NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

With fans’ hearts freshly broken from the whirlwind year of 2014– when  Anberlin  announced their disbandment,  final album , and last world tour—lead singer  Stephen Christian  certainly wasn't walking away from music. First settling down in Nashville, he began exclusively writing songs for other artists. But in mid-2015 he released two  Anchor & Braille  tracks, " Detroit Stab " and " Fatal Flaw ." In February of 2016, Anchor & Braille released  Songs for the Late Night Drive Home , the third full-length project with the lead single, " Watch You Burn " and a lyric video proceeding the album's release. I WANNA WATCH YOU CATCH FIRE.  In interviews Stephen Christian has stated that Anchor & Braille projects usually reflect the style of music he's currently listening to. For the third installment, Christian talks about listening to  Washed Out  and  M83 , which can be heard in the chill, "late-night" synth sounds of the albu

For the third year, The Weeknd 's " Blinding Lights " makes my playlist, although last year the song was represented by Sam Tsui with production by Kurt Hugo Schneider . I find the cultural discussions around the song fascinating: how a song from 2019 predicted the loneliness and isolation of the world, the greater concept in the record After Hours  complete with thematic story-telling music videos and conceptual live performances leading up to and during the release of the record. "Blinding Lights" was the omni-present hit in 2020 that worked whether you were a drug or sex addict, a celebrity dealing with the dark side of the industry, or none of those things. A lot has been said about this synth pop track a lot better than I can prepare in an evening, so I'll leave you with a podcast that talks about it pretty well. And for the rest of the post today, I'm going to leave you with a Spotify Edition of my Pseudo '80s Hits from last year. Kids make

  Coming to the end of the year, it's time to remember some of the musical highlights of 2022. I listened to a lot of music this year and maybe more new music than last year. But there certainly were albums that slipped under the radar. I had every intention of digging into  The Weeknd 's  Dawn FM   , but somehow I was never in that dark of a mood to resonate with the characteristics of that record. Today, I'm going to reveal my controversial list. Enjoy! #10 . The Loneliest Time  by Carly Rae Jepsen . The latest from the " Call Me Maybe " singer is a record that isn't immediately catchy and could easily fall between the cracks of all the big releases of this year. The diverse singles showed different camera angles of a maturing pop singer who has solidified her status in music nerd-dom and gay music listeners alike. And with her first explicit labeled song, Jepsen is distancing herself from former tween-friendly aesthetic. I'm sure next year I'll be d

  Christopher Michael Taylor, better known as Sohn , is an English singer, songwriter, and producer. The London-born musician moved to Vienna in 2007, signed to the British record label, 4AD , and released his debut record Tremors in 2014. The Guardian gave the record a mixed review, criticizing the singer's flare for the dramatic on certain songs, particularly on the track " Paralysed ," but  praising Sohn's musicality. SOMEBODY BETTER LET ME KNOW MY NAME. The minimal sounds of Sohn's Tremors can start to usher in winter. The first single " Artifice " is the most exciting the album gets, and thus stands out on the album. Sohn has released three LPs, including this year's Trust, but his listenership is only at about 460,000 a month on Spotify. Before releasing Tremors, Sohn remixed Lana Del Rey 's " Ride ," and he has produced remix tracks for The Weeknd and Honne . The vocals on Tremors are vaguely reminiscent of early Fleet Foxes

Folklore   is an album without a radio single, according to Taylor Swift . However, the music industry, even with its changes in practices over the last decade and over the course of the pandemic, is still the music industry. And when one of the biggest pop stars releases an album, there better be a single to release. But what song? There was a lot of great music released and produced during lockdown. Charlie XCX , Lady Gaga , and The Weeknd had us dancing in our underwear in the living room with our old cereal bowls stacked up on the arm table (did I just confess something?). Travis Barker produced a shit-ton of music, changing rap into rock. There were a ton of lockdown concerts. For Taylor Swift, lockdown was all about reinventing herself by going back to the basics.  CHASE TWO GIRLS, LOSE THE ONE. Like when Stephen Christian  at a Cornerstone set jokingly called " Like Steps in a Dance " was the "radio hit" from Anchor & Braille 's Felt , an album that

Back in 2010 we learned that yes, a pickle can get more likes than  Nickelback , a band that had become the most hated  "butt rock"  band in the mid-'00s. In fact, the conclusions of the social media study found that a pickle had more likes than Oprah Winfrey or other beloved figures. It turns out that internet users' hate outweighs Internet love, or the terrible outweighs the good. In 2014, the most hated rock band would become  U2  after their release of  Songs of Innocence   was forced into every  iTunes users' library. People tried everything to scrub the songs from their shuffle. Today, people have mostly forgotten about Nickelback, and Apple Music no longer comes standard with that U2 album, so people have other musical axes to grind. Justin Bieber has grown up and is no longer blaring in our cultural continuousness. So who is the most hated band these days? After the 2019 Super Bowl it was   Maroon 5 , for taking to the stage when the NFL was in the middle

I've written a bit last year about how I'm a Coldplay apologist. I believe that the London-based band is very good at what they do. Though so many artists accomplish their sound, both musically and lyrically, better, there's something uplifting about a new Coldplay album. Early last year, I talked about the band's first single from their ninth studio record,   Music of the Spheres , " Higher Power ." The album was released on October 15 last year. Before the release of the record and after releasing "Higher Power," the band released the promotional single, the 10:17 track " Coloratura ," which was praised by critics for its composition and production. Then they released the second radio single " My Universe ," featuring the South Korean boy band, BTS . The song shot straight to number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 , becoming the second Coldplay single to top the Hot 100, the first being " Viva la Vida ." I JUST WANT TO PUT

The music, the legend, the meme. Today we take on A-ha ’s 1985 summer classic, “ Take on Me .”A-ha is a Norwegian band. Their dream was to get famous in the UK before sweeping the world. To do this, like other European bands and musicians, the band decided to record all of their songs in English. However, getting a massive hit like “Take on Me” took persistent marketing. The song went to #3 in Norway before the band re-recorded it and released the single internationally. But the band’s iconic music video is the reason the song topped the Billboard Hot 100 and went to #1 in 12 other countries. TODAY’S ANOTHER DAY TO FIND YOU. The guitar riff on “ Everybody Wants to Rule the World ” is perhaps a close second to the synth and drum opening of “Take on Me” for emerging the listener in the ‘80s. What I didn’t realize today when I was enjoying this song is how young the band was. I often think of bands that existed before my time as being forever old. And with today’s song’s heyday two years

With fans’ hearts freshly broken from the whirlwind year of 2014– when Anberlin announced their disbandment,  final album , and last world tour—lead singer Stephen Christian certainly wasn't walking away from music. First settling down in Nashville, he began exclusively writing songs for other artists. But in mid-2015 he released two Anchor & Braille tracks, " Detroit Stab " and " Fatal Flaw ." In February of 2016, Anchor & Braille released Songs for the Late Night Drive Home , the third full-length project with the lead single, " Watch You Burn " and a lyric video proceeding the album's release. I WANNA WATCH YOU CATCH FIRE. In interviews Stephen Christian has stated that Anchor & Braille projects usually reflect the style of music he's currently listening to. For the third installment, Christian talks about listening to Washed Out and M83 , which can be heard in the chill, "late-night" synth sounds of the album. Work

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