NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

  "I~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~I. Don't want a lot for Christmas." *struggles to change the radio dial amid gridlocked holiday traffic* "There's just one thing I need" *hurry up with my damn latte! I think I'm going to die. Why the hell is  Starbucks   playing Christmas music in mid-October?* "I don't care about the presents" *internal Elaine monologue 'I think I'm going to die in this department store. Ma'am, why must you spray the perfume so close to my face. I can't breathe! What if the earth begins to shake and we're stuck in here forever underneath mannequins and holiday shoppers and that damn  Mariah Carey     song  stuck on repeat?'* "Underneath the Christmas tree" "No" *raising a strict finger to students who should be studying in the back* "Not before Thanksgiving." "I just want you for my own/ More than you could ever know." Every year, Christmas music gets earlier and earli...

  Here’s my ongoing playlist of songs featured in Korean dramas or movies. Many songs are originals, and some by non-Korean artists have key plot points in Korean dramas. Check out the playlist on Spotify .

In 1944 or 1945, Mel Tormé   and Robert Wells wrote the song “ Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire .” Tormé talks about writing the song on a hot summer’s day as a list of cold weather fantasies he and Wells, his songwriting partner, brainstormed to think cool thoughts. The Nat King Cole Trio first recorded the song in June 1946, under “ The Christmas Song ” (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire). The group re-recorded the song in August, which became a hit on pop and R&B radio. Nat “King” Cole , as a solo artist, would record the song two more times throughout his career. Cole’s 1961 version, his fourth and final, is the version most played on radio and streamed today. That version is also in the Library of Congress to be preserved by the United States National Recording Registry . SO, I’M OFFERING THIS SIMPLE PHRASE. On a 2021 holiday episode of Hit Parade , host Chris Molaphany talks about the phenomenon of classic hit-makers becoming reduced to their holiday legacies in wh...

Thirty Seconds to Mars ’ third album,  This Is War,   is about overcoming conflict. The band had been “at war” with their record label,  EMI , claiming that the contract they signed was not binding in their home state of California due to the contract’s duration. The band eventually made a documentary titled   Artifact   about the lawsuit and took aim at the exploitative role of labels, allowing fans, not just of the band but all artists, to see the seedy side of the music business. Before releasing  Artifact,  the lawsuit was settled, and Thirty Seconds to Mars signed a new deal with EMI, renegotiating their terms. Both parties were able to come to favorable terms to create a contract that worked better in the changing music business of the coming decade of the 2010s.  FATHER HAS SPOKEN.  For an album about conflict in the music industry,  This Is War  is a very hopeful album. This is probably due to the production by two legendary...

  Lock the doors Tooth & Nail Records  had a partnership with Christian bookstores for many years, and most of the label’s signed bands appeared on the shelves of a Christian bookstore with an Alternative or Hard Rock section. Even if a band was sold in a Christian bookstore didn’t guarantee that the band or members of the band were even Christians or if they were Christians that they aligned with the conservative values that the store represented.    From time to time, this caused tension between artists and the stores with some of the albums being pulled from shelves due to questionable lyrics or album art or statements from the band. Sometimes, bands asked not to be distributed through the Christian bookstores, which became financial viable when EMI bought 50% of the label in 2002. However, in the late 2010s the two biggest Christian retailers,  Family Christian Bookstore  and  Lifeway Christian Bookstore  closed their brick-and-mortar s...

  Pinkerton   is a foundational album in the emo genre.  Weeze r ’s second record was a commercial failure at the time of its release, especially following their massive debut record. Many successful bands look back at the album almost as a kind of bible of guitar tones and lyrical content.  Pinkerton  produced three singles, including “ Pink Triangle ,” a song in which the speaker, a boy in college, falls for a lesbian who doesn’t return his affection. The song explores the complexities surrounding sexual identity, which seems progressive for the time but a little cringy today. And it’s that cringe that seeps into  Watashi Wa ’s 2022  People Like People ,  an album I’ve talked about before, but today I wanted to look into why a self-identifying “ministry band” quoted Weezer to “say it ‘ Like You Mean It .’” SO HERE COMES THE SON TO REMIND YOU OF YOUR OWN BELIEFS.  Watashi Wa started as a punk band when  Seth Roberts  and the origin...

In August, Anberlin announced that they had “slowly entered the Vega era,” in the song “ Seven ,” one of the two new tracks on the band’s eighth studio album. Vega functioned more as a compilation of two EPs released in the two prior years. On October 18, though, a celebration for Anberlin’s new album seemed to be finished as the band released the post-album single “ High Stakes .” Like “ Walk Alone ” and “Seven,” “High Stakes” featured vocals from Matty Mullins rather than Stephen Christian . Mullins took to social media , explaining the background to Anberlin’s latest single, saying that he was listening to old files for songs that were never recorded. Mullins explains that he came to the band as a fan more than a professional singer and colleague, despite his band Memphis May Fire’s success outside of Anberlin’s clear pop-punk influence. With the three Mullins tracks in Anberlin’s canon, it’s time to start to prepare ourselves for the possibility that Stephen Christian may not r...