NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

  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

In 2007 Aaron Gillespie released Southern Weather   with producer Aaron Sprinkle , under the moniker The Almost . At that time Gillespie was known as the drummer and clean vocalist for Underoath , a band that had just released their biggest record, Define the Great Line , the year before. In many ways, Southern Weather was like the first Foo Fighters record written and performed by former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl .  Like Grohl, Gillespie played almost all of the instruments on the record, wrote all of the songs, and then assembled a band to tour with the record. Often filling in on bass, though, is Gillespie's good friend Kenny Vasoli of The Starting Line .    WINTER DAYS MAKE ME SAY, “WHAT THE HEY?" Like all of Aaron Gillespie's projects,  Southern Weather  captures a moment of sincerity in the singer-songwriter's life. Before what some conservative critics might say that Gillespie became the a gitprop for exvangelical deconstruction, The Almost's Southern W

  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

They're Only Chasing Safety is an important album both in Christian music and Emo. The fourth studio record from Underoath was a reinvention of the band. First, the band's prior lead singer, Dallas Taylor , left the band while the band was on the Vans Warped Tour in 2003, touring for their third record, The Changing of Times . Between the band's third and fourth records, half of Underoath's members changed, but since 2004, the band's lineup hasn't changed. Frontman Spencer Chamberlain took Taylor's place on unclean vocals and together with drummer Aaron Gillespie on clean vocals, the two created the band's first iconic record, an album that set the standard of hard-edged Emo and screamo.   CAN YOU FEEL YOUR HEARTBEAT RACING? I've written a lot about Underoath, mostly about who they are now and how everything they are doing now is a reaction to who and what they've done. They're Only Chasing Safety is an album about six Christian young me

" Escalates " is the second single  from Falling Up 's debut record, Crashings . All three of the band's singles from Crashings, " Broken Heart ," "Escalates," " Bittersweet "   topped Christian Rock Radio charts. Falling Up signed to BEC Recordings because of industry hype from the band Kutless , who came from the same suburb of Portland, Oregon as Falling Up. Working with the same producer, Aaron Sprinkle , Falling Up was set to be the next big Christian Rock band. I CAN'T FIND IT, BUT MAYBE I'LL COPE.    I've talked about the sonic production on Crashings and how I think that it is perhaps on of Aaron Sprinkle's best feats of production despite the record never coming up in the podcast conversations I've heard with Sprinkle. I've speculated that there's an interesting, perhaps an uncomfortable, story about Falling Up's tenure in the Tooth & Nail universe. Sprinkle and the band maintain high-tempo s

While the rock music was falling out of favor in the 2010s, All Time Low 's career continued to gain momentum. Formed in 2003 and heavily influenced by NoFx and Blink -182 the band became a force in the emo phase of the Warped Tour scene. The band became famous for their jocular onstage banter and their mock-turned serious feud with Metro Station . And in that jocular nature, the skinny, nerdy bandmates clad in only their tighty-whities appeared on MySpace's home page the week before their sophomore album So Wrong, It's Right  dropped in 2007. I DON'T MIND IF YOU FUCK UP (RUIN) MY LIFE. Fast forward thirteen years. I deleted a lot of music I acquired in college if I didn't like the songs. I enjoyed laughing at Blink- 182 videos in middle and high school just as much as any lower-middle class American white boy, but joke pop-punk got old when emo bands dug into deeper subjects. It turns out that All Time Low was digging a bit deeper in the 2010s, flying under my

Musically, Underoath ’s most recent record Voyeurist pays homage to different points in their 25-year career. On the band’s breakthrough album, They’re Only Chasing Safety , Underoath experimented with elements not always heard in Metal. One example was including a church choir on the song “ It’s Dangerous Business Walking out Your Front Door .” According to Tim McTague on the episode of Labeled Deep Dives about today’s song “ Hallelujah ,” the Underoath guitarist said he made up a story about how the 2004 single had religious significance in order to record a youth choir in a church basement. Eighteen years later, the second song on Voyeurist prominently features a choir, this time in the chorus. But unlike “Dangerous,” Underoath had distanced themselves from the Christian music scene.  In an interview with Loudwire , Tim says that “Hallelujah” is about “struggles with everything – faith, life and so on.”  The presence of a choir on “Hallelujah” and the track’s title serve as a kin

Today we have another piano-based slow opening track. However, unlike Acceptance ’s Phantoms , promotion for Paper Route ’s debut record Absence was mostly word of mouth from the band’s existing fan base and getting on major tours with Paramore , Mutemath , and others, despite the band being on a division of a major label. The band’s established fan base, curated through touring and social media, had already been introduced to the band’s evolving sound on the Are We All Forgotten EP released on 2008 from the folk-electronic sound of their early efforts. Absence though was full electronic progressive pop. HE STOLE AS BEST HE COULD. The disorienting intro to the song " Enemy Among Us " is a reverberated piano. In the living-room-filmed album promotional performance video (see below) shows a drum set a top the electric piano as Chad Howat plays the song. I have no idea how the band recorded the song, but Absence is an album that I would like to know more technical specifics

Adam Young was inescapable in 2008 with his dreamy #1 hit " Fireflies ," released under the moniker Owl City . Although Owl City went on to produce more records since 2008, other than being a featured artist on Carly Rae Jepsen 's " Good Time ," Owl City or Adam Young weren't on many listener's radar after "Fireflies." But one year prior to Owl City's breakthrough record, Ocean Eyes , Adam Young teamed up with his friend Austin Tofte to form the side project Swimming with Dolphins , releasing their debut EP Ambient Blue   and a B-side cover of Tracy Chapman 's " Fast Car ." I'M LIVING HERE WITHOUT YOU. In 2011 Swimming with Dolphins released their debut record, Water Colours ,  produced by several producers including Tofte and Aaron Sprinkle , and the album was released on Tooth & Nail Records . The band added backing vocalist Breanne Düren on this record, creating a musical conversation on tracks like today's s

Tracking the career of Aaron Marsh reveals a musical diversity rarely seen in artists today. Educated at a performing arts high school, Marsh learned horns and strings. He went on to form Copeland , which was a guitar-based rock band in their early days, taking influence from groups like Gin Blossoms and post-grunge bands. The band's trajectory strayed from rock to experimental electronic music, and Marsh took on other musical ventures, featuring on several projects for bands like Underoath and Anberlin and producing other artists, such as The Myrid, Anberlin , and This Wild Life .   I FOUND YOU DARKER THAN THE SKY ABOVE. In 2017, Marsh provided the sung chorus on the politically-charged Propaganda track, " Cynical ," a song that lambastes American Christian white nationalism. However, a month before Propaganda's Crooked Ways was released, Aaron Marsh released a new project,  Rabbit in the Snare ,  with indie rapper Ivan Ives under the moniker The Lulls in Traf

Spencer Chamberlain didn't grow up in a Christian home, but became a Christian, influenced by his step brother who was a pastor. Chamberlain's conversion story was a perfect marketing tool for the Christian music industry: a young man who struggled with mental health and substance abuse turns to Christ and makes rock music about how God helped him through his struggles. The problem was that when Chamberlain relapsed, he had to stick to his conversion story or face being ousted at first from the band, which happened briefly in 2006, or the Christian music scene. The band was divided on how to handle the secret. THESE EVENTS ARE ALREADY IN MOTION.  Last month , I dug into a new song by Underoath from their latest album Voyeurist . Today, I listened to Episode 1 of Labeled: Deep Dives . Last month's  Episode 0 provides an overview of the band's creative process, but Episode 1 focuses on the contributions and perspectives of guitarist Tim McTague and engineer JJ Revell