Project 365

Though I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this here before, just in case I haven't, I used to run a music website called Serendipity Media. Things got off to a great start and pretty quickly I was receiving press materials daily from record labels and bands interested in being interviewed or reviewed. Unfortunately, as a one-woman operation, I ended up getting overwhelmed and buried under an abundance of promo CDs and press kits. I love music, but the site began feeling like a stressful chore. There were artists on the other end of that album I was sent, hoping for a bit of a spotlight to be shined on their work, and I actually felt bad whenever I didn't end up liking the music. The site has been dormant for a few years, and though I planned to get things going again with a different approach, I never got much farther than several layout redesigns.

Near the end of last year, I noticed an online friend had taken the concept behind the photography-based 365 Project and reinterpreted it to bring it into the music realm: post one song a day for an entire year. I often struggle with how to sum up an incredible album (whoever said "writing about music is like dancing about architecture" had it about right), but focusing on a single song instead of an entire album made it seem more managable to me, assigning things a smaller scale while still giving me a schedule to fend off procrastinate. Since I tend to waste time redesigning the layout, and then redesigning the redesign, I decided I needed to remove the temptation to fiddle with HTML into the wee hours of the morning. This time, Serendipity would call a basic blog home. I set up shop on Blogger, made a simple header using a photo of the spines of vinyl record sleeves, settled on my favorite color scheme of white, black and red, and called it a day. On January 1st, Serendipity Media was relaunched.

Years ago, I attempted participating in Project 365. I made it all the way to day 2 before I missed taking a photo. I'm now a month into this musical version and I'm still on track. It's a small feat, I know, but after years of not getting Serendipity going again, it feels like a great accomplishment to have new content every day for 31 days straight. If you're a music nut like me, I'd love to have you as a reader! In addition to a song a day, also occasionally added are interviews (currently up: my oldie but goodies with Sleeping at Last, Eisley, Mew, Summer Lawns and the Myriad), playlists and reviews of my very favorite albums. Feel free to follow! The songs featured in January are listed below, as well as their accompanying YouTube and Spotify playlists...

• Marc Broussard: "Home"
  
• Lykke Li: "Love Out of Lust"
  
• The Civil Wars: "My Father's Father"
  
• The Weeknd: "Twenty Eight"
  
• St. Vincent: "Actor Out of Work"
  
• Father John Misty: "Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings"
  
• Grace Potter & the Nocturnals: "Stars"
  
• Jamie N Commons: "The Preacher"
  
• Oh Land: "Sun of a Gun"
  
• Beth Hart and Joe Bonamassa: "Sinner's Prayer"
  
• Kanye West: "Lost in the World (feat. Bon Iver)"
  
• Scarlett Johansson: "No One Knows I'm Gone"
  
• Sigur Rós: "Untitled #1 (Vaka)"
  
• Fiona Apple: "O' Sailor"
  
• Yeasayer: "Madder Red"
  
• Butterfly Boucher: "Another White Dash"
  
• Elbow: "Grounds for Divorce"
  
• How to Destroy Angels: "The Space in Between"
  
• Richard Swift: "The Novelist"
  
• The Dead Weather: "Treat Me Like Your Mother"
  
• Sam Cooke: "A Change Is Gonna Come"
  
• Daughter: "Medicine"
  
• The Hold Steady: "Sequestered in Memphis"
  
• Robyn: "Call Your Girlfriend"
  
• Nickel Creek: "When in Rome"
  
• Florence + the Machine: "Cosmic Love"
  
• Interpol: "Evil"
  
• Ellie Goulding: "Anything Could Happen"
  
• Talking Heads: "Road to Nowhere"
  
• Vanessa Carlton: "White Houses"
  
• Passion Pit: "Moth's Wings"