NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

The season 2 Labeled  podcasts finale concluded the story arc of Tooth & Nail Records ’ start from collecting likeminded, DIY-spirited bands to a marketably lucrative record business backed by major- label distribution, a slowing in the market and uncertain times, then back to a purely indie label. As the story goes, the label had signed two bands for general rock radio, The Classic Crime and Jonezetta . These bands were not intended for Christian radio, like how The Juliana Theory had been half a decade before. In 2006, at the time of this marketing strategy, the label was losing some of its most successful acts to major labels. Could the new signees save the label? WHEN THE CHORUS DIES, DOES IT KILL YOU TO BE ALONE? Neither bands reached the level Tooth & Nail had planned for them. The Classic Crime has had a successful career, but mostly because the label accidentally marketed them to Christian radio. Jonezetta, however, wasn’t played on RadioU , but I think I bought their

  Many Christians and former Christians were crestfallen by the marriage of politics and religion, particularly displayed from the 2016 election of Donald Trump. How could religious leaders we looked up to, who taught us about the fruits of the spirit, now say that Trump was appointed by God? Back in 2012, though, a band from Hartsville, South Carolina, began to see inconsistencies between what the Bible said and what was preached. YOU BETTER MEAN WHAT YOU SAY.   Sent By Ravens released two records with Tooth & Nail Records before going on an indefinite hiatus. Unlike many Tooth & Nail acts, Sent By Ravens was a Christian Rock band that dealt with Christian themes directly. The band's debut record, Our Graceful Words , produced by Aaron Sprinkle , challenged listeners on spiritual themes on songs like " New Fire " and " Beautiful List ." Other songs on the record like " Trailers vs. Tornadoes " and " Stone Soup " displayed a post-ha

Today we take another dive into Aaron Sprinkle 's 2017 record, Real Life . In a sense, Real Life was a farewell record. Sprinkle had scaled back his productions in the early '10s, only working with bands he really wanted to. Real Life is also his final record on Tooth & Nail Records . Since moving to Nashville in the ‘10s, Sprinkle began working on other musical projects outside of the Tooth & Nail world. Real Life blends trendy late ‘10s pop hooks and ‘80s/‘90s electronic sounds. MEET ME WHERE THE LIGHT GETS IN YOUR EYES. Today, I'm updating the hideous album artwork for my Aaron Sprinkle Essentials playlist on Spotify and creating an Apple Music edition. After all, it is Apple Music playlists I'm basing the Aaron Sprinkle list on-- Max Martin , Jack Antonoff , Greg Kurtsin , etc. I think Aaron Sprinkle deserves his own playlist, so here it is: 1. " Step Here " by Aaron Sprinkle. The penultimate track on Real Life feels like a '90s video game

In 2006,   Family Force 5   debuted with their brand of 'crunk,' rap-rock punk that was comical, dancey, awkward, and overall unique. You'd be hard-pressed to find much Christian Rock on  Business Up Front/Party in the Back .  Most of the songs are about dancing in the club and falling in love. While pretty innocent, it was one of the first times a Christian Rock band invited its listeners to the club. Known for their outrageous live shows and touring with the likes of   Cobra Starship ,   30h!3 ,   Cash Cash ,   Breathe Carolina , and   The Secret Handshake , the band took a stylistic left turn when they released their sophomore record on   Tooth & Nail Records   in 2008.   Dance or Die   has much less crunk, more singing, and fewer joke songs. The band started taking themselves seriously on this record, but looking back, I wonder   who   it was for? THEY TRY TO TAKE OUR LIVES, BUT WE WILL SURVIVE . Family Force 5 is a rock band, but in their live shows they functioned

  As the Christian Rock releases from Tooth & Nail have been ebbing in the current music market, the new Tyson Montsonbocker record is no exception. Motsenbocker explained on the Black Sheep Podcast that his third record, Milk Teeth , moves away from spiritual subjects but the songs are more rooted in stories about people he knows and about growing up and realizing that life isn’t exactly what his parents and teacher told him life would be.  LEARNED THE BACKSEAT LESSONS IN A WHITE CHURCH VAN. But steering away from Christian and spiritual themes Tyson Motsenbocker doesn’t necessarily divorce Milk Teeth from his Christian upbringing. Instead, Milk Teeth sounds something like a Phoebe Bridgers , Lucy Dacus , Julien Baker , or certain Buzzfeed writers who write wistfully about episodes from evangelical pasts. For Motsenbocker on Milk Teeth, that evangelical past isn’t particularly devout. Today’s song, “ Wendy Darling ,” has a backdrop of youth group in the third verse, but even w

Sent By Ravens released two LPs on Tooth & Nail Records before going on an indefinite hiatus ten years ago. When fewer and fewer of their label mates claimed to be a Christian Rock band, Sent By Ravens fully embraced the genre. The band’s name comes from 1 Kings 17:6 when the prophet Elijah fled to the wilderness under threat of death from King Ahab and Queen Jezebel. According to the story, Elijah was fed by ravens carrying bread to him.  YOUR WORDS WON’T ALWAYS BE GRACEFUL.  Sent By Raven’s second record  Mean What You Say   is a response to hate hidden behind the mask of Christian rhetoric, specifically Westboro Baptist Church, the hate group that protests funerals in order to gain attention and condemn others they see who are not living to the standards of God as dictated through their narrow reading of the scriptures.    As so many Christian Rock bands broke up or changed their worldview, Mean What You Say examines the state of Christianity in early ‘10s. This was a time be

