NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

Anchor & Braille has been Anberlin 's lead singer Stephen Christian 's side project for a while. Some of Anberlin's songs started out as Anchor & Braille songs. In 2009, Christian collaborated with Aaron Marsh and a few other hometown musicians including Louis DeFabrizio of Gasoline Heart , and released A&B's debut record Felt , an album that feels as if Christian were the lead singer of Copeland somewhere between their In Motion and Eat, Sleep, Repeat releases. Anchor and Braille's sound would vary greatly over their occasional four albums as well and the makeup of the 'band' would just become Stephen Christian collaborating in the studio with other musicians. You can tell that it's the same singer of Cities and Never Take Friendship Personal struggling relationships. SHE MAKES THREATS I HOPE THAT SHE SEES THROUGH .  Felt  was an album that appeared in my Junior year of college (one of them :) around a month or so before  New Surre

In 2011, Rolling Stone named Eric Clapton as the second greatest guitarist of all time--Jimi Hendrix was the first. Coming to prominence in 1963 as the replacement guitarist for The Yardbirds, forming the group Cream, Blind Faith, and Derek and the Dominos , Clapton has started and played with and started a number of bands and took songs from each of his musical eras into his solo career in '80s and '90s. In 1970, Clapton joined with three other musicians he worked with in another band, Delaney & Bonnie to form a "make-believe band" called Derek and the Dominos. The band only released one record, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs , but the title track became one of Clapton's signature tunes particularly for its guitar riff.  YOU GOT ME ON MY KNEES. Derek and the Dominos formed during recording sessions of former Beatle George Harrison ’s third solo record, All Things Must Pass . And that connection between Clapton and Harrison wasn’t the only one. Clapt

" My my, hey hey / Rock 'n' Roll is here to stay" declares  Neil Young  in his 1978 song.  Rock music has had lasting presence in pop culture since the age of  Chuck Berry  and   Little Richard . Some points in the '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s, and '00s the genre took the primary spots on radio charts outside of the genre. However, around the end of the '00s, Hip Hop decimated the genre. The rock bands left standing, mostly traded their axes for acoustic guitar, keyboards, EDM beats, or Trap rhythms. Much of the rock music was indistinguishable from other genres, and that trend continues into the 2020s. However, just as rock bands cross over to the pop charts, the late 2010s to 2021 is seeing pop singers experiment with rock music. From Miley Cyrus performing with Metallica to rappers like  Post Malone  and  Machine Gun Kelly  flirting with emo, some may argue that Rock is seeing a mainstream resurgence. Enter  Olivia Rodrigo 's " good 4

  Rebecca Jean Smallbown, better known as by her stage name Rebecca St. James , was born in Australia but moved to Nashville, Tennessee as a teenager in the early '90s. A year before her family relocated, St. James began her singing career at the age of twelve, opening for Carman on his Australian tour. In America, Smallbone signed a record deal with ForeFront in 1994 taking the name St. James at the label’s request.  I KNOW YOU MAY MAKE MISTAKES. Rebecca St. James became one of the biggest CCM singers. Her early records were forged in rock rather than adult contemporary, in a similar vein of the female rockers of the late '90s like Alanis Morissette and Natalie Imbruglia . But with the turn of the millennium, the popularity of female rock stars declined and electro-pop acts like Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera also changed the CCM musical landscape. In 2000, St. James released her fourth record Transform , an album that utilized the synth sounds found in the bubblegu

If you're driving through Columbus, Ohio you can tune your radio to 88.7 and find out where music is going. First hitting the airwaves in 1996, the radio station went worldwide via SkyAngel satellite network.  RadioU  plays Christian Rock and has been home to artists who would otherwise never hit the radio waves. However, bands often disappear from the playlist over time. This can because the band changed their sound or their message. Artists like the  Newsboys ,  Audio Adrenaline ,  dc talk , Jars of Clay , and Jennifer Knapp were played in the '90s and first few years of the '00s, but the listeners didn't like the direction that those artists took in their later careers. Other groups like Copeland , Mae, and  MuteMath  started out with RadioU and "got too big," or at least that was the story. Sometimes they will pick up groups like Thrice, Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, and Paper Route, in the middle of a successful career.  TAKE IT SLOW . Partly because of RadioU

Fleetwood Mac might be the most turbulent rock band in terms of member changes, feuds, and internal relationships going awry because of infidelity. The conflict, lawyers, and affidavits surrounding Paramore , though, feels akin to the ‘70s rock band. In his series Deep Discog Dives , YouTuber Nick Canovas summarized the controversies surrounding Paramore . Perhaps the biggest rift in the band is between former lead guitarist Josh Farro and lead singer Haley Williams . After the band’s third record, Brand New Eyes , Farro publicly expressed his opposition to the lyrical direction Williams was taking the band. I DON’T EVEN KNOW MYSELF AT ALL. Like many bands in the pop-punk scene in the ‘00s, Paramore began their career with ties to the Christian Rock scene. Most of the bandmates grew up Christian, and it seemed natural to integrate their beliefs into the band’s lyrics. But by the band’s breakthrough record, their sophomore Riot! , the lyrics shifted away from Christian themes. The ban

Sent By Ravens released two LPs on Tooth & Nail Records before going on an indefinite hiatus ten years ago. When fewer and fewer of their label mates claimed to be a Christian Rock band, Sent By Ravens fully embraced the genre. The band’s name comes from 1 Kings 17:6 when the prophet Elijah fled to the wilderness under threat of death from King Ahab and Queen Jezebel. According to the story, Elijah was fed by ravens carrying bread to him.  YOUR WORDS WON’T ALWAYS BE GRACEFUL.  Sent By Raven’s second record  Mean What You Say   is a response to hate hidden behind the mask of Christian rhetoric, specifically Westboro Baptist Church, the hate group that protests funerals in order to gain attention and condemn others they see who are not living to the standards of God as dictated through their narrow reading of the scriptures.    As so many Christian Rock bands broke up or changed their worldview, Mean What You Say examines the state of Christianity in early ‘10s. This was a time be