NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

The falsetto sounds of vocalist Josh Ballard 's voice may not be to everyone's liking. But back in 2007 when Until June released their debut album, singing high was the way to make it in the indie scene. Until June's self-titled debut is full of soaring melodies both on the guitar and in Ballard's vocals. The band's name makes me listen to them mostly in late spring to early fall. Though hailing from Arizona, this album makes me think of two early summer trips I took up to Michigan. One trip was before I had listened to this album, back in 2008 and the other was after I had listened to this album in 2010. The cool and breezy guitars remind me of the cool nights when walking around the lates and ponds in a northern early summer. I KNOW IT FEELS LIKE SUMMER. I ended up driving over night from North Carolina to Michigan after my friend's graduation to crash another friend's graduation party. After getting practically drunk on espresso (5 shots, I think), I wa

The whirlwind career of Wonder Girls is an interesting read. They were the first South Korean pop group to chart on Billboard 's Hot 100  and toured with the Jonas Brothers ; their career looked like it would be quite promising. But the members wouldn't stick around. The band originally had 4Minute member Hyuna, but her solo career would pull the singer in another direction. Then there was Sunmi, the singer who turned to K-pop to make support her family after her father died of complications of tuberculosis. But just when the group was blowing up in 2009, she left to focus on her academics. The group went on hiatus after Sunye got married and moved with her husband to Haiti to be missionaries and Sohee left to focus on acting. That was 2013. WHEN I'M ALONE, I FEEL YOUR TOUCH. Korean summer is much like summer in North Carolina and Tennessee with a few key differences. The temperature climbs steadily throughout the spring. April can be pleasant, but my first year in Chunche

Speaking of ear worms , I'm on the second day of humming perhaps the most well known sax notes in the history of music. In terms of meme music, it's probably second to Rick Astley 's " Never Going to Give You Up ," Wham! 's " Careless Whisper " is so awful, it's epic. If you just take the song at it's value as a sexy (or saxy) evening in the city, private planes, yachts, and beautiful women sleeping with a multi-millionaire playboy, the song would have just remained deep in the '80s vault. But the extra layers the song takes on when you see it on TikTok videos, South Korean entertainment shows, or what sparked this latest outbreak, an inclusion in a school play my my first grade high schoolers, the song takes on new life. None of that can hold a candle, though, to my coworker's experience with this song. I'M NEVER GONNA DANCE AGAIN. "Careless Whisper" was a song that started the breakup of the pop duo, Wham! George Mich

There was a sandwich shop across the eight-way intersection in Chuncheon where I would often take lunch break. After class, I'd get a Chicken Carbonara or a Soy-sauce chicken sandwich and a cup of coffee. I might spend a little extra time there reading or looking over lesson plans before going back in to work. The cafe was run by a man around my age and his mother, and it was a nice place to eat something familiar and spend some time. The musical choice was quite eclectic: '90s pop-rock and current K-pop/Hip-Hop. It was in that cafe that I grew an affection for K-pop. I started to understand what the hype was all about. SO YOU HAVE A DREAM THAT IS BIGGER THAN A LITTLE BOY'S . In February of 2014, Girls' Generation released their electro-pop album and titular hit " Mr. Mr ." The girls had been famous for a conservative, bubble gum pop, but "Mr. Mr." takes the singers in another direction. The ear worm begins with a dirty bass synth. The music video d

A fan of the funk/disco band Chic , producer Bob Ezrin convinced Pink Floyd to include a disco beat backing what would become their only number 1 hit in their career. Ezrin also convinced the band to release the song as a radio single, something the band had been against on previous albums as they wanted their songs to be understood in the context of their greater work. The band had been a psychedelic pop act in the '60s and had done radio, but they felt their artistic concepts were too big for the casual listeners. Classic Rock radio remembers a Floyd that never was, playing tracks from Dark Side of the Moon until The Wall , but perhaps without the commercial success of " Another Brick in the Wall ," radio would have forgotten the band.   TEACHERS LEAVE THEM KIDS ALONE. Recorded with school children singing "We don't need no education" and despised by British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, "Another Brick" is the ultimate protest song of sch

Sandwiched between two metal bands, Anberlin played the show that kickstarted their career in Atlanta, Georgia. Brandon Ebel , Tooth & Nail Records ' founder, and owner loved the band's hits, but Chad Johnson , Tooth & Nail's A&R wasn't impressed with the live show. For starters, the band was playing pop-punk in between heavy, pre- They're Only Chasing Safety Underoath and chaos metal act Norma Jean headlining.  Anberlin sounded a bit more like Jimmy Eat World and Third Eye Blind. Nobody at the show knew Anberlin and were only there to most to the bands that they knew. What was worse was if the band was melodic, they had to have a singer who could hold a tune. Stephen Christian was off-pitch. Eventually, Ebel was able to convince Johnson to sign Anberlin. Their demo of " Ready Fuels " recorded by Matt Goldman , an Atlanta musician-turned producer, helped to solidify the decision. Ebel agreed to sign Anberlin as long as Stephen Christian t

Turn Off the Stars was a short-lived Canadian pop-rock band. The band was often compared to Coldplay or Keane , but their often wall-of-sound guitars liken them more to Oasis or The Verve. In 2006, their self-titled debut album had one RadioU/Christian Rock hit "Please," the second track from the record. Released in the fall of 2006, this was the soundtrack to freshman year in college, which meant driving on frosty mornings to McDowell Technical Community College to obtain an Associate's Degree that (maybe) saved me $20,000. It was also the year that my family moved to Nebo, buying their first house. But this album took on a new life as it was one of my few albums I could listen to in the car without my mom complaining. So it was an album we listened to several times when we took the long drive up to New York to visit my dad's side of the family, seeing family members we hadn't seen in nearly 10 years. I'VE BEEN RUNNING WITH MY SOUL SO TIRED ABOUT YOU. &qu