NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

Lana Del Rey 's magnum opus,  Norman Fucking Rockwell!   was released in September of 2018 and earned the singer-songwriters the acclaim she had been laying the foundation for since 2012's  Born to Die.   A year after her lackluster album/ collection of good songs  Lust for Life ,  she released the first single from  NFR,  " The Mariner's Apartment Complex " and quickly followed it with another single, the 9:38 song " Venice Bitch ." She began building hype for the record, a cohesive record using the Americana formula Del Rey uses best, a year before its release. The singer awkwardly promoted the album in October of 2018, 11 months before its release, at an Apple Keynote event . The singer wasn't allowed to say the name of the her upcoming album or its single, which she played censored, "Venice Bitch," as Jack Antonoff played the piano. Norman Rockwell's Saturday Evening Post Cover,  Public Domain YOU DON'T EVER HAVE TO GO FASTER T

Between their debut album  Destination: Beautiful  and their fan-favorite sophomore record  The Everglow ,   Mae  released  Destination: B-Sides , which includes live and acoustic renderings of some of the standout tracks, songs that didn’t make it to the record, and demos that would make it onto  The Everglow.  The chorus of “Sun” contains the the lyrics  “Destination Beautiful,” making “Sun” like the title track of the album, and one of the the most memorable tracks in the middle of the album, and it has one of the finest melodies on the album after " Embers and Envelops " and  "All Deliberate Speed." IF YOU’RE WILLING, LET IT GO . In a 2018 two-part episode of  Labeled   (now available only to  Patreon  subscribers), Mae's lead singer  Dave Elkins  talked about the inspiration for the songs on  Destination: Beautiful . Many of the tracks had to do with a disagreement between Elkins and members at his church. Elkins wrote many of the songs, including the first

February 20, 2007,  Anberlin  released the album that defined their career. Most fans don't remember the release dates of their favorite albums. As for me, I only remember two album releases off the top of my head. The first is  P.O.D. 's  Satellite  because it was released on September 11, 2001. The other album release I know by heart, as do the fans of Anberlin, is  Cities .  Anberlin fans call February 20th "Cities Day," still to this day.  In the five years that I've been doing this playlist project, I've celebrated  Cities  with a different track. In 2019, it was " A Whisper & A Clamour ." In 2020, it was " Hello Alone ," as I dealt with the depression of what looked like Armageddon . I wrote about “ Godspeed ” in November of 2022–that year I wrote about “ Dismantle.Repair. ” and this year I used “ Godspeed ” as a jumping off point for discussing the entire album. In 2021, I wrote about the album’s closer , "(* Fin ).” The the

  Somewhere between cleaning up at the  2015 Grammy Awards  for  In the Lonely Hour   and 2020's  Love Goes ,  Sam Smith 's music lost momentum with listeners. Of course, a lot has happened to the singer since then. In 2015, Smith was an openly gay Grammy-winning artist. In 2019, the singer came out as non-binary, telling the  BBC , "I do think like a woman sometimes, in my head. Sometimes I've questioned, 'Do I want a sex change?'" Since coming out as non-binary, the singer has embraced both the masculine and the feminine in their videos, concerts, and album promotions. But not only did the singer's sexuality evolve, but also their musical versatility, from a gospel-inspired second record ( The Thrill of It All ), a Bond theme (" Writing's on the Wall "), featured in a  Calvin Harris  track (" Promises "), a dance-pop record in 2020--nothing seemed beyond the scope of the singer, though never they quite matching the success of 

  Taylor Swift is in the gossip columns again, but this time it feels less invasive. On April 8th, the story broke that Swift and six-year partner, English actor Joe Alwyn split. The once media-deemed serial dater held her longest relationship with Alwyn, and there had been rumors that the two had held a private wedding. Swift and Alwyn began dating around the time when the singer went into semi-seclusion following the critical backlash from her 2017 record, reputation .   I'VE BEEN HAVING A HARD TIME ADJUSTING. Unlike previous relationships, Taylor Swift worked especially hard to keep the details of her romance with Joe Alwyn out the public. Two years after reputation, Swift released Lover , a mature record that dealt with the joys of being in a relationship on many of the tracks. Love empowered Swift to return to her fans with a stadium tour, but the pandemic canceled those plans. And Swifties and general music fans have the pandemic to thank for the songwriting and production

In 2011, San Antonio-based Christian Rock band Abandon released their third record, Control . This was the band's second release on ForeFront Records , a label that had been forefront in the Christian music scene in the '90s, releasing albums by dc talk , Audio Adrenaline , and Rebecca St. James . But after the label's success with Stacie Orrico , it seemed that the success of other Christian labels like Tooth & Nail Records  was eclipsing the once legendary record label. I'M LIKE EVERYONE LIVING IN A QUICK-FIX NATION. Before   ForeFront Records was absorbed completely by its parent label, Capitol Christian Music Group , the label had a few last-ditch efforts to produce rock in the '00s. The early '00s gave them the "two-album wonder" The Benjamin Gate and a few head-scratching hip-hop projects. In 2007, the label released the debut record from This Beautiful Republic , a band that seemed to be the label's answer to Anberlin and the success

  One memorable scene in Dante's Inferno depicts two lovers tormented in the second layer of hell. The lovers in the second layer have been sent to hell for their lust, and as a punishment, they must blow in an unrelenting wind, possibly symbolizing their lust on earth and their lack of commitment to one partner. Two lovers, though, continuously blow past each other, touching for a second at a time before they blow in opposite directions.   BREATHING IS SO HARD IT HURTS. No, the title track from Acceptance 's sophomore record, Colliding by Design , is not about eternal conscious torment, but there is something hellish about unrequited love.  The production sounds show us what we could have expected to hear on the radio if the band had been afforded the opportunity to stay in the pop/rock culture in the late '00s and early '10s.   The early 2017 release of Colliding by Design came like a spring breeze, bringing accessible pop melodies highlighting lead singer Jason Ven