NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

  I would argue that since   reputation ,  Taylor Swift   has made a career based on revenge. The singer-songwriter is extremely intentional and calculated when releasing new singles and albums. Last year, Swift released yet another deluxe edition of   Midnights ,  this time calling it   The Til Dawn Edition ,  featuring a new song and two remixes. When she first released   Midnights    in October of 2022, many listeners were wondering what was different about the album. It felt like   reputation  but the singer was in a steady relationship with English actor   Joe Alwyn , and everything was going great, right?   right? KARMA IS A CAT PURRING ON MY LAP.  When tabloids started reporting that Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn had split in early April this year, the pointed lyrics of  Midnights  started to make a little more sense. Was Swift reacting to the expectations--from others or even Alwyn-- that their relationship should end in marriage? Could the singer stay in a "1950s shit"

When Lady Gaga returned to dance-pop on 2020’s Chromatica , she didn’t shake off substance from her lyrics. The music of Lady Gaga’s fifth album seems carefree, but on a deeper listen, the singer bears her sole, revealing aspects of Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta , who lies beneath the surface of the persona. The album is divided into three acts, separated by three instrumental string interludes. As listeners get deeper into the sixteen-track album, Gaga gets more and more honest. One of her most personal moments on the album is “ 911 ,” a song that details the singer’s struggles with substances, medicine, and mental health. MY BIGGEST ENEMY IS ME. In “911,” Lady Gaga examines her mental state when she uses the antipsychotic Olanzapine . In a similar way that Americans can dial 9-1-1 to receive emergency services, Gaga refers to the drug as her means to escape her “biggest enemy.” When speaking with Zane Lowe for an Apple Music interview promoting Chromatica, Gaga said of “911,

Between cleaning up at the  2015 Grammy Awards  for  In the Lonely Hour   and 2020's  Love Goes ,  Sam Smith 's music lost momentum with listeners. Of course, a lot has happened to the singer since then. In 2015, Smith was an openly gay Grammy-winning artist. In 2019, the singer came out as non-binary, telling the  BBC , "I do think like a woman sometimes, in my head. Sometimes I've questioned, 'Do I want a sex change?'" Since coming out as non-binary, the singer has embraced both the masculine and the feminine in their videos, concerts, and album promotions. Not only did the singer's sexuality evolve, but also their musical versatility, from a gospel-inspired second record ( The Thrill of It All ), a Bond theme (" Writing's on the Wall "), featured in a  Calvin Harris  track (" Promises "), a dance-pop record in 2020--nothing seemed beyond the scope of the singer, though never they quite matching the success of  In the Lonely H

  Did you have a good brat summer? This has been another incredible year for women in pop music, from Ariana Grande to Sabrina Carpenter , as women have dominated the pop charts. The competition for a number 1 album has been fierce with so many strong releases by Dua Lipa , Billie Eilish , and Chappell Roan so far failing to reach the summit of Billboard ’s 200 Albums Chart.  Besides the K-pop idol groups Twice and Stray Kids ; country singers Morgan Wallen and the late Toby Keith ; and rappers 21 Savage , ¥$ ( Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign ), Future and Metro Boomin , Eminem , and Post Malone ; female pop singers held the number one spot for 22 weeks so far this year. Only Taylor Swift , Ariana Grande, Beyoncé , and Sabrina Carpenter have occupied the top spot as female pop acts.  SHOCK YOU LIKE DEFIBRILLATORS. Of the 22 weeks that the female pop superstars spent atop Billboard’ s 200 Albums Chart, Taylor Swift has claimed 17 of those weeks, and her latest album, The Tortured

  For some musical acts, it takes a while for their audience to take them seriously. Take for example  Relient K . After three records of lyrics about  Marylin Manson  eating  girlfriends , manipulating emotional girls to wear  mood rings , and fantasizing about showing up to an '80s-themed prom in a  pink tux  listening to  Tears for Fears , the band scored two mainstream pop hits from their not-quite-as-cheeky  Mmhmm   album.  TOO OLD TO BE GROWING UP.    Relient K's latest effort  Air for Free   was released in 2016 and the band continues to tour with the record. While the band gets playful with songs like " Local Construction ," " Cat ," " Mrs.  Hippopotamuses '" and " Elephant Parade ," there are serious moments on the record. One of the most serious songs is " Man ," the fifth track. Relient K's early music was almost exclusively punk rock--electric guitar, bass, drums, and vocals. But little by little, Relient K b

Last month was the first month that I didn’t include an Anberlin song since I started my blog. It also happens to be the month that the band released their eighth studio album, Vega . These facts are related, though my exclusion of Anberlin last month was more of a symptom of the underlying problem than a deliberate exclusion. Anberlin is still my favorite, and skipping one month of them still puts them as my most blogged-about artist. I’ve talked about the choices they’ve made over the years from the break-up to the reunion to the lockdown livestreams to the new music to the indefinite hiatus of frontman Stephen Christian and the joining of Memphis May Fire ’s frontman Matty Mullins . Now the band has entered their Vega era--a chaotic time that guitarist Christian McAlhaney has said in multiple interviews that the band is “making it up as they go.”  I WANT TO BE THE QUIET IN STORMS I SILVERLINE. On the Church Jams Now! Podcast in 2022, the hosts mostly “flopped” Silverline , the E

Last year, when promoting Re: This Is Why , the remix album of Paramore ’s sixth studio album This Is Why , lead singer Hayley Williams talked to Jimmy Fallon about her teenage friendship with Taylor Swift . Williams describes the friendship as coming from a time when Swift and she were pursuing music while growing up in Nashville. According to Williams, Taylor Swift’s mother was looking for a friend for Taylor, particularly someone else in music. At this point, neither Taylor nor Paramore were household names, but even as teenagers both Williams and Swift were focused on their goals, which allowed for little time for normal teenage things, especially socializing. The singers’ friendships and careers have intersected several times before Paramore’s opening slot on the Eras Tour. On their latest album, Swift inspired a lyric from an impression she left on Williams. THERE WAS A FIRE (METAPHORICALLY). After releasing three pre-release singles for This Is Why, Paramore released the album