Well, I had a significant power outage yesterday. Absolutely huge. I was personally in the dark for a day and a half.
And I had grand plans for an *NSYNC post yesterday, too! Oh well. Next year.
Today, I'm dealing with the aftermath, so I felt like I'd pull out an easy one from my youth. "Pump Up The Jam" was Technotronic's first and biggest hit. The brainchild of a couple of Belgian producers, the vocals were provided by Congolese-Belgian artist Ya Kid K. She does NOT, however, appear in the video.
The song was a massive worldwide hit in 1989, hitting #2 on the US charts and pretty high elsewhere.
The former leader of The Stranglers released an album in the late 1980s, and it was a pretty good pop-rock album that never really went anywhere.
This was the biggest hit from that album, and it was a hit because of the video. This song, which came out two years after Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer", was directed by avant garde artist Jan Švankmajer, in his only forray into music video (the Brothers Quay, who made the "Sledgehammer" video, were influenced by him).
Anyway, the song itself was a minor US alternative hit but also, it's a fun song. Cornwell brings the same Stranglers bravado he always had.
Cornwell does not tour much, but he does perform this song, still. Here he is performing it live, and playing guitar.
Let's talk about the only song by James that you know, "Laid".
OK, maybe not, but this song represents their only trip to the Billboard Hot 100 - and that was after suffering some serious attempts at censorship at the hands of MTV - who wanted to change a pretty bold line that you certainly know about her only able to do something when "she's on top" *drums*
The band didn't even take the song seriously - they were going to use it as a B-side. However, producer Brian Eno convinced them otherwise, and it was the best decision they ever made. Released in late 1993, it ended up bringing them great success both in their native UK and overseas.
The song is about getting laid, people.
By the way, more than three decades later, James is still together and still performing. This performance, from last year, still sounds as great as it always did.
Sometimes, I am surprised at the stuff I have not posted yet. This is not one of them.
You see, Charlotte Lawrence has skated under my radar, and it's been only recently that I discovered her. Which is weird, because her dark pop sounds hits my wheelhouse hard. This 2019 single - from her 2021 EP Charlotte (release schedules are so weird these days)- is a phenomenal example of this. It's fun, and yet also dark.
Lawrence is also an actress - she has a recurring role on the AppleTV series Bad Monkey, not coincidentally developed by her father, Bill Lawrence (her mother is actress Christa Miller, who you either know from Cougar Town or The Drew Carey Show, depending on your age, and Charlotte looks an awful lot like her mom). There. I said it. Now let's talk about the music.
Actually, I don't have a lot more to say about the music except that it was written by a long list of people, including the artist and Charlie Puth. Also, the video is pretty fun and playful, in spite of the dark lyrics.
She also released an entire acoustic version of Charlotte, including this song, and I can't lie - I like it. It's a darker song with the extra production missing, but it still hits.
Before Caroline Polachek was a solo artist, she was in a band called Chairlift. Polachek founded the band with Aaron Pfenning in 2005, and they lasted more than a decade before breaking up in 2017.
This song, the second single from their 2012 album Something, is fun and sonically interesting. At this point, Pfenning had left the band, but early member Patrick Wimberly was still there. Polachek and Wimberly co-wrote this song, which has hints of an 80's sound (the band mentioned OMD and Art of Noise among the influences on this album).
There's a lot of record of the band performing the song live, but my favorites are the stripped down versions, like this one for Belgian radio, where it's just a guitar, keyboard, and voices.....
... or this duet version that even removes the keyboard. Polachek and Wimberly had a nice harmony that really pops here.
This song by just another band from East L.A. was the lead single from their third album, By the Light of the Moon, in 1987.
It did not chart, but it DID get a lot of MTV airplay, and I have to say, it's what really got me into the band, ahead of their hitmaking years. Co-written by Cesar Rosas (the vocalist) and T-Bone Burnett (the producer), the song has a rockabilly/Latin feel - which makes sense given the songwriters.
On an album that is somewhat bleak, I always found this song to be a bright breath of fresh air, even as a 15-year-old music fan in 1987.
Guys, the band is still together, and the core of their lineup is still together, all these years later.
Strangely, we have twice posted Wham! on here, but never George Michael solo work.
And yes, when I posted this last year, I very clearly called it more of a George Michael solo song, but it wasn't in name. THIS was.
This was Michael's second solo single, but also, probably his most iconic single. It held the top of the Billboard charts for four weeks in 1988, becoming the biggest single of the year by ANY artist. The song was never intended to be a single - until it was and THAT is when the songwriter - not coincidentally, George Michael - added the famous guitar solo.
The pipe organ at the beginning is actually a nod to a Wham! song, "Freedom".
And c'mon, the song is just fun.
25 years later, he performed the song live and it still sounded great.
