NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

When  Jonezetta  released their 2006 debut record,  Popularity , they dedicated the album to their recently deceased fifth member. Keyboardist  Timothy Jordan II  took his life in 2015. Jordan had been a promising young musician from Arkansas, which had a small but notable musical scene since acts like  Living Sacrifice ,  The Juliana Theory ,  Evanescence ,  As Cities Burn , and others got their starts in the area. Jordan became a touring member of The All-American Rejects just as their career started blowing up with TV performances and bigger tours. However, just before releasing TAR released  Move Along , Jordan announced his departure and joined an up-and-coming band on  Tooth & Nail Records --Jonezetta.  Popularity  is a very dancy, upbeat album and featuring Jordan on the keys.   THESE HANDS ARE MEANT TO HOLD.  Jonezetta never memorialized Timothy Jordan in their two albums other than dedicating  P...

The best music doesn't happen in isolation but rather comes out of a community movement. I would define community, when it comes to music, as a mixing of artists who bring different ideas together ideas from various genres. The result of a musical community is stronger musicianship by all those involved. Collaboration, the meeting of minds, happens naturally. Throughout the course of my blog, I've talked about various communities.  Tooth & Nail , Christian Rock, and evangelical communities are definitely the biggest themes. Tegan and Sara grew out of the Northwestern Canadian/American Indie Rock community in the late '90s, and by 2013 became pop stars.   HERE COMES THE RUSH BEFORE WE TOUCH.  Many fans may have been introduced to  Tegan and Sara  when Meredith Grey and Christina Yang danced to their early acoustic,  angry girl music in  Grey's Anatomy ' s earlier seasons.  The musical duo of Calgary-born identical  twins  Tegan  ...

  There might be one song that defines the ‘90s and reshaped music and the rock star for Generation X and future generations of music listeners. That song, of course, was the lead single from the 1991 sophomore record by Nirvana , Nevermind . “ Smells Like Teen Spirit ,” Nirvana, and Nevermind didn’t invent Grunge. Alice in Chains , arguably, brought the sound mainstream before Nirvana did. The song “ Man in the Box ,” a hopeless rocker when the sounds of hair rockers were much more optimistic and hedonistic, reached number 18 on Billboard’s Modern Rock tracks.  But Alice in Chains didn’t lead the revolution, nor did Nirvana’s other contemporaries Soundgarden or Pearl Jam .   HERE WE ARE NOW, ENTERTAIN US. Just as how F. Scott Fitzgerald set out to write a satire of the trivial lives and parties of the New York upper crust and subsequently gave literature and history the most condensed account of what the “Jazz Age” was in The Great Gatsby , Nirvana wrote “Smells Like Te...

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 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...

I was in a coffee shop in Sinsa, a neighborhood near Gangnam in Seoul when I first heard  Kodaline . The Irish band's debut album,  In a Perfect World ,  and the EPs containing different versions of songs from around that time were perfect for a cup of coffee. Subsequent albums have made the band sound like they were striving to be another  Coldplay , but they got it right the first time on their debut. I WANNA TRAVEL THE WORLD, BUT I JUST CAN'T DO IT ALONE.    I 'm recommending the acoustic version of " Brand New Day ," featuring  Nina Nesbitt .    The  lyrics   of "Brand New Day"  talk about "outgrowing your hometown" and wanting to "travel the world" with someone. As someone who could be said to be (still) on that journey, I remember the feelings of travel thirst. I got to the end of my bachelor's degree and thought about the constraints of going back home to North Carolina. I thought about how it would be a few years of str...

It was Superbowl Sunday of 2005 when I bought Anberlin ’s Never Take Friendship Personal .  It was the perfect album for high school. The band’s style took a turn on their sophomore album from a classic or '90s rock sound to a more emotional, mid-2000s sound. The band would redefine themselves with this album, becoming a lesser-known emo staple. Stephen Christian ’s vocals meeting Joseph Milligan ’s riffs, Deon Rexroat ’s heavy bass, and Nathan Young ’s reliance on the cymbals make this one of the band’s heaviest records. The band released two recordings of this song on two different albums and many fans debate which one is better. THIS WAS OVER BEFORE IT EVER BEGAN.   The original version of "The Feel Good Drag" feels grungier and Stephen’s scream on the bridge was perfectly aligned with the musical trends of the day. The New Surrender version , renamed "Feel Good Drag," beefs up t he guitar intro, and the solo has a quite satisfying bend.   However, having ...

Last year, the Hit Parade podcast highlighted one of the most consistent voices in pop music in the previous twenty years. Yet, Alecia Beth Moore , a.k.a. P!nk ’s career has been underrated perhaps because it is so M!ssundaztood . First marketed as an R&B act by her record company, P!nk’s debut album, Can’t Take Me Home , introduced the star as racially ambiguous. P!nk’s second album began to bridge the singer into guitar-based rock ballads, which would be the meat of her career. Following the album’s first single, “ Get This Party Started ,” M!ssundaztood ’s second single and second track “ Don’t Let Me Get Me ” displays Moore’s desire to be a singer on her own terms: a rock-influenced pop star who would sing about what she wanted to. I CAN’T STAY ON YOUR MORPHINE ‘CAUSE IT’S MAKING ME ITCH. P!nk was signed by Atlanta-based R&B and Hip-Hop label LaFace Records whose president, L.A. Reid tried to market Moore as an R&B/teen-pop crossover act. But rock would become P!nk’s...