8 March 2025 - AR Paisley - Only You

AR Paisley dreams of winning a Grammy, which is why he listens to Grammy-award winning music.

He's nominated for a Juno Award this year (Breakthrough Artist or Group of the Year), so he's off to a flying start. 

Born Amarit Rehal, and a native of Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, his hip-hop takes a page from Jay-Z's playbook, but also combines English and Punjabi rhymes.  He also counts Ludacris as an influence.  I hear it. 

Anyway, he's making good, original rap music that deserves your attention, so here it is.  

7 March 2025 - Shadowy Men on A Shadowy Planet - Having an Average Weekend

This is not a song title most Americans know.  They do, however, know "The Kids In The Hall Theme Song".  And sure, most Americans don't know about this Calgary-Toronto instrumental band with punk roots and a surf sound.

But I didn't rearrange my whole blog posts for March 2025 just to highlight a long-overdue song to highlight.   No, I wrote this post as a tribute - to great Canadian television and the great impact that Canadian entertainment has had on American culture.   

In an era where the United States President is for some idiotic reason imposing a 25% tarriff on goods from Canada, starting a moronic trade war, I felt like we needed a reminder of what Canada has given the States (Update: I'm told the tarriff is paused). 

By the way - the band performed it live for EVERY KITH show. 

SMOASP broke up in 1996 but they did reunite, and wow, did they sound great live in 2012.

By the way, Kids In The Hall did reuinte as well, and my sister saw them not too long ago.  Let's just say they didn't forget their theme song. 

6 March 2025 - The Sorority - SRTY

I promise you this isn't going to be a nothing-but-Canadian music blog.  While I could VERY EASILY do that, that's not happening here.  There's SO MUCH.  It's hard for me to prune stuff every March - so tough that I have sincerely considered a Canadian music blog.

And I wrote this post in July.

But yeah, these four women formed their rap group in Toronto in 2016.  You met one of them last year - after they broke up in 2019, these ladies built solo careers in their own rights. 

Guys, these ladies are bad-ass.  Check them out.

There are a LOT of live versions of these songs, but the best was one of the first, which they did for CBC.

5 March 2025 - Tate McRae - she's all i wanna be

Tate McRae was nominated for something like five Junos this year.  In fact, she's nominated for EXACTLY five. That's a lot, for those of you who don't know the Junos so well.  

Well, last year was kind of a fever dream for her.   

Her words.

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Well, her new album was released on February 21st, and it took all sorts of restraint to not post about her that day and start MLM a week early.   

This song isn't from her new album, So Close To What, or even her last one, Think Later.  This is from her first full length album, I Used To Think I Could Fly. Co-written by McRae, this song went through a lot of mixes and iterations to get to this final form.  

This is probably the song that made McRae a pop star.  It was sad - adressing real-life feelings of envy and jeolousy that she was experiencing - but also upbeat and punky.  

I'm not gonna lie - I love that the audience knows the words THIS well.

4 March 2025 - Carly Rae Jepsen - Cut To The Feeling

Look, it is now a #MapleLeafMarch tradition.

We have to post Carly Rae Jepson.  

She is, after all, Canada's sweetheart. 

Today's feature was an outtake from her 2015 album Emotion.  It got cut from the album for its cinematic over-the-top feeling, but was slated for a follow-up EP. 

Then came the French animated movie Ballerina, which was called Leap in the US. Jepsen was actually a voice actress in that movie, and also contributed the heart of the movie with this song.  

Like the movie, it ended up being a pretty solid hit song for her. 

And yes. The "Lucky Star" sample was intentional. 

She did make a real adult video for the song, too.   

You know we love the live versions.   

But this one is different.  

It's from a Carnival Cruise.

And it's perfect.

I think we all know that she's a singer-songwriter, and that means, she can actually SING her songs, in a stripped down setting, and they still slap.

3 March 2025 - The Beaches ft. Lights - Let's Go

From their 2021 EP, Future Lovers, we kick off our fifth Maple Leaf March by righting a couple of wrongs we did last year.

We put The Beaches on a weekend. We moved Lights to April!

But hey! we didn't fuck with Carly Rae Jepsen!

Anyway, the breakout stars of late 2023 - who won a couple of Junos last year - teamed up with multiple-Juno winner Lights (who we are guessing is going to be nominated for a Juno this year as of this writing, but as of the time we are writing this, which is mid-2024, we don't know that yet) (Edit: she wasn't) for this song, which the band co-wrote with her.  

It's a bop. Check it out.  

Oh yes, Lights did show up at a Beaches show and yes, they did it live. 

And yes, the crowd went bezerk.  Rightfully so.  Hell, I would have!

2 March 2025 - Les Cowboys Fringants - La fin du show

This is probably the most exposure Les Cowboys Fringants have gotten outside of Quebec, but they deserve a wider reach from their néo-trad musical style that draws on folk and rock influences. 

The reigning champions of the Juno Awards Francophone category, the group released new music in 2024 to accompany a musical, Pub Royal, that featured their music.  That album is absolutely a 2025 nominee, by the way. 

This was the last album to feature Karl Tremblay, the band's lead vocalist.  He passed away from prostate cancer in 2023.  The song does feature vocals by Tremblay, and was written by blacground vocalist and rhythm guitarist Jean-François Pauzé.

I hope it's clear by the title that this was probably the last thing Tremblay recorded. It is a POWERFUL performance. 

1 March 2025 - Sophie Powers - Better On Mute

Welcome to March.

Did I choose March because it starts with the same letter as "Maple Leaf"?  Maybe.  More likely I started it because the Junos take place in March - for now.  It seems to be slowly moving to April.   

Which makes it even weirder that I started the month with never-nominated Sophie Powers, a Toronto native who has made great music tailor-made for the TikTok generation.  Co-written by the artist (no, Powers is not her real last name and the credits tell me that), the song is very much a declaration of independence by an musician who is making bold, different music from a nation who refuses to be annexed by the United States.

THAT'S as political as I will ever get here. 

She has performed a stripped-down version of the song live, which shows me that she's both not manufactured (a little cringe, in fact) and is a uniquely talented performer.