NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

Katie Gavin ’s solo debut album What a Relief is due out next week on October 25th. The MUNA singer showed a change in musical direction from her first single “ Aftertaste ,” which took the electric-pop singer into ‘90s country. The second single, “ Casual Drug Use ,” took a more acoustic folk sound than its predecessor. In August Gavin joined The Japanese House on stage at the Greek Theater to perform their collaboration “ Morning Papers ” from The Japanese House’s 2023 album In the End It Always Does . Then during the encore, Gavin premiered her latest single, “ Inconsolable ,” which The Japanese House’s Amber Bain praised as “the best song ever written” according to Bain and her girlfriend. According to MUNA’s podcast Gayotic , Gavin said that her new album was a collection of songs written since 2020. Most of the songs were produced by Phoebe Bridgers ’ producer Tony Berg , but between sessions with Berg, Gavin collaborated with Mitski and Amber Bain. FULL OF BEDS WHERE NOB...

  I would argue that since   reputation ,  Taylor Swift   has made a career based on revenge. The singer-songwriter is extremely intentional and calculated when releasing new singles and albums. Last year, Swift released yet another deluxe edition of   Midnights ,  this time calling it   The Til Dawn Edition ,  featuring a new song and two remixes. When she first released   Midnights    in October of 2022, many listeners were wondering what was different about the album. It felt like   reputation  but the singer was in a steady relationship with English actor   Joe Alwyn , and everything was going great, right?   right? KARMA IS A CAT PURRING ON MY LAP.  When tabloids started reporting that Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn had split in early April this year, the pointed lyrics of  Midnights  started to make a little more sense. Was Swift reacting to the expectations--from others or even Alwyn-- that thei...

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 pop...

Last month,   The Japanese House   released their long-anticipated follow-up album to 2019's   Good at Falling .  The solo project of   Amber Mary Bain , The Japanese House collaborated with a number of musicians from   Bon Iver 's   Justin Vernon   and   The 1975 's   Maty Healy   and   George Daniel   to   MUNA   and   Charli XCX   on their latest project,   In the End, It Always Does .  The English singer-songwriter Amber Bain offers a hybrid between the acoustic and highly processed, like if Bon Iver recorded and produced   Joni Mitchell . It's simple. It's zen. It's nice music for a rainy or slow humid summer day. I'M STILL LOOKING OUT FOR ME.  Before releasing  In the End, It Always Does,  The Japanese House released the lead single, " Boyhood ." The instrumental direction of  In the End, It Always Does  feels less processed than The Japanese House's earlier...

Lana Del Rey 's magnum opus,  Norman Fucking Rockwell!   was released in September of 2018 and earned the singer-songwriters the acclaim she had been laying the foundation for since 2012's  Born to Die.   A year after her lackluster album/ collection of good songs  Lust for Life ,  she released the first single from  NFR,  " The Mariner's Apartment Complex " and quickly followed it with another single, the 9:38 song " Venice Bitch ." She began building hype for the record, a cohesive record using the Americana formula Del Rey uses best, a year before its release. The singer awkwardly promoted the album in October of 2018, 11 months before its release, at an  Apple Keynote event . The singer wasn't allowed to say the name of her upcoming album or its single, which she played censored, "Venice Bitch," as  Jack Antonoff   played the piano. Norman Rockwell's  Saturday Evening Post Cover,  Public Domain YOU DON'T EVER HAVE...

In 2020, amid America’s racial reckoning following the brutal murder of George Floyd, many artists of color came to prominence. Jon Batiste had been playing drums and percussion from the age of 8 and classical piano from the age of 11. Influenced by classical, jazz, R&B, and pop, Batiste released his first album, Times in New Orleans , at 17 and was accepted to study music at Juilliard. After earning his bachelor’s degree, Baptiste went on to earn a master’s degree also from Julliard. In 2004, while studying at Julliard, Batiste formed the jazz band Stay Human . In 2015, Steven Colbert hired Batiste and Stay Human as his house band for The Late Show with Colbert . Batiste’s career has been characterized with prestige, collaboration, activism, and gradual name recognition. THAT’S JUST WHO I AM, THAT’S JUST MY RADIO. I first heard of Jon Batiste from his contribution to the Soul original soundtrack. Batiste composed original jazz pieces for the 2020 Pixar film . Along with co-comp...

  Back to our somewhat weekly countdown of the top songs of last year ranked completely unscientifically by me. Now that we’re in the top ten, these songs either have some critical acclaim or I think that they are critically underrated. These are songs that resonated with me at a time when I wasn’t particularly in the mood to digest a boygenius record--no shade to the extremely talented musicians. So sorry Phoebe Bridgers , Julien Baker , and Lucy Dacus --I hope to get into the record soon. Also, sorry for the exclusion of Sufjan Stevens and Taylor Swift . I was too sad to listen to Javelin and I just dropped Taylor’s “ I Can See Yo u” in favor of a song that was actually new in 2023. 10. “ Chasing That Feeling ” by Tomorrow X Together . I just added this song because it’s been one of my recent favorites. While K-pop girl groups FIFTY FIFTY and NewJeans and BTS soloist Jung Kook had a big year in international acclaim, I feel like TxT was a little lower-key than a few years...