NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

A big part of my blog is discovering music. Sometimes that’s new indie artists with very little written except for press releases. But what I’ve found more often is that I’ve been unearthing the long-lost civilization of the 2010s, a decade I scoffed at as the nadir of music. During the pandemic, though, I started listening to new music, finding the newer songs resonating with me in ways that the 2010s didn’t. But then I started going back, re-evaluating pop, rock, and alternative in the 2010s, listening with an open mind. I realized that music was changing and that loyalty to any genre was an illusion. Alternative playlists reminded me of what would pass for pop music in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s. Bedroom pop, dream pop, hip-hop, and neo-soul flooded the playlists. Now I see that as a strength rather than a weakness. SAY YOU WANT ME OUTTA YOUR LIFE. One of the tracks that showed up on an Apple Music Alternative Hits playlist was “ Youngblood ” by 5 Seconds of Summer , called 5SOS b

Twenty One Pilots released " Level of Concern " in April 2020 in response to the early months of COVID lockdowns. The song was written and produced in quarantine and lyrically documents the uncertainty of the times in 2020. The song was the group's fourth-biggest hit . The song was co-produced by MUTEMATH's Paul Meany, who collaborated with the band on their previous album, Trench. The music video for the song documents the process of making the song in quarantine--sending tracks between the two bandmates Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun . The song received mostly positive reviews reviews. Entertainment Weekly called it the "first quarantine anthem." We're almost four years away from the unprecedented times, but the level of concern has not waned. Today, we're returning to quarantine with a mix that would have been nice to have back then.   

Today, I'm going to present an evolving list. Last year, I chose an album of the year. In 2021, it was difficult because so much music was re-releases and nothing seemed dynamic enough to be album of the year. I finally settled on Scaled and Icy by twenty one pilots, but I actually didn't listen to it much in 2021. It seemed that 2021 was a year for good music outside of my immediate band preferences. Like many music listeners, my tastes are evolving, and I'm continuing to discover or just listen to older albums, which may change today's list. However, I'm going to try to present a list of the best albums from every year that I have been alive. I get this rank based on how much I've listened to the album, rather than by critical reception. Enjoy! 1987 The Joshua Tree by U2 . This was arguably when U2 became a cultural phenomenon. The first four tracks are the biggest hits from the record. The band always tackled issues of faith and doubt, but The Joshua Tree

  I was wrong about twenty one pilots , and the reason I'm willing to admit that is after I spent time with their album released last year, Scaled and Icy , I realized that this duo was much more than who I thought they were.   Mostly gone--but not entirely--are the emo rapping and trap beats that turned me off of the group when they debuted. The lyrics on Scaled and Icy, though, are emotional, and singer Tyler Joseph masterfully weaves clichés, esoteric messages for fans, current lingo, and new turns of phrase all to a funky piano/guitar groove. Scaled and Icy is in the vein of Paramore 's After Laughter , on the surface it's fun and light-hearted, but when you spend a little time with the lyrics, you're bound to discover a surprising depth. THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH THIS. I was thinking about albums of the year and how last year I didn't seem to have one. In 2019 I was obsessed with Mike Mains & the Branches ' When We Were in Love . And although I di