NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

Fantasize  is Kye Kye's second album, and it deals with love in both a tangible and abstract way. Lead singer  Olga      Yagolnikov Phelan  was married to drummer Timothy Phelan during the band's first two records.  Kye Kye 's debut record,  Young Love  deals more with spirituality and  Fantasize  deals more with human relationships. Songs like the record's epic opener, " I Already See It ," the contemplative " Seasons ," " Glass " or today's song, the second track on  Fantasize , show the band at their best: electronic pop with vague but relatable lyrics.  A PART OF ME JUST ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW.   The music video  for Kye Kye's "Honest Affection" was directed by  Salomon Ligthelm , who has directed several music videos including a  Justin Bieber  video and a  Little Simz  video last year. Kye Kye's video starts off with an exploding plane over the Pacific Ocean in technicolored World War II  footage. Next the message

Pride month is coming to a close. Today, I’m posting my Apple Music edition of my pride playlist. Kicking off this edition is Stand Atlantic with the opening track on their 2020 album Pink Elephant , “Like That.” To me this year Pride is a celebration of the way I am. I’m not against flamboyance and I think that there are years that are suited for grand celebrations. But this year, when I feel like so many people cannot understand that people like me exist, I feel like it’s important sometimes to go back to the basic explanation. That’s why I included songs like Coldplay ’s “ People of the Pride ” and Depeche Mode ’s “ People Are People .” I hope you had a great Pride month that you celebrated in your own way.  

In 2006 a new band released a brutal metalcore album called  Plagues .  That band so happened to have the name of a much less metal PG-13 movie starring  Anne Hatheway ,  Meryl Streep , and  Stanley Tucci .  The movie  was actually directly based on the 2003  book  of the same name. The band, however, chose the name as a protest against materialism. The band  The Devil Wears Prada  has become a staple in Hard Christian Rock and scene hardcore metal. In 2019, they released the album  The Act   which expanded their sound to include more singing on ballads such as " Please Say No " and " Chemical ." Clean vocalist Jeremy DePoyster had always had duties Prada songs, in a sense, rewarding listers with melodic choruses; however, "Chemical" is a radio-ready hit. WAKE UP TO NO MEANING, I STARE AT THE CEILING.  According to the band's episode of the  Labeled  Podcast, Jeremy DePoyster said that unclean vocalist Mike Hranica got the idea for this song after ei

My mom didn't let me play video games unless they were educational. So I didn't grow up on  Mario  or  Donkey Kong  at home. Instead, I got to play educational games like  The Oregon Trail   or  Math Blaster .  My favorite game, though, was  Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego ? Despite the implausible premise of being a detective, tracking down a criminal who stole intangible cultural heritage, I loved flying around the world to fifty countries--some of which no longer exist--listening to strange music, and discovering the cultures that made the world so interesting.  IT'S GONNA TAKE A LOT TO DRAG ME AWAY FROM YOU.  TOTO  is often classified as a Yacht Rock band today, a somewhat pejorative term for the smooth-sounding light rock of the late '70s and early '80s. The term "Yacht Rock" actually comes from a YouTube mockumentary from the early age of YouTube. Music critic  Chris Molanphey  goes to great pains to define the imaginary genre in his episode of

Singles and EPs are nothing new to the music industry, though, in the ‘90s and ‘00s before iTunes, the long-play album became the preferred medium for selling music. You could buy each song from an album and some of the songs were released before the album’s release, but most singles found a home on an album. As for EPs, many of them were limited promotional releases that superfans of a band or artist could collect, often offering limited edition tracks or alternate versions of songs on an album. Sometimes EPs were only available to purchase at the artist’s show. Unlike the American pop and rock music business, Korean pop is meticulously strategic with releases in terms of regulating how much media fans can get from their idols. Singles to “Mini Albums” to full-length albums seems to be the winning formula for K-pop today. I’MMA BITE BACK. On May 27, aespa released their debut studio album, Armageddon . The SM Entertainment band is one of the leading active 4th-generation K-pop girl

In 2005, The Fray scored their first hit with “ Over My Head ” (Cable Car). The song peaked at number 8 on Billboard’ s Hot 100 and topped several radio charts. While that song received critical acclaim from Billboard and Stylus Magazine , the piano-based pop-rock quartet band from Denver, Colorado, would be much less memorable today if it wasn’t for their second hit. After seeing the band live in Los Angeles, the music supervisor for the medical drama Grey’s Anatomy Alexandra Patsavas featured the song “ How to Save a Life ” in an episode in the massively popular ABC show. After the song’s feature in the episode, fans downloaded the ballad on iTunes.   I PRAY TO GOD HE HEARS YOU. The kickstart to the success of “How to Save a Life” has been credited to Grey’s Anatomy. But before the song was a single, it was the title track to The Fray’s debut album . How to Save a Life is peak mid-’00 piano pop rock. Every track is inoffensive and could be played in any coffee shop or grocery sto

It was the beginning of a rough year. In January, my favorite band from when I was in high school announced they were breaking up by the end of the year. I was in the middle of a hellish teaching contract in South Korea, and it looked like I could never see Anberlin perform again live. Before disbanding, the band would release their seventh studio album, Lowborn . Of course, the break up didn’t last and Anberlin got back together only four years later to play a reunion show and began touring the year after that. Then in 2022, the band released Silverline , a 5-song EP; another EP, Convinced , last year; and will release their eighth studio record, Vega , on August 2nd, which will be a combination of Silverline and Convinced with two new songs featuring the band's new touring vocalist, Matty Mullins . I FOUND PEACE IN A FOREIGN ATONEMENT.  At the end of 2013, lead singer Stephen Christian told his bandmates that he would give Anberlin a year to say farewell. Christian talks about