15 March 2024 - Jayli Wolf - Blood Orange

Honestly, I've been sitting on this song since last summer, when it was released.  It's amazing and it was really tempting to post it right away.  I held back.  

I'm glad I did.  Because today is the 1600th post on Wicked Guilty Pleasures, and there are few songs I'd rather such an odometer flip of a post would be about than this song.

The last few times I've posted about Jayli Wolf, I've very much leaned on her reliance on indigenous themes and how she's writing important music. And, let's be clear - she does - she has arguably done more for her Anishinaabe/Cree culture than anyone else in modern times - and she is making important, thought-provoking music.  

Not every great song needs to be deep and important.  "Blood Orange" is a great song that is just a great song.  It's not at all deep and important.  It's just about fruit.

“I wanted this song to boldly confront the themes of control, oppression, and societal standards, while also illuminating the courage to break free and reclaim one’s narrative,” - Jayli Wolf

No, of course it's not just about fruit.  It's a powerful song about standing up for yourself against your oppresors - whoever that may be - and claiming your own narrative. The first single from her highly personal EP God is an Endless Mirror, the whole set is introspective and filled with emotion.  She's left the city to buy and work her generations-old family farm in British Columbia, and that seems to be driving this direction in her music.

The video, written and produced by Jayli herself, has a lot going on - and yes, does feature a real blood orange (watch the upper right left corner).  

This song is also really great.  Doubtless.  

14 March 2024 - Tate McRae - exes

We're posting a THIRD Tate McRae post today for two reasons.  

1) These are among the last ones we're wriitng for this month - we're full up - and we feel badly about waiting so long to post her.

2) This is post #1,599, and we like odometer flips, so you know tomorrow morning's post is going to be a banger.

It does not hurt that "exes", the follow-up to "greedy", is pretty damned catchy.

Also, this is McRae's current single, and it's pretty successful in its own right.  

McRae also performed this song at the NHL All Star Game this year.

14 March 2024 - Tate McRae - calgary

Yep.

Two Tate McRae songs today.  This one isn't a single yet....

It's just another great song from Think Later that got a bit of a visualizer.

And, it's about Calgary.  C'mon, guys.  You know I love Calgary.

It's not really about Calgary.  It was co-written by McRae and is somewhat autobiographical. 

Also, there's an acoustic version of this one - from London, not Calgary, for some reason - and I really wanted to further back up my earlier claim that she can sing.  

14 March 2024 - Tate McRae - greedy

There is absolutely no way I could do a Maple Leaf March this year without including the pride of Calgary, Tate McRae, who had been up to 2023 something of a minor hit artist outside of Canada.

Then came "greedy".  This female empowerment anthem, co-written by McRae, hit #3 on the US pop charts and was a #1 hit elsewhere in the world.  It is, by far, her biggest hit, both inside and outside Canada.

By the way, this is an active hit song.  As of this publication, it's currently rising back up the Billboard charts, at #6 THIS WEEK on the US Hot 100, #5 on the Canadian Hot 100.  

The song is also a 2024 nominee for Single of the Year at the Juno Awards next weekend - one of three for which she's been nominated (Artist of the Year, Fan's Choice).  

Also, driving a Zamboni.  Iconic.  She's clearly a fan (she even wears goalie pads on the album cover). 

Think Later is the album.  We failed to mention that.  Released December 2023

 So, enjoy the song... and the Zamboni ride. 

Keeping with the hockey theme, McRae performed during the intermission at the 2024 NHL All Star Game in Toronto - including this song, of course.

It's a pretty clean performance, which we'd expect at a sporting event.

I watch a lot of live videos before I choose the ones I want to share with you - and I'm picking this Today Show performance.  Why?  It's less clean than others have been - and she can clearly sing, even without the Autotune so clearly foisted onto her.  

13 March 2024 - Lightning Dust - Loaded Gun

I spend a lot of March compiling music for future Maple Leaf Marches.  Sometimes, the songs are great and will make good music for future Marches, or really, for any month of the year.  

Sometimes, I can't wait. 

And, so we are clear, I almost completely bumped Lights for this one.

I decided this was a good day to double up instead of bumping anyone.  

