NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

Carly Rae Jepsen became an overnight success with “ Call Me Maybe .” Nobody expected the juvenile Kiss to be followed up by E-MO-TION , a pop album praised by critics and fans alike. The standard edition of E-MO-TION has twelve songs, but there were many other songs on deluxe editions of the album. Jepsen wrote over 250 songs in three years while working on E-MO-TION. She released eight extra songs Emotion Side B a year after releasing her third album. In Japan, Jepsen released Emotion Side B+, including “ Cut to the Feeling ,” a song she gave to the American version of a French/ Canadian film called Ballerina ( Leap! in the United States) Jepsen also starred as one of the main voice actors in the film. The anthemic one-off single bridged Carly’s 2015 critical darling with her more experimental 2019 album, Dedicated .  I HAD A DREAM, OR WAS IT REAL? Carly Rae Jepsen’s last Billboard Hot 100 entry was the lead single from E-MO-TION, “ I Really Like You. ” Competition for th...

In 1996, Welsh singer-songwriter    Donna Lewis  released her debut single " I Love You Always Forever ." The understated, delicate pop song became an international hit. In the United States, it hit number 2 on the    Billboard  Hot 100 , unable to take the top spot because of multiple versions that counted as  Los Del Rio 's version of  " Macarena ," the dance track that plagued '96. Lewis never matched the success of her debut single. SECRET MOMENTS SHUT IN THE HEAT OF THE AFTERNOON.  Donna Lewis wrote the song "I Love You Always Forever" basing it on a 1953 novel,  Love for Lydia   by Herbert Ernest Bates. The lines from the chorus "I love you always forever, near and far closer together" appear in the novel, and Lewis' original title for the song was "Lydia." While Lewis had a few other minor hits, such as " At the Beginning ," a duet with  Richard Marx  on the 1997 song for the  Anastasia   original soundtra...

  I thought I'd share a repost today, a dusty memory about New Order , more specifically a keyboard from the '90s that listening to New Order today makes me think about. Buried under twenty years of dust in my parents' garage lies an old Yamaha keyboard. It was my dad's Christmas present to my mom in the mid-90s. This model came with 100 recorded instruments, 100 styles of drum beats, everything from foxtrot to metal, and 25 or so recorded songs. It was a pretty typical family keyboard, but it kept me entertained for years . Although I started playing guitar at the age of 12, I had spent a long time messing around on that keyboard trying to make music. I loved playing the keyboard but hated how fake the instruments sounded. Strings, brass, woodwinds--all sounded like the vegetarian version served at camp meetings. Still, that keyboard played such a crucial role in music in my life.    WHEN I WAS A VERY SMALL BOY.  I got my first taste of synthesizers from my key...

  Turn Off the Stars ’ self-titled album is one that I listen to every year. The band only released one album in 2006, which contained several reworked songs from their 2004 EP Everything Is OK . The Brit-pop-inspired Toronto-based band’s lyrics are simple. Their minor hit “ Please ” only has two verses and what could be better described as a pre-chorus and a drop if the song were EDM. The song is a guitar-driven track and, of course, is not electronic dance music. The band creates a wall of sound with the guitars that reach a climax after each pre-chorus. Like bands like The War on Drugs and The Amazing , “Please” creates tension with two chords--E minor and C-- for most of the song. The song adds D and A minor to pay off the tension. While the guitar is the star of the song (no pun intended), lead singer Michael Walker’s vocals, particularly his falsetto on the pre-chorus contribute to the emotional payoff of the song. WAIT, WHAT A BEAUTIFUL DAY. “Please” is my favorite song on...

Today we take another dive into my #1 album from 2022,  Tyson Motsenbocker 's  Milk Teeth ,  specifically a song that seems unmatched with the other tracks, " Hide from the World ." The song breaks up the musical themes established in the first four tracks. But "Hide from the World" adds whimsical guitar chords and equally whimsical lyrics. Then it's back to the serious musical tone by track six, " UC Santa Cruz ." I WANT TO HANG IN SNOOPY'S DOG HOUSE AND HE SHOULD BE THERE TOO.  Unlike   the other songs on  Milk Teeth,  in "Hide from the World" Tyson Motenbocker chooses easily accessible references. On other tracks, Motsenbocker references locations, alcohol brands, and bands, and uses vocabulary that merits a Genius annotation. But except for extremely sheltered evangelical or ex-vangelical kids particularly with the  Harry Potter  reference in "Hide from the World" most listeners quickly assimilate the meaning that Motsen...

  Musically,   Underoath ’s most recent record   Voyeurist   pays homage to different points in their 25-year career. On the band’s breakthrough album,   They’re Only Chasing Safety , Underoath experimented with elements not always heard in Metal. One example was including a church choir on the song “ It’s Dangerous Business Walking out Your Front Door .” According to   Tim McTague   on the episode of   Labeled Deep Dives   about today’s song “ Hallelujah ,” the Underoath guitarist said he made up a story about how the 2004 single had religious significance in order to record a youth choir in a church basement. Eighteen years later, the second song on Voyeurist prominently features a choir, this time in the chorus. But unlike “Dangerous,” Underoath had distanced themselves from the Christian music scene.  In an interview with   Loudwire , Tim says that “Hallelujah” is about “struggles with everything – faith, life and so on.”  ...

In 2006, The Goo Goo Dolls celebrated their 20th anniversary as a band. It’s hard to imagine that the band that started as a punk and metal group from Buffalo, New York, became a staple on Adult Contemporary radio. Their breakthrough song, “ Name ,” was a lazy-day acoustic track. The band’s biggest album, Dizzy Up the Girl contained a few upbeat acoustic rock tracks like “ Broadway ” and “ Slide .” Still, their biggest song, “ Iris ,” from the film City of Angels was similar to “Name” except for cinematic string production. Their follow-up, 2002’s Gutterflower also contained the upbeat “ Here Is Gone ” as well as the rocker “ Big Machine .” But in the band’s 20th anniversary year, The Goo Goo Dolls released their mellowest album, Let Love In .    TONIGHT’S THE NIGHT THE WORLD BEGINS AGAIN. I remember my dad saying something like when a band starts to release covers, it’s a sign of the end. I don’t know if there’s data on this, but I’ve noticed cases of this from Sixpence No...