Year 5, Day 89

Hello everyone. So today's song is Carry You Home by Ward Thomas.

This duo is made up of twins Catherine and Lizzy Ward Thomas, formed in 2014. They released their first album the same year, which won UK Album of the Year at the British Country Music Awards and has been heralded as Britain's first country stars. I guess I never gave it much thought before, but country music is a mostly North American thing. Props to the people that are expanding it though. Their second album came out in 2016, which is where this song is from. Since then they've been doing touring with Miranda Lambert, and I'm sure we'll see more from them.

Peace.

Year 5, Day 88

Hi. Today I give you Hall Of Fame by The Script featuring will.i.am.

I have definitely featured each of these people before so I'm not doing a big overview of their careers. So instead how about an anecdote from my life because why not. I chose this song because of it being featured in Glee (I re-watched that awhile ago for fun and for inspiration) so considering it came from a form of media, I'm going to recommend some media to you. About a month ago Anna was back in town so I hung out with her and Rebecca. We went shopping and got some shit done, but ultimately ended up watching hilariously bad movies to end the night. These included Spaceballs (which none of us had seen) and Airheads (which Rebecca loves). Spaceballs is a parody of Star Wars, which is basically all dick jokes and extreme fourth wall brakes that were hilarious in the eighties and mildly funny now. I kind of loved it. Mostly because others were making fun of it with me while we watched, but it was a good time regardless. And then Airheads was insane, but was also pretty good. I mean whoever cast Brendan Fraser, Steve Buscemi and Adam Sandler together knew they were getting a hilariously cheesy bad movie, and they succeeded. I probably haven't made these sound good to you at all, but if you are in the mood for slightly cringe TV, then find and watch these. If only to say you have. So... yeah. That's all I got for you today. Do with it what you will.

Peace.

Year 5, Day 87

Hey. So today's song is Ever Enough by A Rocket To The Moon.

These guys were an American rock band active from 2006 until 2013 made up of  Nick Santino, Justin Richards, Eric Halvorsen, Andrew Cook, Joe Cafano, Mike Cafano, and Loren Brinton (not necessarily all at the same time, but all at some point or another.) It was originally Nick's music project, but collected the rest of the guys in 2008 when he needed them to play a festival. They started playing shows and gained the interest of Pete Wentz from Fall Out Boy who also has a label. He had the intention of signing them, but they ended up with Fueled for Ramen instead. That's also a label, just with an insane name... most likely started by another musician because typically that's how they do. They toured with a lot of bands that I've mentioned on here before including Cute Is What We Aim For and Secondhand Serenade to name a few. They made two albums during their run, but most of the notable stuff they did was touring with other musicians. They're career is basically one big name drop after another. They broke up in 2013, and a couple of them stayed in the music business. Nick went solo, Andrew Cook and Justin Richards started playing for Dan + Shay, and Eric Halvorsen joined Cobra Starship. So once you guys get through the repertoire of ARTTM, you can follow it into the individual careers if you so choose.

Peace.

Year 5, Day 86

Hiya. So today's song is Superman by Joe Brooks.

Joe is a singer from the UK. He originally had gotten into music when he was ten with piano lessons, but dropped when he wasn't into the classical compositions, which is something that seems to happen to a lot of people honestly. He got back into music though after he saw Derrin Nauendorf play. That's when he decided on guitar, and started to teach himself. Sometimes other people helped teach him some stuff too when he attended music festivals. With his interest, he took music tech in college, and began to write and produce his own stuff which he put up on MySpace. Joe made an EP and had lots of offers for labels and managers, but he smartly declined most of them after looking into the stipulations on the contracts. Fine print people, you need to read that shit. He released his first album in 2006, which he sold on his MySpace on his own website. He ended up traveling to California to play a mini-tour there, and met the woman who would become his manager. Fun fact: that woman was Ginger McCartney, who is the mother of Jesse McCartney (teen heartthrob of my generation). He quit school, signed with Ginger, and started playing in tours and recording music for awhile while hopping back and forth between the UK and America. He signed with a record label that helped him to officially move to the states where he released his album featuring this song. Although technically this song was from earlier in his career. The album didn't sell well, so he got dropped by the label, but he kept going and funded his own release of his next venture, which did well enough that he got signed to a label for the Asian market. He's been going steady since then, with his latest album released in 2016, so check it out.

Peace.

Year 5, Day 85

What's Up. Today's song is Loving You Tonight by Andrew Allen.

This is another Canadian. Apparently I found a lot of them which was a little surprising to me. Anyway, he's from BC, and he kind of popped up on the radar when his song got featured heavily during the 2010 Paralympic Winter Games. He used the success there to expand his music career, getting signed and performing with lots of influential artists. When he isn't writing his own material, he's writing songs for people much more famous than himself, including people like Meghan Trainer, Rachel Platten, and Carly Rae Jepsen. He is clearly talented and this song always lifts my spirits. Enjoy!

Peace.

Year 5, Day 84

Hi guys. Today's song is S.O.B. by Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats.

I figured since yesterday's song had a countryish vibe that it would be a good time to showcase this song as well. It's performed by Nathaniel, who was originally born in Germany, but grew up in Missouri. Most of his career though took place in Denver. He moved there when he was eighteen and formed a band called Born In The Flood. They played locally and got huge success. Despite that though, Nathaniel turned down a record deal and decided to make music on his own that was a bit more melancholy than what he had done with the band. He earned tons of success on his own with that as well, releasing a couple of albums and an EP. As you can see from above, he's not solo in this song. This also lists the Night Sweats, which are comprised of Nathaniel Rateliff (of course), Joseph Pope III, Patrick Meese, Big Shaq, Luke Mossman, Mark Shusterman, Wesley Watkins, Danny Rateliff, Winga Winga Woo, and Andy Wild. I implied it was a little country, but in truth it's a bit more of a folky/bluesy mixture. However you want to classify it though, I think we can all agree it's amazing.

Peace.

Year 5, Day 83

Hello. Today's song is Daniella Denmark by Jonathan Roy.

So this is another Canadian singer, and in true stereotypical fashion he's the son of a hockey player. Originally he had been pursuing hockey, playing in the junior leagues. My cousin does that right now actually so I found it interesting. Jonathan started out writing poetry when he was 12, then by the time he was 16 he had started to put those poems to music. When his father told him his career in hockey wouldn't go farther than where he was at now, Jonathan decided he wanted to try music out as a career, and that was definitely a good choice by him. This song is pretty mellow, a little more country than  I show, but I love it all the same. Hope you guys do too.

Peace.