Amber Webber and Joshua Wells are Lightning Dust, and they are also members of another band called Black Mountain.  Hailing from Vancouver, Lightning Dust is presumably named after a character from My Little Pony... but, more importantly, they are focused on synth-pop-rock sounds that are really interesting.  

This song, a driving synth anthem, is from their 2013 album Fantasy, and it is really solid.

Despite being a side project, this duo does perform their critically acclaimed music live, and they do so with far more emotion that you might expect from a synth-pop-rock duo.

13 March 2024 - FouKi ft. P'tit Belliveau - St-Han Quinzou

We missed FouKi.  We first featured him and his collaboration with Jay Scøtt in 2022.  That Félix award-winning song ended up on my heavy rotation and was my most-listened to song on Spotify in 2022.  

It is also sung by people in my house who do not speak French.  

FouKi was also nominated for a Juno in 2022 - for Francophone Album of the Year.  He lost - and deservedly so, honestly.  Impossible à aimer was amazing.  He's nominated again this year in the same category, for Zayon, and I am boldly predicting victory.

This song, a collaboration with fellow Canadian artist P'tit Belliveau (he is a folk musician from Nova Scotia who does a fair bit of Acadian vocals), is quite energetic.  It is a party song, celebrating a popular festival day in Quebec of St. Jean Baptiste.  

Also, FouKi wearing the Nordiques sweater is straight fire. 

I actually like this better live.  You can really hear the Acadian folk that Belliveau brings to the party.  FouKi brings the Expos jersey to the party in this performance.  

12 March 2024 - Lights - Savage

Well well well.

We've reached the Lights portion of the month.  

You had to know it was coming.  It's not like we've haven't had like 20 Lights posts in the last three years.  

Only a slight exaggeration.  This is the 19th since 2021.  

This single was released in advance of her 2017 album Skin&Earth, which of course came with a comic book and a post-apocalyptic video.  

As she has done several times since Siberia, Lights made an acoustic version of Skin&Earth and released it in 2019.  This was an innovative recording, with unusual recording locations. 

This is not the studio recording.  This was a live performance in Austin, TX in 2019.  

No, no, this was the "studio" recording.  I put "studio" in quotes because her "studio" was her portable rig under an umbrella sitting on the ground outside during a rainstorm.  

That's really rain you hear.  

And this kind of shows you how she did it.

11 March 2024 - Rêve - Release Me

We were delighted to see that Rêve released a full album - Saturn Return - in December, and it was nominated for a couple of Juno Awards this year.  We'd be happier if she'd release it in the States.

What delights us even more is seeing more depth from someone who will, undoubtably, become a big star, even if her whole 2024 seems to be contained to Canada.  This song, from the album, was released as a short film on January 5th of this year - so, yeah, that's why there are some pauses in the song.  It's a great, deep, softer song - with some ambient beats, but not the thumping dance numbers that brought her to prominence. 

The song was co-written by Max-Antoine Gendron and Rêve, and it should be a hit everywhere, but, for now, we're going to have to be happy with Canada.  

10 March 2024 - Brooke Nicholls - Enough

Brooke Nicholls is an artist... and worship leader.... from Hamilton, Ontario.

That's right.  This is church music.  Which is part of the the reason why I'm posting this on a Sunday morning.  And it's GOOD.  I don't post a lot of religious music, but I do when it's good music.  

The other part is that she's a Juno nominee this year, for Best Contemporary Christian Gospel Album of the Year, for Glory To God.   This song, which literally declares that Jesus is enough, is a centerpiece of that album, which is really good.  

9 March 2024 - Softcult - Dress

According to WikiPedia, Softcult are a Canadian grunge duo from Kitchener, Ontario, and the duo are actually twin sisters.  

They are so much more than that.  They bring back the aethestic of the shoegaze movement from the early 1990s, bringing in elements of grunge.  

They're also Juno Award nominees this year, for Best Alternative Album, for their EP See You In The Dark.  This emotional song is a centerpiece of that record - the darkest and a song that has deep, dark themes but still retains a poppy feel. 

This video might be triggering, because of the flashing lights and the themes of sexual assault, which is also the subject of the song.  It was directed and edited by Mercedes Am-Horn, who also happens to be one of the twins in the band (her sister Phoenix is the other, and she produced it).  They bring an excellend DIY feeling to their music and the visual that matches it.

