31 March 2024 - The Beaches - Blame Brett

Maple Leaf March ending on a Sunday is kind of a downer.  

You see, we get reduced readership on Sundays, in general.  

We don't publish on Sundays for 11 months of the year (or Saturdays, for that matter) unless there's a Special Edition need to do that.   

During March, we do.

On these weekend days, we usually feature either 1) smaller, up-and-coming artists or 2) artists we feel like we have to feature even though we don't love them.  (We do love that song, though). Also, Lights.  

This year, we had WAY too much content.  We almost doubled up on weekdays - and DID on some days.  The Beaches getting pushed to a weekend feels wrong.  

And yet, here we are. 

Why the hell couldn't I just move Lights? (Editor's note: Yeah, we did end up moving Lights to another day OUTSIDE OF MARCH because this month was THAT packed, so there's no link there!)

The Beaches are a Toronto band that have been around for a decade, and finally broke through to US alternative radio in 2023 with this absolutel banger.  As of the time I am writing this, they are nominated for two Juno Awards this year (Group of the Year and Rock Album of the Year, for Blame My Ex, who absolutely is a real ex of Jordan Miller named Brett) (edit: they WON both of those Junos), but those were awarded last week as of the time you are actually reading this, so hopeful we remember to update this post. (Edit: we did but a little bit late) 

  

We really feel badly for relegating this absolutely great song to a weekend.  We're going to promote the hell out of this post.

But, to be fair, they really ARE up and coming.  They only just appeared on Jimmy Kimmel's show last month.... and they were spectacular.

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Here is the band in Ottawa last summer, performing the hell out of this song.  They give off a Go-Go's vibe, and not Loverboy, for sure.  

We promise to post more of them on weekdays in the future.  We may not even wait until next March.

When possible, I like to include concert footage with a personal connection.  My sister went to their show in Toronto on Nov. 1, 2023 - and got footage of this song.

Wanna see it?

Wanna see the crowd go nuts?!

Here ya go.

30 March 2024 - Maryze - FBP (Female Brad Pitt)

Some days, I don't want to choose.  

This is why you're getting your 2nd Maryze post within five minutes of the first.  

In this post, though, we're going to talk about this 2021 non-album single that is just a fun song about being pretty and poor. Also, it's about owning your identity and who you are - Maryze identifies themself as queer, gender-fluid and non-binary, and this video features Maryze with a lot of their friends being who they are.  Filmed in Montreal, it makes me want to go there now. 

And yes, I know.  The song is called "Female Brad Pitt" so that seems to really imply a gender.   Maryze's pronouns are she/they.  

Also, it's pronounced "mar-ize".  Now you know.

30 March 2024 - Maryze - Emo

It is always a struggle for me to choose what music to include and what to leave out every March.  It is especially hard this year, when there are so many weekend days.  

This is really the only time of year we post on Saturday and Sunday, and I try to turf lesser-known artists to those days - up and comers, if you will.  

One of those up and comers is Maryze (her real name - Maryze Bernard), based in Montreal but originally from Vancouver, who released their debut album 8 in 2022.  It took me a few listens to really get the alt-pop feel of the whole album - of which this song is an absolute centrepiece - but I'm in.  I'm all in.  

This song starts a little slow but build quickly, and the seizure warning is no joke.  Directed and concieved by Maryze themself, the video is visually appealing and draws you in.  

29 March 2024 - Cœur de Pirate - Place de la République

Some artists don't release bad albums.  

It took a while for Blonde to grow on me, but it did.  Her solo catalog is eight albums deep at this point, and I'd put at least three of them in my top 20 of all time - Roses (easily top 5 and probably top 3), Perséides,  En cas de tempête, ce jardin sera fermé - and the rest aren't far behind, including Blonde.

This absolutely stunning song, written by Béatrice Martin (who by now you should know is Cœur de Pirate), is the reason Blonde exists.  It is a hauntingly dense and beautiful song that she was dying to record.  Named for the plaza in Paris, it is a melancholy love song, and it sits smack dab in the middle of the album.  

