NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

Ten years ago, Lady Gaga released her most avant-garde record, Artpop , an album that polarized both fans and critics alike. To be fair, the album was a statement of a pop star’s artistic vision. To illustrate that vision, Lady Gaga channels ‘60s pastiche in the way that Andy Warhol blended the popular and the artistic. But with the critical pushback of Artpop, Lady Gaga took note and didn’t make another dance-pop record until Chromatica in 2020, instead venturing into acting, singing standards with Tony Bennett , a folk-rock album Joanne , and the Oscar-winning soundtrack to the film she starred in A Star Is Born . In 2020, the Lady Gaga persona could have done anything, and yet she graced fans with a return trip to the dance floor.  LIFT ME UP, GIVE ME A START. I’ve been thinking a lot about pop music lately. When I was a  hipster high school and college student, I thought of pop music as a kind of opioid. It puts you into a trance, makes you dance, and makes you not thin...

I made two mixtapes for winter for Spotify. Now I’m going to make an Apple Music winter playlist. I tend to add songs to my Apple Music playlists more than Spotify, so this playlist is more of an ongoing project.  The emphasis is more on the beginning of the year, but anything wintry will suffice. I hope that these tracks keep you feeling warm for the harshest weather. These days it’s easy to give up on the New Year’s Resolutions we made for ourselves. But Spring is just around the corner. We just need a little boost to get through.  Check out the playlist on Apple Music.

COIN  has been hard at work even before the COVID-19 pandemic. Releasing the album their third studio record  Dreamland   in late February of 2020, the band had plans for a world tour that was quickly canceled as live music came to a halt. During this pause, the band recorded and released a three EP series based on the color spectrum, starting in September of 2020. Combined, the EPs formed the  Rainbow Mixtape ,  released in April of 2021. But the band wasn’t finished in 2021. In September, they released the lead single to their 2022 album  Uncanny Valley ,  “ Chapstick ," which had been called the band's most experimental track up to the release of its parent album. HEY CHERRY BLOSSOM, WHAT’S YOUR PROBLEM?  In 1970, Japanese robotics professor Masahiro Mori came up with the hypothesis of  The Uncanny Valley.  He proposed that as robotics developed to create more and more humanlike robots, even to the point of constructing humanlike impe...

Last year, RIIZE (라이즈) debuted on SM Entertainment with their single “ Memories ” from the single Get a Guitar . The group was comprised of seven members until a scandal broke out with Hong Seunghan (홍승한) who was placed on an indefinite hiatus from the group. The boy band has released four singles so far, with January 5’s “ Love 119 ” as their latest. Rather than a rap, the song features a catchy chant, lamenting a girl who has done the speaker of the song wrong. The speaker frantically dials 119, the emergency number in South Korea, to declare that “the girl’s a killer.”   SAVE MY LIFE, SAVE MY LIFE. Shortly after RIIZE’s debut, the K-pop community started calling Anton , one of the group’s members, a “ nepo baby .” Anton is the stage name for Lee Chan Yeong (이찬영). His father, Lee Yoon Sang (이윤상) is musician who started his musical career playing bass for singer Kim Wan-sun ’s backing band. In 1900, he began a solo career. After releasing his 2002 album Migration ( 이사 ), he be...

  The Amazing is an Indie progressive rock band from Sweden. My dad told me about them, comparing them to the much more popular band The War on Drugs . The band released their first record in 2009 and after a five-year hiatus, The Amazing released three singles last year. Today’s song, “ Rewind ,” comes from their 2018 record, In Transit . Filled with long, jam tracks and atmosphere-building guitars, the record is a relaxing record for background music suitable for reading a novel on a winter afternoon. I couldn’t find the lyrics for “Rewind” online, so I had to transcribe them on Genius. I would appreciate any corrections. The song seems to be about remembering a lover who is no longer with the speaker, and with the guitars, it seems that the memory gives the speaker fond memories. Today, we’re going to extend that warm feeling with Winter, Part II, a playlist for the second half of the winter from January to March. I hope that these songs help you through the dreariest months. ...

Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel met in grade school in their hometown of Queens, New York. In fourth grade, Art sang in a talent show, which prompted Paul to want to be friends with him. Inspired by the early rock group The Everly Brothers , Paul and Art taught themselves how to harmonize. The duo wrote and recorded their first song at the age of 15, and then took up the moniker Tom & Jerry, while they were still in high school. Art took the name Tom Graph and Paul took up the name Simon Jerry Landis. The duo had a hit with the single “ Hey School Girl ” and even appeared on Dick Clark ’s American Bandstand . Tom & Jerry signed to Big Records and during that time Paul Simon began recording solo songs, something Art Garfunkel resented. The duo went to college, Paul Simon studying literature and Queens College and Art Garfunkel studying architecture at Columbia University , and recorded solo songs while in college.   TIME, TIME, TIME, SEE WHAT'S BECOME OF ME? In 1964, T...