Of course they perform the song live, and, believe it or not, they even tour the US.  This is from a show in Dallas from last March - they built their Maple Leaf March case last year! - and you can hear the emotion a little stronger in the live version.

8 March 2024 - Once A Tree - Perfection

Usually, when I double up on a day, it's the same artist - or else someone died.

No one died.  And neither 

Today, I'm doing it because I don't want to move anything else and because Once A Tree - the duo of Hayden and Jayli Wolf - released a new song today, and it's really great.  

Also, they're a Canadian act that released music in March!!!!!

So, go listen to it - on all platforms (I have it playing on Spotify here).  

8 March 2024 - Connor Price & Haviah Mighty - Trendsetter

I decided to do a double today.  Both Connor Price and Havian Mighty are Canadian rappers.  

This was originally just going to be a Connor Price post, though.  A respected actor before he got really prolific in the hip hop beats, he is nominated for three Juno Awards, including one for his album Spin The Globe.  This song is from its follow up, Spin The Globe: Season 2.  These are high concept albums - he literally spun a globe and pointed at it, collaborating with artists from whereever his finger hit.

On this song, the Toronto native must have not hit very far, because Haviah Mighty is from Brampton, Ontario.  Her 2021 mixtape Stock Exchange was a Juno winner in its own right.

Guys, that's the CN Tower in the background.  It doesn't get much more Canadian than that.  

Why yes, they HAVE performed this song live, and yes, BOTH of them. Toronto, make some NOIIIIIISE!

7 March 2024 - Mother Mother - Hayloft (I and II)

So the road we took to get to posting this literally right the hell now is long.

You see, I had another Mother Mother song slated to post right now.  We will call back to this post in that post, which is fully written and probably won't see the light of day until 2026.  

As I researched that post - and this band, by the way, is from British Columbia - and realized I had so much for this March I could not fit them in until 2025 at least, I started exploring some of their other catalog.

And I found this absolute gem.  

"Hayloft" was one of Mother Mother's first singles, originally from their 2009 album O My Heart.  Written by lead vocalist Ryan Guldemond, he wrote the very "angular" melody first.  He then wrote lyrics to match them - and started with the lyric "my daddy's got a gun"..... and it takes 40 seconds to get there.  The song, about young lovers hiding in a hayloft, soon followed - and the song ends with the young lovers being caught by her daddy in the hayloft - and yes, he's got his gun.

The song ends ambiguously. Which is super frustrating.

The video is very much in the style of Franz Ferdinand or the White Stripes.  It's cool as heck.

On its initial release, it was not a big hit song.  It was still a fan favorite - and so they performed it live. This performance in 2019 is a great example of that.  The energy of the song really comes through.

However, in 2020, TikTok became a thing, and people discovered the song.  It made a lot of money.  And people wanted to hear it.So they performed it when they could.  Here is a 2021 version of the song performed acoustic.

And, this prompted the band to write a followup song, "Hayloft II", but not before renaming their biggest hit "Hayloft I" and making a new video for it.

The new video tells a less ambiguous story.

They followed it in 2022 with "Hayloft II", which is a very different song - very fuzzy, very angry, and very much tells a continuation of the story of "Hayloft" in which revenge is extracted and the hayloft is burnt to ashes. 

Now, of course, they perform BOTH songs live - although not exactly back-to-back, putting a third song - 2021's "Girl Alone" in the middle of "Hayloft I" for some reason.  Here they are performing "Hayloft I" in Chile in 2023.

Here they are performing "Hayloft II" in Europe/

And, here they are, as performed live, with all three songs in the Rolling Stone studios.

6 March 2024 - Vishtèn - L'Hermite

I've literally been waiting all year to post about Vishtèn.  I discovered them last April, as part of a collaboration they did with The East Pointers.  I posted it anyway, in April, but also, I went on a discovery of their music.

What I found was a fantastic folk band from Prince Edward Island whose music was heavily rooted in Acadian traditions.  The Acadian culture is a minority primarily based in New Brunswick, whose language can only be best described as "Frenglish".  Because of this, Vishtèn is primarily seen as a Francophone group... but they are so much more than that. 

We'd be remiss if we didn't mention vocalist Pastelle LeBlanc - the primary vocalist on this song - passed away in 2022 after a battle with breast cancer.  Her voice is certainly missed, and this is a song that shows you why. 

