NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

In 2010, we learned that Miley Cyrus Can’t Be Tamed . The former Disney Channel star had released soundtracks for the Hannah Montana series before releasing several saccharine pop records. As she came of age, though, the singer wanted to make it clear that she was a sexual being. Enter 2013’s Bangerz and its second single “ Wrecking Ball .” The song is a slow breakup ballad and doesn’t feature explicit language like many of the other tracks on the record. Still, it was the video for the song that virally brought Cyrus into the post-purity culture, sex-positive zeitgeist. The video features the singer clad in only a pair of white panties and a t-shirt, then fully nude—the singer and the director tastefully hiding the singer’s genitals—riding on a wrecking ball and licking a sledgehammer. From that moment everyone had an opinion about Miley Cyrus and whether expressing sexuality in such a manner was art or pure immortality. DON’T YOU EVER SAY I JUST WALKED AWAY. And while Miley Cyrus’

When a teenager grows up in New Zealand experiencing American culture through Hip Hop music videos, that teenager might have a distorted view of how Americans live. Lorde 's breakthrough single " Royals " got some backlash for "overgeneralizing American culture" and misunderstanding Hip Hop. Others have said that Lorde’s take on pop with the  emerging sad girl pop sub-genre helped to usher in a slowness revolution that we can still hear today in the likes of Billie Eilish . WE'RE DRIVING CADILLACS IN OUR DREAMS. While   Lorde's original version of  "Royals" beats most covers, the version I'm choosing for my playlist comes from the Punk Goes Pop series, performed by the band Youth in Revolt . The New Jersey based pop punk band adds an extra layer of grit to Lorde's song with heavy guitars and bass. Although the screaming at the end is gratuitous, I think that Youth in Revolt's version suffices to cover both the earworm and the need

Rise Against 's 2008 record, Appeal to Reason took the hardcore punk band and made them accessible to Rock radio. The Chicago-based band had become known for their progressive politics, advocating animal rights, LGBTQ+ rights, environmentalism, and humanitarianism. Of course, Rise Against is far from the only left-leaning political bands, but Appeal to Reason place the band on rock playlists alongside rock bands with more  dulsatory politics or even conservatives like Staind .   FAR FROM HOME ON A ROAD UNKNOWN. Appeal to Reason produced three singles that charted in the top three on rock charts. Softening the band's sound certainly allowed the band to expand their audience and in turn allowed the band to implant punk rock ideals into the mainstream "rock bros" listening to rock radio. The album's first single, "Re-Education (Through Labor)" deals with the decay of the American education as evidenced through the electorate and leaders during the presiden

With the U.S. midterm elections at hand, I thought about this '60s-style protest song from Lana Del Rey , released just weeks prior to her sixth studio album, Norman Fucking Rockwell!   Like most tracks on NFR,  " Looking For America "   was produced by Jack Antonoff . However, "Looking for America" was not an album track on NFR. Del Rey and Antonoff recorded "Looking for America" was recorded on August 5, 2019 in response to two shootings that happened two days before, one in Dayton, Ohio, and the other in El Paso, Texas.  IT’S JUST A DREAM I HAD IN MIND.    In many ways "Looking for America" thematically belongs on Norman Fucking Rockwell! In both the larger work and the last-minute single, Del Rey mourns the loss of the "good old days." Del Rey, who built her career as a nostalgia act, creating art centered on the past, shifts her sound to '60s protest songs in the wake of Donald Trump's presidency, a candidate who campai

You can put Simon and Garfunke l in a playlist alongside most alternative and acoustic music and it fits perfectly. Yes, music production has come a long way since those early recordings, but somehow the duo’s harmonies, acoustic guitars, and musical counterpoints hold up in ways that many Beatles and Led Zeppelin recordings separate themselves from modern rock. Simon and Garfunkel parted ways years ago, but they have inspired countless indie folk groups in ways that separately Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel would have never impacted the world. TRY NOT TO MISS ME TOO MUCH. Kings of Convenience is a Norwegian folk duo that sound like a modern day Simon and Garfunkel. The Norwegian duo consists of Erlend Øye and Eirik Glambek Bøe . Born in the same year (1975) and classmates growing up, Kings of Convenience formed after the duo’s band Skog had parted with two other members. After playing festivals in Europe, the group released their debut album in  Quiet Is the New Loud on the Americ

  As the Christian Rock releases from Tooth & Nail have been ebbing in the current music market, the new Tyson Montsonbocker record is no exception. Motsenbocker explained on the Black Sheep Podcast that his third record, Milk Teeth , moves away from spiritual subjects but the songs are more rooted in stories about people he knows and about growing up and realizing that life isn’t exactly what his parents and teacher told him life would be.  LEARNED THE BACKSEAT LESSONS IN A WHITE CHURCH VAN. But steering away from Christian and spiritual themes Tyson Motsenbocker doesn’t necessarily divorce Milk Teeth from his Christian upbringing. Instead, Milk Teeth sounds something like a Phoebe Bridgers , Lucy Dacus , Julien Baker , or certain Buzzfeed writers who write wistfully about episodes from evangelical pasts. For Motsenbocker on Milk Teeth, that evangelical past isn’t particularly devout. Today’s song, “ Wendy Darling ,” has a backdrop of youth group in the third verse, but even w

Regaling her listeners with a series of hot takes, Sasha Alex Sloan shows her relatable song writing on the third promotional single from her debut LP, Only Child , “ Is It Just Me ?”  Sloan's songwriting is never precipitous, so any backlash from a hater is calculated. In fact the premise of this song is to start a conversation. Some of Sloan’s opinions resonate with your own. Some may not. After releasing Only Child in October of 2020, Sloan released a remix of the song featuring singer-songwriter Charlie Puth . Puth said of the collaboration on Instagram : “ I only sing on songs I didn’t write when I wish I wrote them. And this is a song I really wish I wrote. Excited about this one.” THE SHOW FRIENDS IS OVERRATED. My Seinfeld fans Facebook group would agree with this statement. Of all the tangents I could break off and address from this song, I feel it’s time to address the great ‘90s NBC TV debate. There has been contention between the fans of both shows. Seinfeld came