NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

I decided to do something a little different today. I'm going to present my first playlist within a playlist: 2021+. When my friend Stephen Barry  chooses his top songs of a given year, he gives two years of wiggle room for the records he missed. My format is not like Mr Barry and his Orchestra , but I thought that it would be interesting to make a playlist of the best songs I blogged about about last year that fit within a two year time frame. I'm going to stick to one entry per artist as usual and leave links for the posts. Today's song, "Counterfeit" by Wolves at the Gate, comes from a 2019 album, so it barely makes the list. First, I will post the Spotify playlist: The songs listed on this playlist: 1. " Cold Air " by Acceptance. The lead single from 2020's Wild, Free  is a song about a community torn apart by prejudice. Also check out " Wasted Nights " and " Dark Age. " 2. " Counterfeit " by Wolves at the Gate fro

Entertainment Weekly called  Jimmy Eat World 's seventh album, Chase This Light , "Extroverted guitar pop." Recently on an episode of Slate 's Hit Parade , host Chris Molanphy told a compelling story tracing the evolution of punk to emo to its eventual influence on pop and hip hop. Between Green Day making an album about crap and My Chemical Romance sending out invitations to the black parade (and long before Machine Gun Kelly sold tickets to his downfall) came a pop one-hit wonder who from Mesa, Arizona, who is often cited early in a list of influences for pop punk, punk, emo and screamo bands. But Alternative Rock radio listeners knew that Jimmy Eat World was no one hit wonder. DON'T ACCEPT CRITIQUE OR CREDIT. When we think of emo, we picture neo-gothic-looking kids dressed in skinny jeans and over the-the-top haircuts. The Wikipedia image to the left best sums up the stereotype. Molanphy points out that a phenomenon that I remember quite well, everyone ass

"I~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~I. Don't want a lot for Christmas." *struggles to change the radio dial amid gridlocked holiday traffic* "There's just one thing I need" *hurry up with my damn latte! I think I'm going to die. Why the hell is Starbucks playing Christmas music mid-October?* "I don't care about the presents" *internal Elaine monologue 'I think I'm going to die in this department store. Ma'am, why must you spray the perfume so close to my face. I can't breath! What the earth begins to shake and we're stuck in here forever underneath mannequins and holiday shoppers and that damn Mariah Carey song stuck on repeat?'* "Underneath the Christmas tree" "No" *raising a strict finger to students who should be studying in the back* "Not before Thanksgiving." "I just want you for my own/ More than you could ever know." Every year Christmas music get earlier and earlier. "Make my dr

I wrote earlier this year about Number One Gun , particularly about  This Is All I Know . The band from Chico, California, would only become one member-- Jeff Schneeweis . The other members went on to form the band Surrogate and work with other bands such as Emery . There was a lot of controversy surrounding Number One Gun's last album, related to the late fulfillments of crowdfunding. Schneeweis, the only member left in Number One Gun, declared the band to be finished and started releasing music under the moniker Leal. This Is All I Know  is the end of a Christian Rock era: a band that stuck despite never being anyone's favorite band. HEAVY IS UPON US. Just as Anberlin had announced their farewell in 2014, several other bands called it quits. In 2017 the band Yellowcard , along with Anberlin drummer Nathan Young, recorded their final album and gave their farewell tour. After Anberlin ended, Stephen Christian was busy first in Nashville as a songwriter then as a Worship leade

A few Saturday afternoons circa 2015-17, I went down a rabbit-hole, looking for the best Paper Route , Anberlin , and Copeland covers on YouTube. This was long after finding artists like Tyler Ward who covered pop music. I wondered if anyone had recorded high quality covers of my favorite bands. It turns out that there were a few . These artists weren't on the level of popularity of Kurt Hugo Schneider or Boyce Avenue . I had hoped to created a cover playlist of a Copeland album, but there weren't enough high-quality covers on YouTube at the time. Charles Angell's YouTube account has 7 videos, 77 subscribers, and the singer hasn't posted anything in 3 years. From a quick Facebook search, it turns out that Angell is still active as a musician, with a new haircut and some designer rims, now under the moniker of Snarly  (link to his social media presence).  YOU'RE STILL A BREEZE UPON MY SKIN.  Of the Copeland covers, Charles Angell's version of " Erase &q