Voici Cœur de Pirate interprétant la chanson en direct et en beauté à l'Aéroport international Pierre-Elliott-Trudeau de Montréal. Est-ce une salle de concert insolite ? Bien sûr. Est-ce absolument magnifiquement réalisé ? Absolument. Ai-je utilisé Google Translate pour vous écrire ? Vous pariez que je l'ai fait.

28 March 2023 - Neil Young - Rockin In The Free World

Born in Toronto, and a Canadian citizen, Neil Young is an absolute national treasure. He was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1982 - 7 years before today's song was released.

This song, from Young's 1989 album Freedom, is one of his biggest hits ever, being both a Canadian chart hit and a US rock radio hit.... plus MTV loved this song, which you can't say about every song and video he made. 

This song was something of a career revolution for Young, who subsequently toured to packed houses and released a live album - Weld - that was also a hit.  Written by Young, it is absolutely a song of revolution.

The song was actually on the album twice.  This acoustic version was also featured.  They're both really powerful.

Young also performed the song live on Saturday Night Live in 1989, a performance Dennis Miller called the greatest ever for the show.

This is the REHERSAL.

It was so important to include Neil Young this month, and this song specifically, I moved Lights.

27 March 2024 - Loverboy - Turn Me Loose

Anyone who knows me personally knows that I spent several months in Calgary, Alberta in 2019... and visited for a day in 2022 as well.   I love the city.  It was a great place to work and live and visit, and I would gleefully return. 

Why am I spending time evangelizing Calgary?  

Because today's Wicked Guilty Pleasure hails from Calgary.  Formed in 1979, they got their start as Kiss's opening act in Vancouver.  

Seriously.  That was their first live performance.

An album followed in 1980, and their first single, released in 1981, was "Turn Me Loose".  Mike Reno really sells the song - practically begging to do it his way or no way at all.  It ended up being a Top 40 hit in the US (and a huge hit on rock radio in the States as well) and Top 10 in Canada.  It also won the 1982 Juno Award for Single of the Year. 

It would be their biggest Canadian hit (but by no means their only!), but they did a lot more in the US, where MTV embraced them.

And, yes, they are Canadian Music Hall of Famers - 2009 inductees - beating Shania Twain there by 2 years. 

And yes, they are still together - after a brief hiatus in the late 80s, they reformed in the early 90s and never looked back.

And Mike Reno is older, but still commands the stage.  That classic bassline is still there.  The classic guitar is still here, more than 40 years after its initial release.  

26 March 2024 - Riit - qaumajuapik

I don't think I've ever featured an artist from Nunavut.

Hell, most of you don't know where Nunavut is.

Riit is from a town in Nunavut called Panniqtuq located on Baffin Island, which is about 45 km. south of the Arctic Circle.  For those who measure distance in screaming bald eagles instead of kilometers, that's about 28 miles.  Nunavut is a Canadian territory, formed in 1999 when the Northwest Territories were split roughly along ethnic lines.  Nunavut is primarily Inuit, who are a First Nations group that you may know by another name we're not saying.

(There are certainly Inuit outside of Nunavut, which you already know if you read Totally Covered, so, you can miss us with that).

Riit is the stage name of Rita Claire Mike-Murphy, who is a children's television show host. She hosted a show in English and Inuktitut called Anaana's Tent.  Here's the Season 1 promo in English.

And here it is in Inuktitut.

We don't make this stuff up.

In 2017, she released her debut album, and followed it in 2019 with the critically acclaimed Ataataga - a 2020 Juno Award nominee - which included the lead single "quamajaupik".  Her music is traditionally Euro-synth, except the lyrics are all in Inuktitut.  Literally translated to "you are shining", this is a love song that preserves her native First Nations language, which is exactly her intent.

As part of the release of this single, Riit also had a performance for CBC Music in which she debuted this song.....

The performance is just spectacular, and that's why we're doubling up today and not pushing Riit's Maple Leaf March debut to 2025.