NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

Taking long breaks between albums in order to self-record in old mansions around Nashville, Paper Route has only produced three full-length albums in their fifteen years active. Whenever they announce a new album, it's met with delays. Their sophomore album, The Peace of Wild Things , is no exception. After the departure of guitarist/co-vocalist Andy Smith , the band didn't have a permanent lead guitarist, and wouldn't until Nick Aranda joined the band before recording Real Emotion .   The Peace of Wild Things is a more pop-friendly album than their etherial debut, Absence . Peace builds the band up lyrically and contains some memorable choruses. But songs like " Sugar ," " Rabbit Holes ," " Tamed ," " Calm My Soul ," and today's song, " Glass Heart Hymn ," the otherwise straight-forward pop album down an artistic journey. MY FEET HAVE LED ME STRAIGHT INTO MY GRAVE. Named after a poem by farmer and environmentalist We

Prior to signing with Gotee Records  in 2009, Wichita-based band, Abandon Kansas garnered radio play on RadioU as an indie band. The band recorded with Gotee for five years before going independent, partnering with BadChristian Music to release their final project,  Alligator , an album in which lead singer Jeremy Spring talked about with the BadChristian Podcast as an album dealing with his personal struggles in the band/Christian band circuit, dealing with doubt, substance abuse, and depression. To some Christian music fans, Alligator  was too profane compared to their previous works and other Christian Rock bands in the scene. To others, Alligator proved to be a refreshing take on authenticity which the confounds of most Christian record labels censored. After the album was released, the band planned to tour with the album, but ultimately personal issues forced Spring to cancel the tour. The band went on indefinite hiatus, but in 2019 they renamed the band to Glass Age , releasi

Before their massively successful 1995 studio debut, Jars of Clay released a self-produced demo titled Frail , which included several songs that made it to their eponymous release . Two songs, though, were reworked and found their way onto their less commercially successful sophomore release, Much Afraid . Departing from their acoustic folk-rock sound, Much Afraid  sounds like a 1997 album. It spawned two singles, " Crazy Times ," peaking at #38 on the Modern Rock singles, and " Five Candles " (You Were There), originally written for Jim Carrey 's Liar Liar , but eventually used in Michael Keaton 's Jack Frost.    Much Afraid is a fine Jars of Clay album. It's more fun to listen to than their debut, varying between folk-rock and modern rock. However, it failed to propel Jars of Clay into the 1997 rock scene. Listeners may not remember them amongst their contemporaries, like The Goo Goo Dolls , Third Eye Blind , and Matchbox Twenty . Instead, they are a

Before becoming a full-time musician, William Fitzsimmons was a practicing mental health therapist. Music was always a presence in the singer's life when he was growing up. His father built a pipe organ in their family residence. Turning to music, the former therapist writes songs about intellectual conundrums, love and loss. Graduating from the Reformed Presbyterian Geneva College, the artist, throughout his career, has kept a faith in the musical conversation. Throughout the singer-songwriter's discography, music has been therapeutic. His sophomore record,  Goodnight,  helped him process his parents' divorce when he was a teenager. But the story behind Mission Bell  is about a personal mental health crisis in the making.  WASHED HANDS, CHANGED PLANS. In an interview with Two Story Melody , Fitzsimmons revealed that he had recorded with his friend and bandmate, but he found out that his wife had been having an affair with this friend. He threw away the original recordings,

Mary J. Blige is a living legend of R&B and pop music. She's enjoyed critical and commercial success from her debut album, produced by Sean Combs (a.k.a. Puffy Daddy). Her music sold well into the 2010s, but by 2014, the now middle-aged singer was looking for something new to freshen up her music.  This included relocating to London, working with younger musicians, such as Disclosure, Sam Smith, and Naughty Boy, who wrote her songs, and allowing the creative collaborative process to make the record. Blige hoped to take inspiration from the British sound that had become a significant pulse in the pop music of the 2000s and 2010s with artists such as Adele, Amy Winehouse, and Sam Smith. The result was what Billboard called the album "objectively [Blige's] best [release] since 2005's The Breakthrough."  NO, NEVER GONNA GIVE YOU THE TIME. I first heard Mary J. Blige in 2001 in her song "Family Affair." I didn't care for the song for a few reasons. Fi

Like with the American pop charts, there are numerous acts that don’t chart well on the Korean pop charts. Maybe the group stays together to produce a few low ranking groups, maybe they break up, maybe they fade to obscurity. Groups like this might be remembered when a radio DJ decides to play it on a whim or maybe a situation or meeting an old friend makes the song come to mind. Other groups may have a low charting single, but by luck garner some attention for some reason. Maybe it’s a slow but steady influx of new fans. Maybe it’s the work of a new promotional team. But in the case of the Korean group Exceed in Dreaming, better known as Exid, a viral, fan-made performance video of the group’s follow up song “ Up & Down ,” that helped the song become one of the biggest hits of the year and cemented the groups as a top girl group in South Korea. DON'T EASILY SPEAK OF ME TO OTHERS. DON'T EVEN SAY HOW I WAS. Like “good 4 u,” “Whoz That Girl” is a break up song dripping in sa

I regret to admit that a few years ago I told my students that BTS probably would never enjoy mainstream success in America. Sure, the signs were all there: the Spotify numbers, the growing fervor for diverse cultures in the pop scene, a growing media interest in Korean culture--movies were featuring more scenes in Seoul, and Asian actors were getting more and more leading roles. "However," I assured my middle school students, "American radio listeners aren't very tolerant of foreign languages." A song like " Despacito " got huge because of its featuring Justin Bieber  on the remix . However, when I made those regrettable comments, I was thinking about the America that I knew. I was thinking about the time in college I was a faithful reader of Billboard's charts, before you had to pay a monthly fee to read them. I was thinking of a time when radio airplay was the majority of an artist's success. And with BTS's Billboard success--two #1 Ho