NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

Born in 1964 to African American actress Roxie Roker and to Jewish-Ukrainian NBC executive Sly Kravitz, Lenny Kravitz built a musical career in the '90s based on Rock 'n' roll nostalgia. As a biracial rocker, Kravitz had a hard time securing a record contract with the labels telling him that he wasn't "black enough" or "white enough" for a specific genre. However, when Kravitz did become a rockstar, he was often criticized for his regressive, old-time rock sound.  I WANT TO GET AWAY. " Fly Away " comes from Kravitz's fifth album 5 . It peaked at #12 on Billboard's Hot 100 singles, and it topped the charts in several countries. The song was used in a commercial for the French-made automobile, the Peugeot 206 supermini car , making the song popular wherever the car was sold. Years later, the song would appear in the American commercial for Nissan's Xterra . And while "Fly Away" hit the airwaves in 1998, about a year be

I've talked about how Carrie & Lowell , Sufjan Steven 's 2015 masterpiece, is a quintessential portrait of dealing with grief and forgiveness when I wrote about the first two tracks, " Death with Dignity ," and " Should Have Known Better ." By the third track on the record, " All of Me Wants All of You ," explores grief in a different way from the previous two tracks. As with most songs on the album, "All of Me" appears to be deeply personal to the artist. But being personal doesn't stop this track's language from being the most obscured with allusions to geography and possibly an allegory from a little-known Spanish play. ALL OF ME THINKS LESS OF YOU.  There's a debate   on Lyrics Genius about the meaning of this song, especially surrounding the identity of the only other character mentioned by name in this song, Manelich. Is he the one the song is about? Stevens has written vaguely about homosexual attraction throughout

In October of last year, The War on Drugs returned after four years with their critically-acclaimed album, I Don't Live Here Anymore . The title track and lead single features indie pop group Lucius as backing vocals on the chorus.  Like their previous works, such as  A Deeper Understanding  (2017) and    Lost in the Dream   (2014),  The War on Drugs is able to play two chords back to back for six minutes and create a song that you never want to end. Those two chords create a warm cadence that's like a bonfire on a cold fall night. And that's reason enough to curl up with a blanket and enjoy The War on Drugs all day long. I NEED A CHANCE TO BE REBORN.  However, unlike their previous works, today's song " I Don't Live Here Anymore ," to me, sounds like an anachronistic '80s or early '90s hit. It's kind of like what Mic the Snare said about " Blinding Lights ": "It's just like that one song. Uh? Which one?" Is it "

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

In 2006, Pitchfork announced that Sufjan Stevens and Rosie Thomas were having a baby together. This announcement was later retracted and clarified as an April Fool's prank. While Stevens and Thomas may not have human children together, the two musicians worked together throughout their careers and even shared a Brooklyn apartment with fellow musician Denison Witmer . Stevens and Thomas recorded Rosie's 2006 record These Friends of Mine over two years in that apartment. The album contained ten tracks, three of them covers, roommate Denison Witmer's "Paper Doll," Fleetwood Mac 's "Song Bird" and R.E.M. 's "The One I Love." The songs reflect the singer on a journey to make it in the big city. The romantic notion of not having much money but living in one of the greatest cities on earth creating art is the vibe this short album gives. HOW I WISH I COULD GO BACK IN TIME. Rosie Thomas comes from Michigan, but attended college at Calvary Chape

Sufjan Stevens Presents: Come On Feel the ILLINOISE was the breakthrough album from the singer-songwriter. The second in an ambitious series to create an album about each of the 50 states, though later retracted as a joke, Illinois topped Billboard 's Heat Seekers charts and introduced countless new fans to Stevens' musical storytelling. Musically, Illinois is dense. Layer upon layer of sound is added to a composition that sounds sometimes like a marching band, sometimes like a jazz band, sometimes like a folk song, and sometimes like a symphony. Stevens prepared the lyrics by obsessively immersing himself in writers, poets, and historians who wrote about the state in order to reference some of the most Illinois things that locals of the small towns and large cities could pick up on the record. The album is rich in geography, historical figures, and mythology of the midwestern state. I FELL IN LOVE AGAIN. Illinois has a score of 90% on Metacritic, ranking at number #54, at th

Composed as one of his ensemble works, Nico Muhly collaborated with three musicians to produce his 2017 work, Planetarium. The work atmospheric electronica rather than an orchestra, but the powerful songs might remind classical music listeners of Gustav Holst's 1917 work which packed as much if not more creative punch, The Planets, which innovated classical music and introduced techniques to modern music like the fade out and 5/4 timing . Muhly calls on the work of drummer James McAlister, The National's guitarist Bryce Dessner, and the vocals of Sufjan Stevens. The National being an artistic (and pretentious to some) band with Dessner collaborating with everyone from Taylor Swift to Phillip Glass, and Sufjan Stevens coming off of his folk record Carrie & Lowell, Planetarium is a quite musical experience, a soundtrack for gazing into the summer night sky.  I'LL CONSUME THE CHILD THAT TRAILS ME. For the songs that have lyrics, Stevens pulls inspiration from a number of