NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

After pursuing a music career together as founding members of NEEDTOBREATHE beginning in 2001, guitarist Nathaniel Bryant "Bo" Rinehart departed from his band. The band's biggest hit, " Brother ," dealt with the tension of being family members in a band and their follow record, H A R D L O V E   furthered that theme. In 2020, the band released Out of Body , their first record without Bo. Replacing Bo on the record was future band member Tyler Burkum , a working Nashville musician who first cut his teeth in the '90s Christian Rock band Audio Adrenaline and had been a part of bands such as Leagues and a touring musician for Mat Kearney .  I WANNA HEAR YOUR VOICE IN THE WIND AND RAIN.  Today, we're loading up our iPods and heading back to school. The tracks included are some new and old tracks that deal with elementary, middle, high school, or college. These songs are for study and play. Enjoy!   Read “Child Again” by NEEDTOBREATHE on Genius.

I’m at the time of year when I start assessing my new year’s goals. And I got to an existential crisis for the blog. I wondered what I’ve achieved with it other than keeping it going. Sure, there have been improvements in font, links, story, and research, but I thought about if a daily post is really sustainable in the coming year. I’m mulling a few ideas over. I’m considering changing the focus of the blog.   YOU CAN ALWAYS COME HOME. I thought about all the things the blog is, but I thought it was actually more helpful to think about what it is not.  First, it’s not a reputable music blog. The amount of time I have and my lack of formal music writing training and lack of connections in the music business make this a purely fan blog as I report about my daily obsessions and Wikipedia reading. Second, it isn’t a novel or even a memoir. I shot down that ideas last year after experimenting with the idea, in favor of the story of the song, but I think that may have been the direction I s

The members of Emery work hard both on their side hustles and their main gig, and sometimes it's hard to distinguish between their side hustles and their main gig. Lead singer Toby Morrell and guitarist Matt Carter started a blog with their friend Joey Svendsen , which later became The BadChristian Podcast. They started a record label, BadChristian Music and released Emery records and other artists--mostly Tooth & Nail associated bands--who shared a vision of Christian music that pushes the envelope. And while Emery only has about 172,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, the band has actually migrated their most loyal fans to their own Patreon -style music subscription service. This service used to be under the name Emeryland, but recently the band has merged its production of BadChristian Podcast and Emery's music and their work with the Labeled Podcast to one subscription-based plan under the moniker Knuckle Breakers .    MAYBE NOT TO AGREE, BUT TO PROCLAIM LOVE. I'

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

The second single from the 2006 album Eyes Open  after the album opener and rocker, " You're All I Have ," "Chasing Cars" is the most recognized song by  Snow Patrol . The band's frontman and songwriter Gary Lightbody said that he wrote the song after sobering up after a white wine binge in the garden of producer Jacknife Lee 's cottage. Lightbody told Rolling Stone  that "Chasing Cars" is "the purest love song I've ever written. There's no knife-in-the-back twist." He stated that "all the other songs I've written have a dark edge." While the song and video for "Chasing Cars" don't have a dark side, the connotation the song has with dramas like Grey's Anatomy and One Tree Hill  certainly wields the knife so carefully left out by the songwriter.  LET'S WASTE TIME CHASING CARS. As tempting as it is to make a Bad Romance playlist or Sad Romance playlist, I've decided to make my Spotify al

Leagues has long since broken up. Lead singer Thad Cockrell has a solo project. He appeared on Jimmy Fallon  with The Roots after the late-night host Shazam -ed one of Cockrell's songs while he was at a hardware store. " She Kissed Me " appears on the deluxe edition of Leagues's debut, You Belong Here . Unfortunately, the songs on the deluxe edition do not appear on streaming services. Thanks to iTunes Match , I can enjoy this song whenever I want. The overwhelming '60s wall of sound can build in my AirPods, baptizing me with the sweet guitars of Tyler Burkum and the falsetto of Cockrell, anytime I want. I WAS TAKEN BY THE LUXURY. The problem is what about everyone else? I'm left with this gap in my main-feed playlists for Spotify and Apple Music. Fortunately YouTube has several live performances of this song, so 1/3 of the problem solved. Last year, when I researched this song, I realized it was a cover of The Crystals' " Then He Kissed Me ,&quo

It's only a month until Valentine's Day, which was the most miserable holiday for a teenager trapped in the closet in a Christian school. I was quite bitter towards a day that couples showed off their affection. I grew more and more cynical towards the day with every passing year. Fourteen-year-old me would be surprised that in 20 years, I would be thinking about the holiday a month before. But somewhere on the way from teenage-angsty emo music to a Christian pre-ordained incel-hood, like the blinding light to Paul on the road to Damascus, NoiseTrade 's 25 Love Songs rescued me from cynicism towards candy hearts. This album certainly wasn't the entirety of my love salvation, but it did start me on the path to thinking that love is possible and not total bullshit. I'LL ALWAYS PROTECT YOU. Ahead of their delayed The Peace of Wild Things , Paper Route released a second track from the album. " Better Life " had helped me through a very dark time in my life, s

  In January, I talked about Leauges's song " Lost It All," from their debut album You Belong Here. The deluxe edition of the album contains today's song, which, like many "Part of It" and "Sky May Fall" are also not on Apple Music. It is, however, on Spotify. The band's live performance for Paste (in YouTube playlist) features the band as a four-piece, former Audio Adrenaline backup singer and guitarist, Tyler Burkum , playing minimally at the beginning but building into a wall of sound by the end of the track. This song feels at home on  You Belong Here and is one of the band's best tracks. "She Kissed Me" sounds like an old-timey rock 'n' roll or R&B song. Built around the drums and bass and adding guitar feedback and sparse chords, for this song Thad Cockrall sings in a lower register and backup singer Tyler Burkum adds the falsetto. And while the melody is completely original to Leagues, the song is a well-disgui