NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

In 2022, Relient K ’s official account posted a comment on TikToker Kirby MacKenzie ’s video pointing out the problematic lyric to the band’s 2003 once fan favorite, “ Mood Rings .” The video’s caption reads “Therapy isn’t enough[.] I need Christian punk band Relient K to apologize for this song from 2003.” Relient K wrote back: “We had a lot of growing and learning to do, still do!” While some Christian bands have doubled down on problematic messaging regarding issues of homo/transphobia, nationalism, and sexism; Relient K has taken the stance with many of their deconstructionist listeners at not taking their joke songs too seriously. A song like “Mood Rings” transported into the 2020s feels completely out of place. But in 2003, was part of a sexist zeitgeist that existed both in the cultures of pop-punk and in evangelical youth culture. AND I’VE CONTRIVED SOME SORT OF A PLAN TO HELP MY FELLOW MAN. “Mood Rings” is the second track on Two Lefts Don’t Make a Right . . . But Three Do .

In 2004, Relient K had two breakthrough hits: “ Be My Escape ” and “ Who I Am Hates Who I’ve Been. ” The band attempted on the albums that proceeded Mmhmm with songs that could work on both Christian and pop radio, to limited success.   While Relient K’s music was often love songs rather than Christian songs, the breakup album, 2009’s Forget and Not Slow Down , marked a shift in the band’s overt Christian themes and started talking about adult relationships. The band followed up their sixth studio album with two covers EPs combined to form the album Is for Karaoke . The album features pop and rock covers in a pop-punk style. The band finally released their seventh studio album, Collapsible Lung , in 2013.    I PLAN TO TAKE THE RIGHTEOUS PATH. Rather than working with Mark Lee Townsend ,  who has producer credits on every Relient K album except for Collapsible Lung, the band worked with Nashville-based producer Paul Moak and Nashville transplant Aaron Sprinkle . The album is bookende

In 1996, David Josiah Curtis and friends formed a punk band called Side Walk Slam . The Southern Illinois-based band released an independent record, Rock Anthems from the Midwest , in 1999 before signing to a small label, Boot to Head Records , and releasing Two Steps Forward, Five Steps Back the next year. Then in 2001, the band signed with Tooth & Nail Records and released three records between 2001 and 2003. Little by little, the bare-bones punk rock band started incorporating more and more production on their records. By their 2003 record, And We Drive , the band even included a piano. It was after releasing And We Drive, that the band decided that Side Walk Slam had strayed from their Punk Rock sound so much that they decided to change their name, rebranding with a new sound and retiring the expectations that the band would sound a particular way.  YOU’LL HAVE YOUR UPS AND DOWNS. Run Kid Run released their debut record This Is Who We Are three years after Side Walk Slam

Two wrongs don’t make a right, and neither do two lefts. But take a third left, and you’ll be back on course. In 2003, Relient K released their third record, Two Lefts Don't Make a Right . . . But Three Do . For a band that prided themselves on a teenage sound, Two Lefts was starting to show signs of maturity with singer Matt Thiessen using pop culture as a vehicle to touch on deeper topics such as growing up, spirituality, and love. It served as a bridge between the band’s early sound and their refined crossover appeal on their fourth album, Mmhmm . The band experiments with hardcore punk and Emo, as the music scene was shifting away from jocular pop-punk.  THEME PARKS ARE SO MUCH MORE FUN WHEN THE SUN’S OUTSIDE. Relient K’s third record, Two Lefts Don’t Make a Right . . . But Three Do, opens with the upbeat first single “ Chap Stick, Chapped Lips, and Things Like Chemistry .” The song talks about going on a field trip to an amusement park and makes several references to cell pho

When I was a Christian teenager, a book started circulating in my church youth group. Joshua Harris wrote about youth with wisdom and authority that seemed logical and categorical for every situation to the young women who read I Kissed Dating Goodbye . The book’s thesis argued that dating was a worldly alternative to the more purposeful Christian concept of courtship. Dating fueled erotic passions, which must be saved for a heterosexual marriage. Dating is casual, even preteens dates. Courtship was about vetting a marriage partner and would happen in the late teen years or early adulthood.  YOU THINK I'M PRETTY WITHOUT ANY MAKEUP ON .  Josh Harris’s I Kissed Dating Goodbye was part of a movement I’ve written about a lot: purity culture. How much this movement influenced young Katy Hudson, a pastor’s daughter in Southern California, touring with a slew of Christian rockers on the heels of her debut, self-titled album , I can only speculate what went through the 17-year-old star’s