Sticking with the theme of often forgotten RadioU minor hits, Furthermore was another group that only released two records, 1999's Fluorescent Jellyfish and 2003's She and I .  Furthermore was a trio consisting of vocalists Daniel Fisher and Lee Jester and DJ Jason Jester . The group arrived on  the  precipice of Tooth & Nail Records '  golden age and left the roster shortly after releasing She and I. Fisher went on to play in several bands, and apparently released several other projects under Furthermore after the group's Tooth & Nail run, including a single in 2020 and several singles earlier this year. BEFORE YOU SAY GOODBYE.  Furthermore is a vestige of when Tooth & Nail signed artists without thinking about the financial consequences. Christian Rap was a burgeoning market for Christian audiences, but rock, punk, and hard music eventually became much of the label's focus. Christian Rap tended to be more evangelistic, whereas many of the rock band

Spoken formed in 1996 and signed to CCM singer-songwriter Crystal Lewis 's Metro 1 label the following year. The band's early music was influenced by Rage Against the Machine and P.O.D., mostly consisting of rap-core and nu metal. After releasing three studio records and a greatest hits compilation through Metro 1, the band signed to Tooth & Nail Records in 2003 and released their fourth studio record, A Moment of Imperfect Clarity .   A CHANCE TO CHANGE THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT. Spoken's fourth record, A Moment of Imperfect Clarity  developed the band's sound from a rap-rock, nu metal band to a melodic post-hardcore band. With the Tooth & Nail years during the explosion of the record label and the mass-marketability of Christian Rock, Spoken gained a greater audience. Also with the backing of the record company, the production on their Tooth & Nail albums increased significantly. On the first Tooth & Nail record for spoken, the band worked with Garth

The best music doesn't happen in isolation, but rather comes out of a community movement. I would define community, when it comes to music, as a mixing of artist who bring different ideas together ideas from various genres. The result of musical community is stronger musicianship by all those involved. Collaboration, the meeting of minds, happens naturally. Throughout the course of my blog, I've talked about various communities. Tooth & Nail , Christian Rock, exvangelical communities are definitely the biggest themes. Tegan and Sara grew out of the Northwestern Canadian/American Indie Rock community in the late '90s, and by 2013 became pop stars.   HERE COMES THE RUSH BEFORE WE TOUCH.  Many fans may have been introduced to  Tegan and Sara  when Meredith Grey and Christina Yang danced to their early acoustic,  angry girl music on  Grey's Anatomy ' s earlier seasons.  The musical duo of Calgary-born identical  twins  Tegan  and  Sara Quin  started on the acoustic

Manchester Orchestra began as a project when lead singer Andy Hull dropped out of his Christian high school in Atlanta to study at home during his senior year. Hull grew up in a religious household ; his father and grandfather both ministers. Hull went on to form a band with musicians who had a similar faith background. But on the band’s sophomore release, Mean Everything to Nothing, Hull assesses his spiritual trauma, critiquing  mainstream Christianity in the album’s twelve songs. Similar to the work of David Bazan and Pedro the Lion , Manchester Orchestra’s  Mean Everything to Nothing is a classic in Ex-Evangelical deconstruction. DIRTY ON THE GROUND IS WHAT I NEED.  The standard evangelical teaching is that Christians and the non-Christian forces in the world are at war. There are constant temptations that try to distract Christians from their main duty in life: to worship God. Though definitions of sin vary, from a list of actions and thoughts one can do or have to an ethereal

Mae 's sophomore record, The Everglow , is to this day their most beloved record. The band released the album in 2005 and rereleased it the next year as a deluxe edition with bonus tracks and a read-along booklet designed to enhance the listener's Multi-sensory Aesthetic Experience in 2006. With the band's releases of demos and two full-length records, Mae fulfilled their contract with Tooth & Nail Records . Later that year, the band signed with Capitol Records and began recording with legendary producer Howard Benson . Singularity was released in the summer of 2007 and was the only Mae record to be released on Capitol. SMOKE-FILLED CASINOS, BUT WHAT DO WE KNOW WE'LL TAKE A CHANCE.   Singularity  is a unique album for Mae as it features a rock and New Wave sound not featured on the prior records. Drummer Jacob Marshall and keyboardist Rob Sweitzer named the album Singularity based on their discussions from a book by physicist Paul Davies. Marshall said of these

The third record from The Classic Crime , Vagabonds , was the last record of the band on Tooth & Nail Records . The Classic Crime has had ups and downs in their success. Their first album, Albatros ,  was mis-marketed on iTunes in the genre of Christian Rock, something that the band and their A&R team had fought prior to the album's release . However, the band was ultimately associated with the genre because of their record label. Furthermore, the first record's reviews were mixed to  poor. But the band's follow up, The Silver Cord , was well-received, especially as a Christian Rock album. I'M COUNTING ON GRACE. Vagabonds didn't have the same CCM appeal that The Silver Cord had. Though the album had three singles on Christian Rock radio, the last of which was today's song " A Perfect Voice ," the album's opener, the album didn't appeal much to the band's target secular Warped Tour scene. With the apparent commercial failure and t