NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

The self-identified sad-girl Sasha Alex Sloan made a "mad record" in 2022. There was a podcast I listened to reacting to Sloan's EP  Self-Portrait .  While the podcasters enjoyed the EP, they hoped that Sloan would never make a full-length record. She did  Only Child   is a heart-breaking masterpiece, but it pulls back from the gut-wrenching, sometimes mean-spirited lyricism of her EPs. On last year's  I Blame the World ,  Sloan is caustic as ever. So, this record may not resonate with you. The title track " I Blame the World " is probably the most catchy, but the other songs are worth a listen. Emo surely is alive in 2022.   WHY TALK TO GOD IF I AIN'T GOT PROOF HE'S EVEN THERE?  When I counted down my favorite albums of last year, Sasha Alex Sloan's I Blame the World was my seventh favorite record, which is code in my blog for I didn't listen to it that much. I think that Sloan writes better when she's more sad than angry. There are cer

  Two years ago, I wrote about  Key 's mini album  Bad Love .  I decided to reformat my original post as track-by-track, a kind of home for the songs on this record, should I write about the record at a later date. While SHINee has been the singer's main gig, Key has managed to release music every year as a solo artist. Bad Love is my favorite of his efforts. So today, let's look at this retro-electro-pop EP by the fashionista from Daegu. 1.  " Bad Love ."  The title track reminds listeners of  Lady Gaga 's 2009 hit " Bad Romance ," speaking about the toxicity of a relationship that may have started under good intentions, but devolved into something toxic. The music video feels like a futuristic vision from the '80s, in other words, looking futuristic but dated with '80s technology.  2. "Yellow Tape"  builds on the theme of entering relationships cautiously. 3. "Hate that..."    a duet with Taeyeon,  was also released as

Like  Further Seems Forever ,  The Juliana Theory  was legendary in the early pop-punk/emo scene. Also like FSF, The Juliana Theory has ties to hardcore. Lead singer  Brett Detar  started as the guitarist for Christian metal pioneers  Zao , however,  as he explains on Theory's episode of Labeled,   the band was perfectly content listening to  Third Eye Blind  on the radio in the van while out on tour. When Theory formed, they signed with  Tooth & Nail Records  but opted not to be marketed to the Christian Rock format. This decision both helped and hurt their career. On the one hand, they toured with other Tooth & Nail artists and performed at Cornerstone, on the other hand, their initial record sales were quite low.  IT IS GETTING BETTER NOW.  Unlike Further Seems Forever, I don't have a deep-seated nostalgia for The Juliana Theory. I heard they were a band name, but I wasn't exposed to their music until college after the band had broken up. While some of their musi

While I think of Taylor Swift ’s first lockdown album folklore as an autumn album, I heard an awful cover of “ cardigan ” yesterday, which made me crave the original. Perhaps “cardigan” could be a spring song, as the video does have springtime vibes. I decided rather than reposting to do a folklore track by track post. As I’m figuring out what this blog means for me in the post-pandemic, I’m realizing that it’s a personal project rather than a hope for mainstream readership. Rather the blog is me fleshing out my thoughts on my favorite topic: music. When I write a track-by-track review, it’s about giving multiple posts a home, in hopes of expanding later. For folklore, my top album of 2020 , I will give links to the posts I’ve written before. Enjoy! 1. “ The 1 ” opens the record, in which Swift announces that she’s “on some new shit”—though the song is probably written from another perspective, describing unrequited love. It’s a soft album opener, which is probably why I didn’t immedi

  About a month ago, I was in America. It was a Friday night at my sister’s house. My sister’s wife had just made a delicious risotto and we had a bottle of wine. We had been talking about what music we had been listening to before dinner, and as we were sitting around the TV wondering what to watch. I said that at some point I wanted to watch Kacey Musgraves ’ star-crossed on Paramount+ because the film was not available to stream in Korea.   THERE IS A LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL. One of the reasons I wanted to watch Kacey Mussgraves’  star-crossed was that I thought that the film would give me more context for the songs. Kacey*, my sister’s wife said, “The film provides less context,” and “You’ll probably be more confused after watching the movie.” And half a bottle of wine later, nothing was making narrative sense. Not every track on the album is illustrated in the form of a music video, but the songs that are are treated immaculately. The loose narrative follows an unhappy M

  In 2018  Nick Jonas   and  Priyanka Chopra Jonas   married in two ceremonies. The ceremonies took place in India and represented the religious backgrounds of both the Bollywood-turned-Hollywood actress and the singer/actor. The first ceremony was Christian, taking place on December 1, and the second was Hindu on December 2. In 2019, Nick and the two other  Jonas Brothers  released their first album in ten years. Nick's solo career had heated up after the Jonas hiatus, but a reunited Jonas Brothers was even more commercially exciting. In 2021, Nick Jonas was back with a solo record, this time dealing with the themes of isolation due to the pandemic, but mostly about his love for his bride. I'M ON MY KNEES AND I CAN'T STOP NOW.  From the moment I heard Nick Jonas's second single from  Spaceman ,  " This Is Heaven ," on his  Saturday Night Live   performance, I started making connections to what I knew about the Jonas Brothers' religious upbringing, particu

Today, I'm going to present an evolving list. Last year, I chose an album of the year. In 2021, it was difficult because so much music was re-releases and nothing seemed dynamic enough to be album of the year. I finally settled on Scaled and Icy by twenty one pilots, but I actually didn't listen to it much in 2021. It seemed that 2021 was a year for good music outside of my immediate band preferences. Like many music listeners, my tastes are evolving, and I'm continuing to discover or just listen to older albums, which may change today's list. However, I'm going to try to present a list of the best albums from every year that I have been alive. I get this rank based on how much I've listened to the album, rather than by critical reception. Enjoy! 1987 The Joshua Tree by U2 . This was arguably when U2 became a cultural phenomenon. The first four tracks are the biggest hits from the record. The band always tackled issues of faith and doubt, but The Joshua Tree