Here is the band live in 2020 - playing a small hall in PEI - and you can see the chemistry the three had (after all, Pastelle, her partner and her sister were the band).  Their sound is both bright and folky. 

5 March 2024 - Ayria - My Device

I have a confession to make.

Every once in a while around our house, my SO will lose her phone, and ask the Google Home to "Find My Device".

Every once in a while, this song plays.  It drives her nuts.

It's probably my fault.

It's probably because this song has been sitting in my drafts since last May.  

Ayria is a Toronto-based synth-pop project formed in 2003 out of the ashes of Epsilon Minus by vocalist Jennifer Parkin.  This song, released in 2005, is perhaps their best known - probably because people lose their phones.  

The song is energetic and dark and industrial and exciting - and gets better as it goes.  

So, I'm sorry, Courtney, but this song is not only good, it's Canadian.  

Why yes, electronic artists do perform live. And they're quite good.  Duel synths accompany Parkin, who has a strong stage presence.  

Incidentally, 

4 March 2024 - Flower Face - Spiracle

Last year, I really sought to bring diverse artists to this annual celebration of Canadian music.  I went out of my way to find music I had never heard before.

I started that on March 2nd with an artist from Montreal named Ruby Mckinnon - stage name Flower Face.  That song, "Sugar Water", ended up being my most listened to song on Spotify in 2023 - and it wasn't close.  It's got a head start on 2024 as well - but I'm trying to be more wholistic in 2024.

You see, her 2022 album, The Shark In Your Water, is arguably the best of that year, and in my top 3 or 4 for this decade so far.  The whole album is so well written and performed.  Every song on there is incredible.

This song is where the album gets its title - it is a song that starts simple and gets louder and scarier.  It's beautiful AND beautifully constructed. 

Oh, by the way, a spriacle is an opening on some fish, like a shark, that pulls water over the gills. It is part of the respiratory system - and are literally used to force water in while swimming quickly.  

Live, the song features a full band and.... well, you can see the emotion.

3 March 2024 - KEN mode - Failing At Fun Since 1981

Those who know me know I don't listen to noisy music like this all that much.

But man, that title.

This noise-rock band from Winnipeg is nominated for a Juno Award this year.  They have won in the past for their heavy metal sound.  This song is from their 2015 Juno-nominated album Success, and it has the best title.  

The word "KEN" in the band's name is an acronym, for Kill Everyone Now.  I don't believe they've acted on that, though.  

This song is a banger on record, and it's a banger live.

2 March 2024 - Shubh - Hood Anthem

Why, yes, that is a Sihk man from Brampton, Ontario slinging Punjabi hip-hop.

This song, released just a few weeks ago, is already a hit in New Zealand, where he has gotten a fair amount of traction as an artist.  He's had some hits in the UK and Canada as well, and he is nominated as a Breakthrough Artist at this year's Juno Awards.  

Check him out!

1 March 2024 - Babygirl - Overbored

Every March for the last three years - this is our fourth - we've featured music exclusively from Canafian artists.  

I can honestly say a lot of my favorite music today is a direct result of what I've been doing these Marches.  

Babygirl is one of those artists I discovered while writing this blog who I have come to truly love.  They make nice, smart, edgy light pop-rock music that should be absolutely gigantic everywhere, but for some reason, isn't.  Hailing from Toronto, the duo met at Humber College and started making music there. 

From the interactions I've had with them on Twitter.... sorry, X.... they also seem to be lovely people.

This single is from 2018 - so, why aren't you listening to them yet?

15 February 2024 - Metric - Help I'm Alive

We have featured Metric on this blog before - including last year, when they were nominated for a Juno Award.  They're nominated again this year - and we think they might actually win.  

This is a 2008 song of theirs, and not what they are nominated for this year.  Although not their best known song today - now that the truth is just a rule that you can bend - it is their biggest hit, reaching #21 on the Canadian charts and even higher elsewhere.  It was also their first time gaining any traction on the US charts -   

Written by vocalist Emily Haines - and sung by her and not Brie Larson - it's an emotional powerhouse.

Does this song sound just as emotional and strong stripped down to an acoustic version?

Yes.  Yes it does.