NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

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

There was a video I watched that made the case that Britney Spears created the arc of the former teenage pop star. The sweet-to sexy-to diva (minus the conservatorship) has been followed by both female and male stars. We can see a little Britney in Ariana Grande, Lindsey Lohan, Selena Gomez. You could argue that  Justin Bieber or (minus the sexy) Disney stars like Shia LaBeouf might fit into that arc. At 18 years of age, Shawn Mendes was one of the biggest teen stars. His second album, Illuminate, became his second album to top the Billboard Hot 100. Yet, as of 2021, the 23-year old star has yet to pull a Britney. In 2016, Brendan Dazen in an article  for Her Campus  describes Mendes as "A naïve 18 year old who happens to look an Abercrombie model." The author notes that when Mendes turned 18, he became a sex symbol, striking provocative poses in magazines and filming shirtless music videos, but unlike Grande and Spears, Mendes' lyrics aren't overtly sexual. Mendes b

Shawn Mendes's first four albums all debuted at number one on Billboard's Hot 200 Album Chart. Born in 1998, he holds the records of being the youngest artist ever to achieve a number one record, the youngest artist ever to achieve two number one records, then three number one records, then four number one records. Like Troye Sivan, Charlie Puth, and Justin Bieber, Mendes gained popularity through posting his songs--first covers, then originals--on YouTube. Handwritten, Mendes's debut album was released in 2015 when the singer was sixteen years old. Filled with acoustic guitar ballads, like the UK number 1 hit, "Stitches," audiences found that the Canadian self-taught guitar-playing singer's music was  refreshing voice in pop music.  "Imagination" was released on  Handwritten (Deluxe Edition)   and is a straight-forward pop song about teenage infatuation.  MAYBE THIS WILL BE THE NIGHT. Erasmus said in his magnum opus The Praise of Folly , "Every