of me was better than the real me?” YOU’RE WELCOME. Entering the eerie “Pleasure Shop” Key has opened for listeners draws an uncanny similarity to a line from the 1973 spooky musical classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show

  SHINee ’s Kim Ki Bum , or simply Key , released his second full album, Gasoline , in 2022. Like “ Helium ” on his EP Bad Love from 2021, Key features an English song: “ Another Life .” Key is not the only Korean idol artist who sings in English. Today, I thought I would start a collection of K-pop songs that are entirely in English. Key’s English tracks are album tracks, not promoted as main singles in Korea or abroad. Other artists on the list released these English tracks as singles in Korea and abroad. Still, others recorded an English version of a Korean single to promote the single to international audiences. Whatever the reason, we’re glad to hear more from our favorite K-pop stars. Enjoy the list. Read the lyrics on Genius.

  In high school I spent a good deal of my lawn mowing money on CDs, like many of kids of my generation and before. A brand new CD cost anywhere between $10 and $25, often depending on where you bought it, but also some retailers would sell lesser-known albums at a discount. On a few occasions, a band would issue a re-release and/or a repackaging of an album. This could happen for remastering with new technology not available when the record was first released, anniversary editions of popular records, or most frustrating were deluxe editions not available during the album's initial release. These deluxe editions held bonus tracks, often a new radio single that didn't make the original album. PROMISE YOU WON'T  REGRET . First, it is important to distinguish between bonus editions exclusive to a store. Artists have released exclusive b-sides on these annoying marketing gimmick, selling one edition at particular store, leaving devote fans to buy every edition of the record. Wh

  Two years ago, I wrote about  Key 's mini album  Bad Love .  I decided to reformat my original post as track-by-track, a kind of home for the songs on this record, should I write about the record at a later date. While SHINee has been the singer's main gig, Key has managed to release music every year as a solo artist. Bad Love is my favorite of his efforts. So today, let's look at this retro-electro-pop EP by the fashionista from Daegu. 1.  " Bad Love ."  The title track reminds listeners of  Lady Gaga 's 2009 hit " Bad Romance ," speaking about the toxicity of a relationship that may have started under good intentions, but devolved into something toxic. The music video feels like a futuristic vision from the '80s, in other words, looking futuristic but dated with '80s technology.  2. "Yellow Tape"  builds on the theme of entering relationships cautiously. 3. "Hate that..."    a duet with Taeyeon,  was also released as

  It's officially spooky season, so I decided to make a playlist celebrating the spookier songs I've blogged about or artists that had a spooky song. The 31 tracks that I included perhaps won't make you writhe in horror, but they have a loose connection to Halloween. Maybe there's a lyrics or a creepy video, or maybe it was just a song that I listened to a lot in October. I will post the Spotify playlist below and links to the posts and the tracks so that you can read the spooky stories behind the tracks.  1.       " Ghost " by Yellow Ostrich 2. " Closer " by Kings of Leon 3. " Unholy " by Sam Smith ft. Kim Petras 4. " I'm Pretty Sure I'm Out of Luck and Have No Friends " by Underoath 5. " Two Graves " by Anberlin 6. " Moonlit " by Falling Up 7. " Panic Switch " by Silversun Pickups 8. " Killer " by Chvrches   9. " Midnight City " by M83 10 " Edge of Seventeen "

Hearing IU always reminds me that spring is on the way. Commonly called South "Korea's Sweetheart," the 30-year-old singer-songwriter and former teen singer, born Lee Ji-eun (이지은), explains the meaning of her stage name as "You and I become one through music." Today's song comes from her 2014 EP of covers of folk/rock ballads made popular in the '80s and '90s, A Flower Bookmark . The song was written by Kim Chang Wan and originally recorded with his punk-rock band Sanulrim (산울림, meaning Mountain Echo ), which was a hit in 1984. Kim also is featured on the IU cover version. Although the IU version was not released as a single, it was featured in an SK Telecom commercial and was often played in cafes, grocery stores, and everywhere in Korea in 2014 and still today. The original version was used in the zeitgeist drama Reply 1988 (음담하러 1988)   SADNESS BLOOMS AS COSMO FLOWERS AT THE TRAIN STATION. Today I'll present my final Romantic Mix  version

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