I'm guessing a lot of you who are indie pop fans are saying "well, it's about time he got here."
I got here. This draft has been kicking around for months.
And really, Beatrice Laus is one of the greatest and most accomplished singer/songwriters of her generation, so it's surprising she's not a household name already. But it's starting to happen - this was a top 40 Rock chart song in the United States and was also a hit in New Zealand. From her fantastic album This Is How Tomorrow Moves, this song was released as a single in late 2024 and is an absolute gem.
I was originally going to post this last week.
I'm glad I waited, because she performed this song THIS WEEKEND at Coachella, and that was a delightful performance that I now get to share with you. (Update: Apparently Coachella doesn't like sharing performances, but Glastonbury does.... and she did that festival, too).
I've been really bad at updating this blog because I have been consumed with work and, really, the Canadian election that's coming in a couple of week. So, I figured I'd borrow I post I already had written for March 2025 and post it today.
And I chose a hell of a Canadian to post about today - Lowell.
Did you know that Lowell was nominated for a Juno in a non-performer category in 2025? And WON?!
Yep. She's a songwriter. And a Canadian one at that.
She was also nominated for a Grammy, by the way. Song of the Year. For "Texas Hold-Em", which she co-wrote.
Although it's been a few years, she is a musician in her own right as well, despite her non-performer nomination. Born Elizabeth Lowell Boland and Toronto-based, she was born in Calgary in 1991 and has collaborated with a lot of pop and rock artists we've featured on this blog. She's also produced - she co-produced the 2023 breakthrough album by The Beaches, Blame My Ex.
This song, from 2014, from her album We Loved Her Dearly, is dreamy noise experimentation, at once interesting and different. Lyrically, she's been called "the next Kanye West." I get it. Anyway, I encourage your timely listen.
The song also sounds great stripped down to piano, like in this 2015 performance.
Why does every Canadian artist I listen to release new music in EARLY APRIL right after I dedicate a month to them?
And yet, here we are. Our favorite record mogul (owner of Bravo Musique) with "œ" in her name has a new single out today. And, frankly, it's a bright and fun banger.
This MAY be the first time we've ever had a song with Bing Crosby credited as a songwriter, but he is. You see, he wrote the lyrics for a song called "My Woman". And, Dua Lipa and her songwriting team were writing this song with a disco feel..... and one night, one of her songwriters started singing the song "Your Woman" by White Town over top of the pieces of "Love Again" they had already laid down.
Dua thought it was from Star Wars.
Anyway, they laid pieces of Bing's recording over top of what they had already - with some significant pitch correction. So, Bing, and not Jyoti Mishra, got a songwriting credit, because, despite what you've heard on social media, Dua didn't sample "Your Woman". Both "Your Woman" and "Love Again" sampled the same parts of "My Woman".
The more you know.
Anyway, it's a cool, disco-y song and adding the sample makes it better.
This was a pretty big hit song for Dua Lipa, especially in Europe, so she performs it live a lot. However, I love this version she did with Elton John and a bunch of strings live-performing the "My Woman" sample. It takes on a less disco and more torchsong feeling, but it still works, really well.
It's rare that I have a theme for a week and blow it before the first post.
My theme was - Artists that I've Never Posted Before.
And, while it's true that I have personally not written a Kate Nash post, Scott did.
So, screw that theme for the week.
This song was a single from her fourth album, 2018's Yesterday Was Forever, a Kickstarter-funded project that combines her riot grrl tendencies with some indie folk-rock sounds. The album's themes revolve around her mental health, which she clearly addresses in this song AND the video.
And yes, this was released during her time on GLOW.
I mentioned that the album was Kickstarter-funded. It took her five years to record and release the album, and the songs didn't magically materialize in 2018. No, in fact, this is a live performance from 2016, one of her first of this song. It's a little different, but not dramatically.
But, like the song didn't materialize in 2018, it also didn't disappear, and she still performs it live - and it is a crowd favorite.
I am quite certain there was probably no doubt we were getting here.
But let's start with the obvious: this song makes heavy use of a sample from a classic song by Goyte and Kimbra (itself making heavy use of a sample) and I don't want people to forget the Kimbra part of this.
But this song is all Doechii, the 2025 Grammy Award winner for best rap album....and the song's social media following parlayed itself into her first Top 10 hit and the first huge hit of 2025. The song is happy and lighthearted and both anxious and energetic. Anxious energy - THAT'S what I was looking for.
However, a lot of you don't know that this isn't where the story started. It started with a young woman who left her job to focus on music and recorded a song in her bedroom in 2019.
Seriously. SHE RECORDED THIS IN HER BEDROOM SIX YEARS AGO.
Fast forward to 2023. Sleepy Hallow caught her song, and sampled it.
