NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

This is certainly a gimmick to publish more content, but I was listening to 2022+ on Spotify on Friday and on a lark, I thought that I really wanted the AppleMusic version. Also, it's been half a year since I talked about the playlist directly, and it's undergone quite a bit of alteration since then. I tried to arrange the songs into a cohesive playlist, but when I'm working with different genres, it's a little hard. Also, I made a few deliberate choices to change the songs to offer more variety to the playlist. So instead of " Sine from Above ," I included " Babylon " by Lady Gaga. I hope AppleMusic listeners enjoy this list. Maybe a YouTube list is next instead of a repost from last year. 1. " Bad Love " by Key is today's song. It's an infectious dance song that I wrote about last year. It's worth a repeat.  2. " Shivers " by Ed Sheeran  3. "Babylon" by Lady Gaga 4. "Sometimes" by MUNA 5. "

You never know what to expect when you get a new Paper Route album. The protean band has evolved from a quartet of multi-instrumentalists playing indie rock Americana to a pop group with a fetish for synthesizers by the EP Are We All Forgotten , which proceeded their major label debut, Absence . The band's sophomore record, The Peace of Wild Things , the band became even more of a pop group. So when listeners heard the choral " Intro " on the band's third record, Real Emotion , immediately followed by the dirty, distorted guitars of " Writing on the Wall ," we wondered, are we getting a rock Paper Route record?   I FORGAVE YOU ONCE/ THEN AT TWICE/ I TOOK CONTROL.   But Real Emotion was Paper Route's most diverse record. "Writing on the Wall" is arguably the closest to a straightforward rock song that Paper Route has ever performed. Much of the record reverts back to the solid pop tracks on The Peace of Wild Things. But Real Emotion 's sixt

If you make a list of the most iconic singer-songwriters, the list would include all of  Ed Sheeran 's influences. In fact, many would have had no problem putting Ed Sheeran on that list, if it weren't for his huge mainstream pop hit " Shape of You ." If it weren't for the 2017 song, Ed Sheeran would still have been a driving force in the music industry, penning verses for pop artists and singing semi-acoustic ballads and rapping a few bars here and there. Some listeners are still scarred from the repetitive chorus with its contrived masculine rhyme, so much so that they would prefer not to hear the song's follow up. It's unfortunate enough that I couldn't take songs like " Perfect " or " Castle on the Hill " seriously. And when Ed Sheeran announced that he was back in June of last year, I was less than thrilled. But in September, thanks to musical algorithms, AppleMusic played " Shivers " when playing similar songs to  Ja

In a true Pride month fashion, we return to Chromatica , Lady Gaga 's 2020 master class in Dance Pop, this time to the epic closer, " Babylon ." Recall, last month, we talked about how Chromatica is actually a concept record that needs to be experienced in one listen, despite how much you might find yourself re-listening to the tracks. If we make it to "Babylon," we've already been propelled through a " Wonderland " of '80s and '90s-inspired keyboard dance music that seems to emit the metallic pinks, greens, and blues seen in fashions from, say 1992. In a surreal way, we've gotten a better sense of who Lady Gaga is--a tragic pop star craving " Stupid Love " and dealing with her inner demons on " 911 ." WE CAN PARTY LIKE IT'S B.C. Then we've come to the end of Chromatica, and yet by the time we get to the saxophone on "Babylon" we feel like the party is only getting started and that we're in it

Acceptance 's story about the band that called it quits before they realized made the band a legend. In 2014, Jesusfreakhideout posted their top " One Album Wonders ," and Acceptance's Phantoms topped the list. According to lead singer Jason Vena , when he sat down with  Billy Power   on Urban Achiever Podcast  in 2015, the lead singer recounted about how he had no idea the cult status the band then had in the scene. In various other interviews, Vena talked about how other bands, namely A Loss for Words and All Time Low inspired him to consider an Acceptance reunion.  LAST SEASON OF THIS MASQUERADE. In 2005, Acceptance after their failed attempt at major label stardom, Vena took a job in Seattle outside of music. The band dissolved, some forming side projects with other musicians. Lead guitarist Christian McAlhaney talked with Josh Coats on Your PUSH Coach Podcast in 2020, talking about what made him successful in three bands and other projects. These projects

Three and a half years after releasing Waking Up , OneRepublic returned with their third album, Native . The opening track, today's song, " Counting Stars " picks up where Waking Up left off--rhythmic pop-rock--but adds more elements of gospel otherwise absent on the first two OneRepublic records. The album quickly veers into electronic and anthemic '10s pop but continues to make some interesting twists and turns along its course to the end, on a bonus track even recording with Aaron Sprinkle . Native may not be the most interesting album of 2013 and may sound like the equivalent of white toast in the morning, but there's a reason why we sometimes like to have white toast and dare I say, Iced Americano. TAKE THAT MONEY, WATCH IT BURN. It's interesting to watch Ryan Tedder and OneRepublic navigate the world of pop music for several reasons. The band is talented, mixing genres, albeit in a very subtle/commercially viable way. Tedder is a go-to songwriter and p

  Sheryl Crow ’s eponymous second album was released in 1996. The singer-songwriter grew up in Missouri, was engaged to a Christian man, and was about to settle into a small-town life as an elementary school English teacher until she started recording commercial jingles in her friend’s recording studio. When the jingles proved to pay the bills much better than her main job, she decided to move to California and pursue her dream of making her own music. YOU LISTEN TO COLTRANE, DERAIL YOUR OWN TRAIN.  After paying her dues in the music business, in Crow’s case singing back-up for Michael Jackson for his Bad tour and recording backing vocals for Stevie Wonder , Don Henley , Jimmy Buffett , and others, Crow released her first record in 1994. Her first hit " All I Wanna Do " made Crow a star. The song tells the story about the singer meeting a not particularly attractive man named William at a dive bar on weekday afternoon as she’s going through an existential crisis. She think