NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

  Yellow Ostrich is another one of the bands I discovered on a NoiseTrade Sampler around the end of college. The band is currently the solo project of singer/songwriter Alex Schaaf . Formed in 2009, they released several albums and EPs before disbanding in 2014. However, in March of this year, Schaaf came back with a Yellow Ostrich album called Soft. Today's song comes from the 2012 EP by the same name Ghost . While being a bit of a sleeper, the minimal instrumentation in the early part of the verse along with the slow drum beat makes the song a little creepy. By the verse we have some more piano, but by the bridge we get a noisy guitar solo. Lyrically, the song talks about a relationship that's expired. He doesn't remember the color of her eyes, but he sticks with her because he's afraid of being alone.  MY FAVORITE GHOST, MY PRIDE, I STUMBLE 'TIL I'M LOST. Like many very conservative Christians, Seventh-day Adventists traditionally teach their followers to a

Remy Zero is best known for their 2001 hit "Save Me," which was the title card song for the 10-season WB/CW DC Superhero drama, Smallville, a Superman origin story set in a small Kanas town, following the young adulthood of Clark Kent . Forming in 1989 in Birmingham, Alabama, the band's breakthrough was a tour with Radiohead. Their songs were featured on a number of early '00s TV shows and movies, including Garden State, Fanboys, and She's All That . "Save Me" wasn't especially popular, peaking at #27 on Billboard's Alternative Airplay chart. In 2003, the band called it quits after releasing three full length albums. In a Smallville actors' commentary of a season 3 episode, John Glover and Alison Mack banter about the theme song. Mack says that she heard that they broke up. Glover asks, "Who got the house?" I DON'T CARE HOW YOU DO IT. I've talked about my channel flipping through the Christian music video stations and MuchMu

  The opening track to Troye Sivan's Bloom, "Seventeen" tells the story of Sivan losing his virginity to an older man he met on Grindr. Sivan looks back on this first encounter fondly, despite the man knowing Sivan was underage. The age of consent is a pretty complicated issue, and the law varies from place to place. There are issues of sexism, homophobia, and maturity involved when people pass judgement on age gaps between partners, especially if one is below the age of 18. Sivan has talked about this song , saying, "I don't ever want to come across as condoning [sex with someone underage] or anything like it. But. . . I felt a responsibility to tell the true story of the curious gay kid who puts himself in some kind of shady situation to fund a connection, like all of us crave." AGE IS JUST A NUMBER.  Troye's experience of losing his virginity at 17 is very different from mine. For one thing, when I was 17, there weren't smartphones. Seventeen was

Advanced is a South Korean DJ and producer duo. The original song is sung by singer-songwriter Shaun , whose success referenced in this song, brought him to prominence in Korea and internationally. The English version is sung by Norwegian Singer Songwriter Julie Bergan . The track is remixed and the lyrics are not an exact translation. Shaun's recording of the track is much better vocally and musically. It also has a richer lyrical content in the original Korean. This is not to say that the English version isn't any good. "My Bad" is a kind of behind the music surrounding the rise of Shaun's success, telling the story of a young musician honing his craft as a DJ. I REMEMBER WHEN I CALLED YOU AND SAID I HAD A #1. In February, I talked about the rise and controversy related to Shaun's breakout hit " Way Back Home. " Shaun built his career in the music industry as an electronic musician in rock, pop, and EDM. His high vocal range and ability to make mu

  In 2003, Switchfoot reached their career high when they released their fourth album, The Beautiful Letdown . The band had been gaining popularity from their third album Learning to Breathe .  Three songs from the album were featured in the movie A Walk to Remember . What happened next was the massive rock radio/Top 40/Christian Rock hit, " Meant to Live ." The Christian surf rock band never quite reached the same level of success on their subsequent releases, but they consistently had tracks show up on Mainstream Rock and Alternative charts for years to come. And the Christian market? They devoured Switchfoot albums. SCREAMING WITHOUT LUNGS. Lead vocalist Jon Foreman set a distinct tone in Christian Rock. Arriving on the scene in 1997, Christian Rock was in the middle of a culture war. There were three big bands at the time: the Newsboys , dc talk , and Audio Adrenaline , and their message was "stand up for Christ no matter what you look like." The lyrics of the

Though he only has 45 monthly listeners on Spotify, I can see Ian Mahan joining the ranks of folk artists like Denison Witmer , William Fitzsimmons , Matthew Perryman Jones , and all the other NoiseTrade artists I've been listening to. I added this song a few months ago when I was looking for Aaron Marsh collaborations.  After taking a minor dive into his other works, I feel like this is one of the reasons I write about music: to discover something new, something obscure. From his mellow interpretation of " Eye of the Tiger " to his piano/guitar melodies intertwined with the small-town-America feel of a boy raised in a small Illinois town, but who has moved to Colorado out of a dream or out of necessity, I hope to get better acquainted with Mahan in the weeks to come. THIS TOWN IS CLEARING OUT. "Art & Vida" tells the story about an older couple who have witnessed the decay of the small town after NAFTA took the jobs overseas. It's implied that Art los

Lancaster, Pennsylvania native Denison Witmer has an over 25 year career working as a singer-songwriter. Raised in the Mennonite church, Witmer recalls the rich sound of hymns sung in 4-part harmonies in the farming community church. Witmer's early career was Christian music adjacent: signed to labels like the Christian-owned The Militia Group , Tooth & Nail Records , and Mono v. Stereo , an imprint of Toby Mac's Gotee Records, before his current label, Sufjan Stevens' and Lowell Brams' Asthmatic Kitty Records, the former being a longtime collaborator with Witmer. Witmer has been included on several television soundtracks, has been acclaimed by publications like Pitchfork , and performed at festivals like SXSW, Wild Goose Festival, and Cornerstone. But unless you're looking for slow, fingerpicking music in the vein of Cat Stevens, you've probably never heard of him. He's both prolific and kind of obscure. BY THE MIDDLE OF THE WEEK... HOW MUCH CAN I TAKE?