NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

From the band's heaviest album,  In Motion ,   Copeland   released songs that bore some similarities to mid-to-late '90s rock. The sound of  In Motion  is a natural progression from their first album  Beneath Medicine Tree .  However, Copeland's sound changed drastically after  In Motion . Starting with a bonus EP recorded prior to but released with their third album,  Eat, Sleep, Repeat ,  exclusively at Best Buy , the band reworked three of their songs from  In Motion,  slowing them down and using a string section rather than guitars. The three songs from this release would be included on the band's  B Sides  record,  Dressed Up & In Line .  The band would continue to experiment instruments, synthesizers, and non-traditional rock arrangements.  NOT BECAUSE YOU LOVE THE SONG, BECAUSE YOU LOVE TO SING. Between the two versions of " You Love to Sing " the original is my favorite. It's a great road t...

Last summer, I wrote about the opening track, " My Secrets Have Secrets Too ," to Search the City 's sophomore record, Flight . A few days later, I realized that the song wasn't showing up in my AppleMusic playlist (see August 2021 ). It turns out that the version I bought in 2013 on the iTunes Store and the version that eventually made its way back to Spotify and AppleMusic in 2020 are quite different. The version I bought has the track listing on Discogs.com , while the a-cappella intro is missing on from the streaming services and the remaining 11 tracks are scrambled in a new order . THEY SEE YOU LOSING HOPE.   I'm interested to find out why "My Secrets Have Secrets Too" didn't make it to the streaming version of the album. The band had a lot of trouble getting the rights to their record after a lawsuit with their former manager, who claimed the rights to the record. What was hoped to be a comeback record and a reboot of the pop-punk band, ultim...

You shouldn't expect too much from a group whose first single is a monologue about a young woman who is addicted to her phone as she goes out for the evening who vaguely sounds like she could be the daughter of the girl from the opening of " Baby Got Back ." But we don't get Sir Mix-A-Lot to break up the monotony of The Chainsmokers ' " Selfie ." But in a way, it's great that the band started their career with their most picayune song. GETTING DRUNK ON THE PAST. It's been rather silent at the frat house since the pandemic has put a damper on the party. Sure there have been some party tracks from Gaga and Charlie XCX , but it's been a minute since The Chainsmokers seemed relevant. At one point, though, the handsome duo were the most highly paid DJs in the world. After topping the Billboard Hot 100 with their duet with Halsey , it seemed that " Closer " and the band's string of hits was the musical tide of the late '10s, muc...

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 ...