NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

A few Saturday afternoons circa 2015-17, I went  down a rabbit-hole, looking for the best   Paper Route ,   Anberlin , and   Copeland   covers on YouTube. This was long after finding artists like   Tyler Ward   who covered pop music. I wondered if anyone had recorded high quality covers of my favorite bands. It turns out that there were   a few . These artists weren't on the level of popularity of   Kurt Hugo Schneider   or   Boyce Avenue . I had hoped to created a cover playlist of a Copeland album, but there weren't enough high-quality covers on YouTube at the time. Charles Angell's   YouTube account   has 7 videos, 77 subscribers, and the singer hasn't posted anything in 3 years. From a quick Facebook search, it turns out that Angell is still active as a musician, with a new haircut and some designer rims, now under the moniker of   Snarly  (link to his social media presence).  YOU'RE STILL A BREEZE UPON MY SKIN.   Of the Copeland covers, Charles Angell's ver

  Today we have another offering from Falling Up ’s Captiva , the transitional record between their mainstream Christian Rock career and their dive into pure lyrical experimentation. I believe that “ Maps ” was one of the last Christian Hit Radio (CHR) singles for the band. Christian Hit Radio was perhaps the least successful Christian music genre. The genre tried to parallel Top 40 pop stations, offering a mix of Christian hip hop, pop, adult contemporary, and rock. One of the best examples of the Christian Hit Radio stations was Air1 .   While Air1 still around, it now claims to be a “Worship Radio station.” ONE LAST HOUR BEFORE THIS PLACE IS ON FIRE.  In the early ‘00s, Christian Hit Radio stations, such as Air1, served as a place where listeners could hear the heavier Michael W. Smith and Rebecca St. James songs and the calmer P.O.D. and Anberlin songs. Air1 also played pop stars like early Jonas Brothers and Jordin Sparks as well as publicly Christian general market artists

“ Light the Fire ” is a stand-out track on Search the City ’s 2013 record Flight . The song begins with a cheap-sounding recording; an acoustic guitar accompanying a group of singers led by Search the City’s frontman gives way to a fast punk beat and gang vocals. The lyrics call out an antagonist, mixing metaphors to describe the listener (the song’s you ) and his actions and attitudes. The speaker of the song, though, speaks in terms of “we,” a collective who was victimized by the listener. The listener has been found out for his lies and the speaker is “done with [the listener’s] speeches . . . [and] reasons.” YOUR SECRETS CAME ALONG AND WE SAW YOU FOR WHAT YOU REALLY ARE. Last night, I got some news that a coworker I had struggled to work with for the year would not be renewing his contract. It had been a year of mind games in the office, yet had tried to present himself in a good light to higher ups. But he couldn’t keep his laziness a secret; he couldn’t keep his racism a secret.

  While Jimmy Eat World purists cite Clarity as their favorite and their true break-through album, most of us humble music listeners would have never heard of one of the defining bands in the pop-punk/ emo scene if it wasn’t for their 2001 record Bleed American . It was specifically their second single from the record, “ The Middle ” that is the band’s most well-known hit. When you’re talking about hits from your child-hood and bands you like, many people won’t recognize the name of the band but they know the song. Jimmy Eat World had released two albums on Capitol Records when the first wave of emo sparked by bands like Sunny Day Real Estate became popular. Jimmy Eat World, though, underperformed and were dropped by Capitol. The band then recorded Bleed American independently but signed to DreamWorks before releasing the record.   DON’T WRITE YOURSELF OFF YET.   First Jimmy Eat World released the title track “ Bleed American ” to rock radio before releasing “The Middle.” The second

Carly Rae Jepsen announced the second single, " Now That I Found You " from her fourth record Dedicated as part of the promotion for the third season of Netflix 's Queer Eye . Many of the songs on Jepsen's 2019 record dealt with break ups and loneliness, much like her latest record, The Loneliest Season . The lead single and the album closer, " Party for One " deals with a love for oneself above the fleeting, divided attention from another. MY HEART'S A SECRET. While Dedicated contains songs of self-actualization and self-acceptance, many of the songs deal with sex and love. " Want You in My Room " is probably the horniest the singer has ever gotten, and still she never explicitly says what those "bad things" she wants to do to the listener. "Happy Not Knowing" is a song about willful ignorance in order to keep a relationship going. And yet some of the songs are straight-forward love songs. "Now That I Found You"

Next Friday, we'll see the return of Paramore after a five-year hiatus. Following the release of 2017's After Laughter and the promotional tours, the band decided to take an indefinite break. Next week the band will release This Is Why , which seems like a return to form for the band that got their start in pop-punk and emo. In the the six years between After Laughter and This Is Why, pop-punk made a comeback; Paramore's former guitarist Josh Farro and lead singer received writing credits on Olivia Rodrigo ’s mega-hit “ good 4 u ” in 2021 for a controversial interpolation.  I'M OFF CAFFEINE ON DOCTOR'S ORDERS. On   Paramore's 2017 After Laughter  lead singer Haley Williams begins to process her divorce from New Found Glory 's guitarist Chad Gilbert . After touring and promoting After Laughter, Paramore took an indefinite hiatus. Williams started writing music which eventually became 2020's Petals for Armor , an album in which she analyzes her divorc

I’ve definitely talked about my love for the music of the late ‘90s. The often anodyne lyrics ( Third Eye Blind being a notable exception) of the pop-rock groups around the turn of the millennium are arguably forgettable. Ballads pining for lost loves, songs of devotion and admiration, mild “We’re Not Gonna Take It” in a much less rebellious tone all graced the radio with a few edgy “Bitch”es and “Semi-Charmed Life”s. The last generation of radio listeners heard the tones of an acoustic guitar with electric lead embedding sometimes gravelly vocals but more and more men with higher voices than the grunge/post-grunge movement performed in a major key opposed to the minor keys of the grunge and hair metal movements proceeding the millennial pop-rockers. That was the context for Vertical Horizon ’s breakthrough, Everything You Want .   I DON’T THINK YOU NOTICE. Lead vocalist Matt Scannell and guitarist Keith Kane started Vertical Horizon in 1991 while they were students at Georgetown .