NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

I'm not sick now, but I thought it was a good time to make an Apple Music version of my Sick playlist for the days I don't want to do anything but stay in bed. Whether it's lovesick or sick-sick or just sick of your job, I hope that this playlist will give you the strength to get through whatever you need to do. Enjoy it with tea or chicken soup. Get a little extra rest and soon you'll be back on your feet! Until then just listen to music in bed.  

It was a rainy summer break during my Freshman year of college. I was still driving my '91 Toyota Corolla, and that was the summer that I binged the first three  Copeland  albums. It started with 2003's  Beneath Medicine Tree ,  the indie/rock concept album about love and loss. About a month later I bought, 2005's  In Motion ,  which was a little more musically diverse. The next year's  Eat, Sleep, Repeat ,  was closer to musical theater than rock. Each Copeland album had its own unique mood. Today's song, " Coffee ," comes from  Beneath Medicine Tree,  which is the most immature of the Copeland albums. Lyricist and singer  Aaron Marsh  was fine-tuning his craft at writing sappy love songs, and this album's lyrics tended to be a little too over the top. The song " Coffee " appears as track 9, with a story as cliche as they get--two small-town kids falling in love while talking all night at the diner. The brief brush drum solo toward the end s

I've broken several traditions I've established with my blog. Many of my songs don't feel like they fit in with a particular season. This year, I didn't post U2 's " New Year's Day " on January 1.  But one tradition that lives on this year is celebrating Cities Day. On February 20, 2007, Anberlin released what many fans claim as their masterpiece, their third album Cities. Today, brush your forelocks aside, and let's explore the album track-by-track!  1. ( Début ). For about a minute and a half, Anberlin introduces us to a dark world in an instrumental composed of city sound effects and noisy guitars. The song reminds me of  Jerry Martin 's  Sim City 4   soundtrack. (Début) leads into " Godspeed ." 2. " Godspeed " is a pretty jarring song to follow any track, but following yesterday's sleepy song is especially going to give my listeners a slap in the face. "Godspeed" is a cautionary tale about the rock star li

Aaron Sprinkle began his musical career as the guitarist for Alternative Christian Rock band Poor Old Lu . The band released albums between 1990 and 2002, starting as BellBangVilla before changing their name in 1991. As the Chronicles of Narnia - inspired band was winding down, releasing In Their Final Performance in 1998,  Sprinkle started the band Rose Blossom Punch , releasing two albums before disbanding. Next, Sprinkle began releasing solo records, starting with Moontraveler in 1999. He released albums consistently until 2004’s Lackluster . In 2006, Sprinkle released The Best Worst-Case Scenario by a new band called Fair . COULD THIS BE OUT OF LINE? Fair only released two albums, concluding with 2010’s Disappearing World . In 2013, Aaron Sprinkle released Water & Guns , his first solo album in nine years. Readers of my blog will know that what Sprinkle lacked in building a concert and solo record franchise he was more than prolific in his songwriting and producing for othe

  In 2021 the 2015 hit “ Wildest Dreams ” became a  TikTok   trend.  Of course this was in the middle of Swift’s massive project to release re-recordings of her studio records due to her inability to buy the rights to her original recordings. In the spring of last year, she released a massive re-recording of  Fearless , the album that propelled the then teen singer to being one of the biggest internationally-recognized music stars. Responding to the TikTok trend, Swift posted her own take on it with the  re-recorded version , despite the fact that the singer had stated that she would release her version of  Red ,  1989 ’s predecessor and the album that transitioned the singer’s style from Country to Pop, before any of her versions of songs from  1989  would be released.  SAY YOU’LL REMEMBER ME .  Last year was the year of  Taylor Swift ,  which culminated with the release of     Taylor’s Version  of  1989 . In 2014, the album officially marked  Swift’s leaving Country music in full pur

  As we wind down on “love month,” I thought I’d share one of my favorite albums  filled with love songs,  Paper Route ’s sophomore record  The Peace of Wild Things .  I’ve written about many of the tracks before, but here I’d like to give a home for future posts as well as give a brief reflection on each song. As I’ve discussed,  The Peace of Wild Things  takes its name from a poem by poet, farmer, and conservationist Wendell Barry whose themes discuss the importance of people returning to nature and reducing reliance on the industrialized world. However, Barry’s more radical themes do not seem to impact the record.  The songs that I’ve written about before will have a link.    1. “ Love Letters ” starts the record with the imagery of Adam waiting for Eve in the Garden of Eden. The song isn’t quite a straight-forward love song, with singer  JT Daly  claiming, “This time I’m different.” The rhythmic drums also distract listeners from thinking in terms of genre—is it rock or is it pop? 

Sometimes love feels like work. Sometimes conflicts aren’t so easily resolved. I once heard a saying on a podcast from a marital counselor: “Do you want to be right or do you want to stay married?” I’ve themed many of my songs for this month around love as a kind of cheesy Hallmark countdown to Valentine’s Day—my thirteen-year-old self doesn’t understand me. Today, though, we’re focusing on the hard times, the fights and the make ups. Here’s the Apple Music Edition of a playlist I made two years ago. Enjoy it with some dark chocolate. It’s going to be a long night on the couch.  Listen on Apple Music