THAT got some attention, including the attention of social media.
So Doechii rerecorded her vocals and rereleased the song, and it blew up.
The hardest part of Maple Leaf March is the great music being made in the other 190-odd nations in the world.
And usually, if you look at my Spotify stats for March, my most listened to artist is almost always going to be Canadian.
Not this year.
2-10, absolutely Canadian.
#1 was an AMERICAN artist and I'm frankly a little surprised, but not a lot. My family would not be surprised, I would assume.
3 of my top 4 listened to songs in the last month are by one artist - Soccer Mommy.
And two of them are "Driver". Yeah, one of them is the stripped version from Jimmy Kimmel Live.
The third is this song, the opening track and 4th single from her experimental and groundbreaking 2020 album color theory, where she incorporated a bunch of chunky downstroked chords with a number of weird samples and unusual synth choices. They all work, by the way - the entire album is incredible, end-to-end, with this being my favorite of a great collection.
Hey, if you end up loving this song as much as I do, you can sing along with the official karaoke.
Anyway, you know we're coming at you with a couple of live versions, and this first one is something of a historic doozy. color theory was released at the end of February 2020. As part of the promotional tour, Soccer Mommy was supposed to do an NPR Tiny Desk Concert.
Then a pandemic happened. And, well, NPR stopped hosting these. However, they had the idea to have artists do these concerts from their own homes..... and THIS was the FIRST one, in March 2020.
"bloodstream" was the first song she played and it's beautiful in its acoustic format..
Live music did return, and this performance from 2021 of the song - with Sophie in a cape! - is one of my favorites, truly illustrating the chunky guitar rifts.
Well, #MapleLeafMarch is over for another year. Guess it's time to get back to the American artists we all love.
Never mind that I'm writing this in January the same day I wrote this post. I should really be working on a Monday post. Oh well.
The reason I wanted to put this today is that my birthday is in March. And, because of what I do in March, I posted this song on my birthday. This year, as I was researching the other post, I realized that I was the same age as Laura Branigan was when she passed away in 2004. Which means I'm older than she was now.
This cover - of an Italian song - was her biggest hit by far, and at the time of its release, it spent 36 weeks on the Billboard chart, which, at the time, was longer than any song by a female artist had ever been there. It peaked at #2 in 1982, kept from the top spot by the juggernaut that was [checks notes] Toni Basil.
I mention it was an Italian cover. The original was performed by Umberto Tozzi, who also was co-writer on the song.
It should sound really familiar, but lyrically, it's very different. This is a love song. Branigan's version was about a woman out of control.
Tozzi DID record an English version of his song, with lyrics translated by Jonathan King. THIS retained the love song aspect of the lyrics.
It's not the same song exactly as the Italian version, either - it's very much an imaginary woman here.
By the way, Jonathan King recorded his version as well, and it was a minor UK hit. It's barely worth mentioning. His songwriting was good, though.
But back to Laura Branigan.
In January 2019, the St. Louis Blues were in last place in the NHL Western Conference, so they.... adopted a theme song and went on a 19-game winning streak. They ended up making the playoffs, and won the Stanley Cup in seven games that year.
So, yeah, "Play Gloria!" is a thing in St. Louis now.
I end with Pixl Girl, but really, I'm pretty sure Pixl Girl is Sophie Powers. I just can't be 100% sure, but really, Ms. Powers has had snippets of this song on her social media for months. It was only a matter of time before she released it.
And she - well, whoever - released this portait-mode video in landscape, which is a weird choice, but also, visually interesting.
The song is really about people needing to be told to, well, shut the fuck up. Listen closely, French people.
The reality is, Sophie Powers appeared on American Idol this month, performing this song for the judges. THAT is why this was a MUST-post.
Luke, shut the fuck up.
But also, she declares that she's literally Canadian at 1:28.
OK, fine, one more. But I promise you, I'm not writing anything else for March. This is the last one until tomorrow. (Edit: I changed my mind on this but that doesn't mean Nemahsis does not deserve your attention).
Nemahsis is a proud hijab-wearing Palestinian-Canadian woman who is making fantastic music. She won a couple of Junos last night, including one for Breakthrough Artist of the Year.
She frequently sings about the hijab and the unique struggles of being Muslim in Canada in the 21st century. That is NOT what this song is about, though. It's about a girl who liked a shirt she saw her friend wearing and, well, she got her own.
Anyway, she's young and cool and different and I encourage you to check her out.
With literally one day left in #MapleLeafMarch, I just could NOT ignore this guy. He won a JUNO Award last night - the FAN'S CHOICE award, in a stunning upset. He also had some things to say.
