In November 2020, Lennon Stella posted a video on Instagram of a lullaby she had written and performed with her sister Maisy.
This song ended up being fully fleshed out on the soundtrack for the 2021 critically acclaimed film The Fallout. Maisy got top billing on the album, so she gets it here, too.
That turned out to be the best thing I could have done for this month of Canadian music. You see, I didn't want this year to be a complete repeat of last year - I wanted new artists. And, so, as I told you a few days ago, I went hunting through the Juno nominees list.
Well, I wrote up the whole month of posts, and here I sit, reviewing my posts.
I had forgotten March 16th.
Not wanting to just have music from the last year, I decided to go back a year to the 2021 Juno nominees.
And right there, under the "Single of the Year" nominees, was none other than Nashville star and Stella sister Lennon Stella.
This was the nominated song. It's a pop gem from an artist I didn't expect to post this month. But how could I not?
The song also works in a more countrified acoustic version. Shot at Hutton Hotel in Nashville, it's a sublime performance.
The Stellas are a husband and wife country duo from Whitby, Ontario. Brad and MaryLynne Stella.
This song was a 2013 Canadian Country Music Association winner for the duo, who harmonize so well. It's a beautiful love song about making room for the one you love.
Brad and MaryLynne have two daughters. Their names are Lennon and Maisy.
Knowing that I planned to post THIS song and NOT do what I did last week again, I did check. No. Bedouin Soundclash has not collaborated with Lights on anything that I could find. But they DO have an album called Light The Horizon, and today's song is from that album.
Anyway, they are a band - a Canadian band, from Toronto. Their lead vocalist, Jay Malinowski, along with the rest of the band members, co-wrote the song, as well as all the songs from their 2010 album Light The Horizon. So, why single out this one guy?
Then I found the Juno nominees list. Americans - Juno Awards - they're like the Grammys but they give out bowls of poutine instead of little gramophones.
Geez, people, I was kidding. It's not poutine.
Meet 2022 Breakthrough Group of the Year nominee MONOWHALES. From Toronto, Ontario, Canada, they've had some success on alternative radio in a country where they are required to play a certain percentage of Canadian artists on the radio.
However, it doesn't hurt that a lot of the music is really really good. You don't get nominated for awards as an independent artist if you are making crap. And this song, full of emotion delivered by vocalist Sally Shaar, is anything but crap.
MONOWHALES have a habit of performing an acoustic version of this song, and here is that.
If you saw my social posts, you saw that there was a little Canadian surprise at the end. Here it is. It's too short for Totally Covered, but I couldn't not share it.
"For years, I had kind of a blindspot to Lights - I had trouble getting into her music. This is despite several friends of mine being huge fans, including the one who called her an "absolute queen". When I was researching music for #MapleLeafMarch, though, I decided it was time to give her a second chance."
Well, if you look at my Spotify stats all time, in just one year, Lights is now my second-most listened to artist. Ever. There's no artist we've posted more in the last year than Lights (I guess I could have spaced that out a little more). Hell, we even made a Lights song post #1000 (which is where we got that quote from). So, yeah, I think I'm on board.
This song, the lead single from the 2014 Little Machines album, represents one of the biggest hits Lights has had thus far. The video is a one shot - single take. No edits.
Lights does an acoustic version of everything.
On a personal note, today is my birthday. So, because of that, I'm going to share this INSTRUMENTAL version of the song.
Since I screwed with you all damn week, it seems only fitting that I end this week with an actual Lights song.
This song, a 2020 collaboration with MYTH, was the title song and lead single from a album of remixes and new songs.
Lights & MYTH also performed a lot of the songs from this album, live at Joshua Tree in California. I have taken the liberty of queuing this song up for you - but please, listen to the whole thing. It's incredible.