" Cadence " was the third single from Anberlin . Vocalist Stephen Christian talks about the band overhearing him playing the song on an acoustic guitar one day. Thinking the song was too mellow for Anberlin, he thought the song would be better suited for his solo project, Anchor & Braille , but t he band loved the song and placed it as the penultimate track on their debut record, Blueprints for the Black Market .  The song is inspired by Christian's time in college when he roomed with his brother, Paul. The brothers talked about life, philosophy, relationships, and God, and the song was a culmination of those late night conversations. The song features some of the best drumming on the record. Before the band's livestream of the album  Nathan Young , who was fifteen at the time of recording Blueprints,  tells a story about how producer Aaron Sprinkle 's brother Jesse , drummer of Poor Old Lu and later Demon Hunter , was brought in to record drums on the reco

" Harbinger " was supposed to be the last song we ever heard from Anberlin . In 2013, the band agreed that they would release one last album and tour the world one last time. Stephen Christian  talked openly about that dark hour in the band and the recording industry at the time, and because he was the only one speaking, many fans wondered if there was bad blood. However, in 2017, which was certainly not "forever" after their "final show" in December of 2014, the band announced a reunion supporting their good friends Underoath , who had also gotten back together. Since that reunion show, the band has toured off-and-on again, and most recently, performed all seven of their studio albums on livestreams. Yesterday, the band performed the album they never intended to play live, Lowborn . But right after the band's final movement in their requiem, they premiered a new song called " Two Graves, " along with the announcement that a new record is in

There were a number of Christian extreme sports shows that featured harder Christian Rock. These shows might be featured late nights on cable tv or on Christian channels. In 2003, Anberlin released their first radio hit to Christian Rock radio, " Change the World (Lost Ones) ." However, around that time "Readyfuels" was included in one of those sports shows. The sport: luge racing. "Readyfuels" was the band's first promoted single by the record label. "Change the World" was sent to Christian radio. But "Readyfuels" wasn't a Christian Rock song, in the traditional sense. It's a song that mostly  glorifies the carnal nights of youth--a prelude to an out-of-wedlock pregnancy. "Readyfuels" would go on to chart on even Air1, a Contemporary Christian pop radio station. Anberlin's intention was never to be a Christian band, but unlike other Tooth & Nail staples that moved away from the Christian market, Anberlin

  Adam Dutch is a DJ from Ocean City, Maryland, who specializes in blending pop, rock, hip-hop, and EDM. In 2018, he took two very sad songs, the current hit at that time by Bastille and Marshmello , " Happier ," and set it to Anberlin 's 2005 fan favorite, " Paperthin Hymn. " What the track gains is a harder, more passionate vocal line from Bastille's lyrics, along with Stephen Christian 's occasional line, adding "I thought you said forever over and over." Anberlin's lyrics, though, are mostly buried in the musical layers, making the song about a breakup and not about death. But, by choosing this mashup, I believe I have disqualified myself from writing about "Paperthin Hymn" on another "Sunday morning" or on an "August evening," so I will bring the original songs into the conversation as well. I THOUGHT YOU SAID FOREVER OVER AND OVER... Anberlin's "Paperthin Hymn" is an excellent example of

  Anchor & Braille has been Anberlin 's lead singer Stephen Christian 's side project for a while. Some of Anberlin's songs started out as Anchor & Braille songs. In 2009, Christian collaborated with Aaron Marsh and a few other hometown musicians including Louis DeFabrizio of Gasoline Heart and released A&B's debut record Felt , an album that feels like if Christian were the lead singer of Copeland somewhere between their In Motion and Eat, Sleep,   Repeat releases. Anchor and Braille's sound would very greatly over their occasional four albums as well as the make up of the 'band' would just become Stephen Christian collaborating in the studio with other musicians. I have yet to listen to 2020's Tension  from start to finish, but of the three albums, Felt feels the best. You can tell that it's the same singer of Cities and Never Take Friendship Personal struggling relationships.  SHE MAKES THREATS I HOPE THAT SHE SEES THROUGH. Felt

We all have to pay the bills, and musicians are certainly no exception. Randy Torres formerly of Project 86 works in sound design. Dan Koch of Sherwood writes music for adverting. Stephen Christian is a music pastor. All of these examples, though, have kept the band separate. The Fold released two records on Tooth & Nail , but never achieved the greatness of their label-mates, save a Grammy nomination for the packaging of their sophomore record. Though having a smaller fanbase than other Tooth & Nail bands, The Fold started partnering with brands, writing theme songs, most notably Lego's Ninjago, for which they performed exclusively for seven years.  I SPENT A LONG TIME BUILDING LADDERS TO THE STARS. The songs this weekend are whimsical stories. Yesterday , the canon story, and today climbing to the stars, meeting a "friendly meteor beside the moon" who tells the speaker to "be yourself and watch the stars come to you." This fun pop-punk song along