NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

When Paper Route announced that they would be releasing their debut LP Absence on Universal Motown, a now defunct subsidiary of Universal Republic R ecords , I thought that it was an interesting, if not somewhat strange choice of a label. But Paper Route is a band that aimed to challenge musical genre. Absence moves away from the band's Americana roots and into an electronic sound. But it's tracks in the center of the record like " Be Healed, " " Good Intentions " and even the New-Wave inspired " Tiger Teeth " that contain the soul of the record. Perhaps the band isn't  Motown, but their sound certainly expanded on Absence.  I WANNA BE YOUR TV SET. The airy pop tune "Good Intentions" shifts the album from rock to pop, following " Wish " and " Carousel ." By the middle of the album it seems clear that Paper Route is a better pop group than rock band. Paper Route's bassist and keyboardist Chad Howat talked abo

The Beautiful Letdown was the peak of Switchfoot 's career. When lead singer Jon Foreman was reflecting on his career on The Load Out Music Podcast last year, he said that the band decided to follow up their most successful pop record with one that critiques the American Dream, a somewhat controversial topic with Christian listeners. The opening track, " Lonely Nation ," warns listeners about consumerism and how it just creates social fragmentation and a desire for more. "Lonely Nation" is the representative song for my Independence Day mix called American Dreams: Hope for a Better Future. This playlist is far from perfect. Certainly it needs more diversity in style and artists' voices. But I hope that the songs on this playlist offer an alternative to blind patriotism. After all, patriotism shouldn't be blind nationalism, but rather a peaceful discourse between conflicting ideals. In a world where everything seems to be falling apart, it's so mu

You never know what to expect when you get a new Paper Route album. The protean band has evolved from a quartet of multi-instrumentalists playing indie rock Americana to a pop group with a fetish for synthesizers by the EP Are We All Forgotten , which proceeded their major label debut, Absence . The band's sophomore record, The Peace of Wild Things , the band became even more of a pop group. So when listeners heard the choral " Intro " on the band's third record, Real Emotion , immediately followed by the dirty, distorted guitars of " Writing on the Wall ," we wondered, are we getting a rock Paper Route record?   I FORGAVE YOU ONCE/ THEN AT TWICE/ I TOOK CONTROL.   But Real Emotion was Paper Route's most diverse record. "Writing on the Wall" is arguably the closest to a straightforward rock song that Paper Route has ever performed. Much of the record reverts back to the solid pop tracks on The Peace of Wild Things. But Real Emotion 's sixt

Today we have another piano-based slow opening track. However, unlike Acceptance ’s Phantoms , promotion for Paper Route ’s debut record Absence was mostly word of mouth from the band’s existing fan base and getting on major tours with Paramore , Mutemath , and others, despite the band being on a division of a major label. The band’s established fan base, curated through touring and social media, had already been introduced to the band’s evolving sound on the Are We All Forgotten EP released on 2008 from the folk-electronic sound of their early efforts. Absence though was full electronic progressive pop. HE STOLE AS BEST HE COULD. The disorienting intro to the song " Enemy Among Us " is a reverberated piano. In the living-room-filmed album promotional performance video (see below) shows a drum set a top the electric piano as Chad Howat plays the song. I have no idea how the band recorded the song, but Absence is an album that I would like to know more technical specifics

The changing of seasons will fascinate me until climate change renders the seasons one blur of erratic weather. I always long for the year that I sit in nature drinking in the subtle changes of each day. I've never been one for grandiose ambitions, and there is some spark that ignites in my heart whenever I read nature. The semester that I took British Lit. II in community college, I felt so taken by the Romantics and their descriptions of the Lake District. When I listened to the speech with Wendell Berry in preparation for my Paper Route post , I felt that spark as well. WEARY EYES. Listening to Wendell Berry's speech reminded me of a dream I have had that I've never actually committed to writing. I had a fantasy about taking a full year off from modern life with all of its stresses and working on a farm--maybe my grandparents' farm--and then writing a book about what I learned over the course of one year. In this fantasy, I'd do all of the chores to keep the far

On Valentine's Day, Taeyeon released her third full-length album, INVU .  This album included her single released last summer " Weekend ," a song about feeling great and enjoying life amidst the everyday hectic routine. Sleeping in late, indulging in coffee and/or cheese cake, and generally "doing whatever I want," "Weekend" is a bubbly K-pop single that welcomes the best two days of the week. And out of a lazy afternoon in bed with my boyfriend singing this song, I chose to be extra lazy and post this track as an excuse to convert my Spotify Friday Vibes  playlist into an AppleMusic Weekend Vibes playlist. Hope you enjoy it! Original tracklist (before future updates): 1. "Weekend" by Taeyeon (the song of the day) 2. " Forest " by Number One Gun 3.  " Take it All Back 2.0 " by Judah & the Lion 4. " Typical " by MUTEMATH 5. " Rings & Roses " by Dabin ft. Conor Byrne 6. " Hymn for the Wee

In April 2012, five months before they released their second album, The Peace of Wild Things , Paper Route performed a concert in an art studio, which was filmed and aired as the third episode of Brigham Young University Television's music show, Audio Files . The show only lasted for two seasons, but the first episode featured then up-and-coming band Imagine Dragons .  Paper Route performed songs from their first album Absence , but also indulged listeners' expectation by performing several songs from their upcoming album and shared stories about the songs and the recording process. WE WELCOME YOU THIS EVENING.  The entire performance used to be up on the show's now defunct website, but now we can only watch " Wish " and " Tamed ," on YouTube, the latter being a short eerie duet with singer-songwriter Cacie Dalager , lead singer of the indie band Now, Now , and harpist Timbre . I don't remember all of the songs Paper Route performed on the show; how

Best known for their hit, " Boston ," Augustana is a band whose members met at Greenville University in Illinois, where bands Jars of Clay and Paper Route also formed. Following up their debut album, All the Stars and Boulevards , the band released Can't Love, Can't Hurt  in April of 2008. The lead single, " Sweet and Low " didn't chart as high as "Boston," and the band started fading into obscurity. The band's next album, their self-titled , was praised by American Songwriter ,  but by their fourth record, Life Imitating Life , only lead singer Dan Layus remained in the band.  I'LL DRIVE ALL NIGHT. There's an energy to " Meet You There with Me " that made me think for years that it's all sunshine and roadtrips with the one you love. But the Americana pop-rock song talks more about the ups and downs of a relationship between people who love each other, but ultimately can't understand each other. The hope is that

Industrialization has come at a major cost. Kentucky-born-and-raised author, poet, activist, and farmer Wendell Berry critiques modern life as being disconnected with nature and thus a root cause of the climate change we see today. One of Berry's most beloved poems, " The Peace of Wild Things ," shows how nature can free the speaker from existential anxiety. With modern life unrelenting and with the anxiety of financing an indie band after their record label folded, with the passing of loved one and a divorce, Paper Route dug into raw emotion lyrically, and yet something held the band together. Taking the title of the album from Berry's poem, Paper Route's The Peace of Wild Things   is a romantic album with a few dark undertones. EVERY CIRCLE WAS A LINE JUST CONNECTED BY DESIGN. The second track on The Peace of Wild Things,   " Two Hearts " builds the themes of love and marriage from the first track, " Love Letters ." The songs are convincing

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