NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

  Turn Off the Stars ’ self-titled album is one that I listen to every year. The band only released one album in 2006, which contained several reworked songs from their 2004 EP Everything Is OK . The Brit-pop-inspired Toronto-based band’s lyrics are simple. Their minor hit “ Please ” only has two verses and what could be better described as a pre-chorus and a drop if the song were EDM. The song is a guitar-driven track and, of course, is not electronic dance music. The band creates a wall of sound with the guitars that reach a climax after each pre-chorus. Like bands like The War on Drugs and The Amazing , “Please” creates tension with two chords--E minor and C-- for most of the song. The song adds D and A minor to pay off the tension. While the guitar is the star of the song (no pun intended), lead singer Michael Walker’s vocals, particularly his falsetto on the pre-chorus contribute to the emotional payoff of the song. WAIT, WHAT A BEAUTIFUL DAY. “Please” is my favorite song on Tur

" Brightside " is the last song on Turn Off the Stars ' only album . It's simple guitar and vocal track about something better happening that transcends the gloomy reality. It's a kind of pep talk in a song. Today, I wanted to collect a few songs about optimism. With the dark months ahead, seasonal depression is real for so many people. The holiday season also can be a dark time when dealing with family or remembering those we lost. "Brightside" reminds us that sadness is just a passing state. The colder seasons are coming, but spring will come again with the sunshine.   

Today is the third entry from Shura 's Nothing's Real album. In an interview at Austin City Limits in 2019 , Shura said that her mother said that her mother said of her first album "It gets better the more you listen to it," which Shura and the interviewer lightheartedly took as a  criticism of the singer-songwriter's 2016 album. I agree with Shura's mother, but not as a criticism of the album. It was great the summers of 2016 and 2017 when I first enjoyed Nothing's Real . But the album was more than just a song fleeting song of the summer. To me, it gets better every time I listen to it.  IF YOU LET ME DOWN, LET ME DOWN SLOW. Today, I'll provide a track-by-track reaction to each song on Shura's Nothing's Real much like what I've done with Acceptance 's Phantoms and Turn Off the Stars .    My reaction isn't meant to be extensive, and I will add to it as I choose more songs to be the song of the day. I'll provide the Spotify ver

Today I'm going to recommend an album rather than just one song. This is the fourth song I've featured by Canadian Christian Rock band Turn Off the Stars, and as they were together for only a short time and didn't document everything on social media, I've run out of fun facts about the band. Sometimes I like riffing on the theme of one song, but it's a cold day in January, so I think that a deep dive in this particularly cold, moody record is perfect for early January. I'll also post links to the three other tracks I've talked about this album, so you can read up about other interesting details about the band and their record label, along with some of my cringy fiction. First, I'll post the album. I'm sharing in Apple Music today, because the interface is cleaner for this particular album. If you would prefer to listen in Spotify, I'll post it here . 1. "I Wasn't Ready" The album opens with instrumentation that sounds like nature

This is our third entry from Credential Recording's short-lived band, Turn Off the Stars. I don't know much about what the band members did after breaking up. Guitarist and backup vocalist Andrew Walker now leads worship at a church, but the other members don't have much of an Internet presence. Signed to Credential Records, a home to acts like Edison Glass, Seabird, Future of Forestry , Sixpence None the Richer at one time, and Swichfoot's Jon Foreman and his side project with Nickel Creek's Sean Watkins, Family Fiction, the label seemed to drop most of its supported bands in the late '00s. Some of the bands transitioned, but others, like Turn Off the Stars, folded. Now the label partnered with Jon Foreman's label Lowercase People and only market's Foreman's projects other than Switchfoot.  BUT YOU DO IT TO YOURSELF . The fourth track on the moody album, "Hours and Days" is a brooding song about tediously waiting for someone to change. The

Last month, I wrote about " Getaway ," a song located in the center of Turn Off the Stars' only LP . I keep coming back to this obscure album, despite its simple, sometimes generic songs. "Brightside" is the last track on the 2006 eponymous release. The album takes listeners on a range of emotions from desperation to wonder to love to loss to dealing with the monotony of life, and finally to looking on the bright side. The optimism of the ending track perfectly embodies the Christian cliche of writing in a minor key but ending in on a major chord. However, I always wish listeners had an opportunity to hear what kind of music the band would have developed into. So, as we end another month's playlist, let's go out on a high note. Next month will certainly bring a range of emotions as the summer ends and school starts again in the endless cycle of children growing up and teachers aging toward retirement. Take a moment on Saturday, July 31st to enjoy some su

Turn Off the Stars was a short-lived Canadian pop-rock band. The band was often compared to Coldplay or Keane , but their often wall-of-sound guitars liken them more to Oasis or The Verve. In 2006, their self-titled debut album had one RadioU/Christian Rock hit "Please," the second track from the record. Released in the fall of 2006, this was the soundtrack to freshman year in college, which meant driving on frosty mornings to McDowell Technical Community College to obtain an Associate's Degree that (maybe) saved me $20,000. It was also the year that my family moved to Nebo, buying their first house. But this album took on a new life as it was one of my few albums I could listen to in the car without my mom complaining. So it was an album we listened to several times when we took the long drive up to New York to visit my dad's side of the family, seeing family members we hadn't seen in nearly 10 years. I'VE BEEN RUNNING WITH MY SOUL SO TIRED ABOUT YOU. &qu