NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

There isn't much of a reason that I chose this song today. It's creepy, and Florence + the Machine is kind of witchy. In fact, Lungs, and today's song "Blinding" has a feeling that deals with the otherworldly, primitive pre-Christian Celtic world. It feels more like a spring song, though, celebrating the sun. However, as we are going into the dark part of the year, it's nice to remember that no matter what happens in the winter, spring will be back to reawaken us. The following story, though has to do with the spring. Happy Halloween. Stay safe and try not to succumb to the winter depression. A TOURIST IN THE WAKING WORLD, NEVER QUITE AWAKE .  I will definitely come back to the shift in the alternative sound as the year goes by, but I'd like to tell a rather embarrassing story about how Florence + the Machine and a bunch of other Indie Rock/new Alternative acts came into my music collection. It was the spring of 2011, and I was finishing up my senior year

  Conan Gray released his debut album, Kid Krow , in 2020. The album entered Billboard’s 200 Album chart at number 5, the highest position for a debut artist in 2020. But artists with such a successful debut rarely come out of nowhere. Gray began uploading his songs to YouTube in 2013 when he was 15. His channel gained many followers for his vlogs about everyday life growing up in Texas; however, eventually he began writing and recording music in 2017. I STILL REMEMBER THE THIRD OF DECEMBER. California-born and Texas-raised on a musical diet of Taylor Swift , Lorde , and Lana Del Rey , Teen Vogue called Conan Gray “the pop prince for sad internet teens.” Republic Records signed Gray based on his online presence and the streaming success of his early singles. The singer performed on Late Night with Seth Meyers in 2019 and later opened for Panic! at the Disco’ Pray for the Wicked Tour on a few dates. Kid Krow was promoted by two singles: “ Maniac ,” which “bubbled under the Hot 10

There might be one song that defines the ‘90s and reshaped music and the rock star for Generation X and future generations of music listeners. That song, of course, was the lead single from the 1991 sophomore record by Nirvana , Nevermind . “ Smells Like Teen Spirit ,” Nirvana, and Nevermind didn’t invent Grunge. Alice in Chains , arguably, brought the sound mainstream before Nirvana did. The song “ Man in the Box ,” a hopeless rocker when the sounds of hair rockers were much more optimistic and hedonistic, reached number 18 on Billboard’s Modern Rock tracks.  But Alice in Chains didn’t lead the revolution, nor did Nirvana’s other contemporaries Soundgarden or Pearl Jam .   HERE WE ARE NOW, ENTERTAIN US. Just as how F. Scott Fitzgerald set out to write a satire of the trivial lives and parties of the New York upper crust and subsequently gave literature and history the most condensed account of what the “Jazz Age” was in The Great Gatsby , Nirvana wrote “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” whic

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 work. Singer Amber Bain had talked about using The Japanese House to mask the person behind the music. I've written

Fleurie is just shy of 3 million monthly listeners on Spotify. The Nashville-based singer-songwriter's majority of listeners, though, come from outside the United States from India, Turkey, Brazil, and Germany to be precise. Last year I talked about about her cover of Sufjan Steven 's   " To Be Alone with You ," which appears in the Looking for Alaska mini-series. While Fleurie has released many covers including a haunting version Linkin Park 's " In the End " and Gary Jules ' arrangement of Tears for Fears ' " Mad World ," the singer also writes original songs and released her fourth LP earlier this year titled Supertropicali .  CALIFORNIA GIRLS DON'T LOOK LIKE ME. How to describe Fleurie's latest album, Supertropicali? Fleurie describes it on her Spotify page as "a world, an era, a story unfolding, all stitched together in '90s nostalgia, romance, youthful hope, and belonging." Taking inspiration from Mary Popp

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. Most recently, 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 last year, 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 their relationship should end in marriage? Could the singer stay in a "1950s shit" " Lavender Ha

The electronic dance music of the ‘10s couldn’t be farther from ILLENIUM ’s self-titled album , released last month. Following up 2019’s Ascend , the eponymous record delves into pop-punk and hard rock along with more familiar sounds of pop and R&B. Although ILLENIUM started his career remixing Alternative artists like Florence + the Machine and Lana Del Rey , he found success in working with pop acts. But today’s song is a prime example of how rock became popular in the early ‘20s after nearly 20 years of being untrendy. I SAY I’M FINE, BUT I’M MISERABLE.  In an interview with Zach Sang shortly after releasing his self-titled album, ILLENIUM talked about his rock influences which he could now proudly bring to his DJ career. But rather than assembling artists like his rock heroes, something an artist may have done twenty years ago when artists’ peak careers were shorter, Illenium features three veteran acts: All Time Low , Avril Lavigne , and Travis Barker . Today we’ll discuss t

Composed by  Kenzie , the professional name for  SM Entertainment 's songwriter Kim Yeon-jeong, the debut single " Into the New World " by what would become one of the biggest K-pop groups,  Girls' Generation , 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 last August by   The Ataris ), "Into the New World" 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

  Lana Del Rey returned this earlier year with the latest installment of her " Carol King Era" of songwriting in Did you know that there's a tunnel under Ocean Blvd?    This new era of the Del Rey persona created by Lizzy Grant feels like a slow progression away from pop hooks, and maybe where this started was with Del Rey’s second album, Ultraviolence . But Del Rey’s real critical acclaim arrived with Norman Fucking Rockwell , the album that both ended pop Lana and started the ‘70s-styled singer-songwriter that she followed up with Chemtrails Over the Country Club , Blue Banisters , and Did you know .   GIVE PEACE A CHANCE. Lana Del Rey’s fan base is strong, quick to interpret ever line that the singer writes in the blogosphere. Not only do fans read into her released songs, they also track down her unreleased demos and leak them online. Usually Del Rey pays no attention when one of her unreleased songs is leaked; however, when a sped-up version of “ Say Yes to Heaven

Last Friday, Lauren 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 and Bethel M