Fun fact: The Beaches had won an award earlier in the evening and he was the presenter. So, guess they are trading awards :D
Anyway, besides not being a fan of Elon Musk, bbno$ (pronounced "baby no money") is a pretty accomplished and prolific hip hop musician in his own right. It was hard picking a song for today, but I felt one of his 2025 singles - this song, which heavily samples "Low Rider" - would be an excellent choice. It is a fun and energetic single that deserves your attention.
And yes, he's touring, so there are live versions ALREADY! And they are just as much fun and just as energetic, if not more so.
It was two weeks ago today that I got all maudlin about how much of a bummer this March had been. Normally, I am spending the month enjoying Canadian music, but in this month of #ElbowsUp, it's been more difficult.
Also, I was at the point of making some tough decisions about artists to leave out and artists to include this month. There were some that I had wanted to post that I still hadn't - and a lot of those are coming in 2026. That's right. I'm not stopping this. I seriously, TODAY, have enough material to go through at least 2028 without breaking a sweat.
Then Spotify delivered me two gifts. The first, I posted about on Saturday. The second is this ABSOLUTE gem, which seems to be at least semiautobiographical, by Once a Tree. Co-written by Hayden and Jayli Wolf (who are Once A Tree), it is a mature and compelling song that is the best new music I've heard this year.
(By the way, they also did this for me - I'd like to think it's for me, anyway - last March)
So, I'll be promoting the hell out of this, the last post of #MapleLeafMarch 2025. PLEASE, share this one. PLEASE, tell your friends about this amazing song and this incredible duo.
We've giving you a bonus post today, because no one has won more Juno Awards than Anne Murray, with 26. This Canadian Music Hall of Famer is quite probably the biggest thing musically coming from Canada.
Tonight, she is being awarded only the second JUNO Lifetime Achievement Award. The first guy who won it was Pierre Juneau, the guy the awards are LITERALLY named after.
Born in Nova Scotia, I'd love to tell you that she wrote this song, but, as we know from Family Guy and Stewie Griffin's reaction, it was written by Gene MacLellan.
Yes, she voiced that.
And she sang Gene's beautiful song, which he wrote in twenty minutes on Prince Edward Island. That's not a joke. Anyway, she sang it to the top of both the pop and country charts in the US and Canada. It was the first US gold record awarded to a Canadian female solo artist.
And really, listen to the lyrics here. It is a sad song. It's a lonely song.
Here she is singing it live on David Frost's show in 1972. The accompanying music is very light, so it is pretty close to acapella, but she was equal to the task.
In her day, Anne Murray was an icon. In 1980 - when she was still making hits that my mother LOVED, she appeared on the Muppet Show performing her huge 1970 hit.
Well, here we are. Nearing the end of March and we've got the JUNOS tonight.
I might be the American most excited about this Canadian award show.
I knew that, for today, I wanted to 1) feature a nominated artist and 2) feature a not-so-well-known artist.
This song accomplished that in spades, because this song features not one, but TWO nominated artists - in the same category! Let's break it down.
Let's start with Snotty Nose Rez Kids. They are nominated in THREE categories - Rap Album/EP of the Year (RED FUTURE - the album this song is from), Rap Single of the Year ("BBE", not this song), and Contemporary Indigenous Artist or Group of the Year (also for RED FUTURE).
Big Braid Energy, by the way.
Members of the Haisla Nation First Nations community in British Columbia (presumably the "Rez" in their name), the duo have been making acclaimed hip hop music for about a decade - with a total of six Juno nominations and two Polaris Award shortlists. This year, they are going to star in a CBC comedy as fictionalized versions of themselves.
Tia Wood grew up in the Saddle Creek Cree Nation in central Alberta. An acclaimed artist in her own right, she garnered her first Juno nomination in the Contemporary Indigineous Artist or Group of the Year category, for her EP Pretty Red Bird.
I love discovering new artists I have never heard.
LŪN is not an artist like that.
You see, I accidentally discovered LŪN last year, when Lights released her new single in September 2024. As I was reading up on that, I was surprised to hear that Lights would not be touring AS LIGHTS for a while. Which I thought - well, that seemed strange. Lights is literally her government name. Granted, not from birth - I get that - but legally.
As I read people's comments, they speculated that there would be a LŪN tour, and it was then that I made the connection.
LŪN is Lights. Lights is LŪN.
As LŪN, she takes on something of a fox persona - this isn't a joke and this video should make it clear - and she mostly and usually obscures her face (but not consistently - let's just say this isn't a secret). Also, as much as Lights gravitates towards the poppy electronic spectrum, LŪN is a bit more hard EDM.
For those who have read Skin & Earth, you know LŪN is a character in there - I guess she's closer to an NPC, a musician that is well-known in that universe. Lights is just occasionally playing the part. And the part is compelling, and I'm here for it.
Also, as I have previously stated, Lights IS touring, AS Lights, so not sure where that information came from.
