30 March 2025 - Snotty Nose Rez Kids ft. Tia Wood - SHAPESHIFTER

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. 

Together, they made a pretty compelling song. 

29 March 2025 - The Funk Hunters X LÜN - XEROX

Oh, by the way, there was a new LŪN single out last week - a collaboration with British Columbia DJs The Funk Hunters.

When the hell does Lights have time to sleep? 

Anyway, this song was so freaking funky, I wanted to include it. 

29 March 2025 - LŪN - myyyy medssss

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. 

28 March 2025 - Sum 41 – Fatlip

Sum 41 is being inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame this year.

They deserve it.

I have to admit, I've never really been a fan of theirs. 

But the fact is, they've made hard-rocking compelling music for more than thirty years.  

That ends on Sunday, March 30, 2025, when they will be playing their farewell performance at their induction ceremony, at the Juno Awards.  

So, on the occasion of their induction and breakup, I decided it was time to give them a second listen.

This was one of their first singles, and the only one to chart on the US pop charts.  It also topped the US Modern Rock charts - the first of three times they would do so - in 2001.  It was be 22 years before they would do that again. 

So yeah. After going back and listening to them with fresh ears, I'm more of a fan.  I can appreciate the music they made and the time they made it. 

Hey, remember when MTV did Spring Break and Carson Daly hosted TRL?  

So do we.

We're going to guess that Sum 41 are going to close their set with this song on Sunday. This post may end up being updated to reflect that.  

But also, they played it there in 2002, when they were nominated (and won an award, although not for this song).

27 March 2025 - The Beaches - Jocelyn

I told my sister when she saw The Beaches last month that I'd be posting this one so I guess I have to. 

Nah, the song is great.  I was posting it anyway.  

Written by the band after the huge worldwide success of "Blame Brett", it's about the pressure of being thrust into that role of being a role model.  

And yes, there's a real fan named Jocelyn.  And yes, she's a PhD student.  From Iowa.  She's a fan of the band and follows them on Instagram.  The band wanted to tie this song to real life, and so they chose a fan.... named Jocelyn.   

As a gift, my sister actually recorded the song when she saw them live last month, so here's that video.  Yeah, they're looking for any Jocelyn in the crowd.

26 March 2025 - Len - Steal My Sunshine

Yep.

I know what you're saying.

You did this one, jackass.  

Yep, but I did it half-assed. And this song being such a Canadian classic, I felt it was time to revisit it, alone this time. 

Written and produced by Mumble C, aka The Burger Pimp, aka Marc Costanzo, aka the guy singing the song, the song is an ode to slacking off.  Ironically, given the fact that they share a scooter and vocals on this, it was written at a time that Marc and his older sister Sharon were not speaking to each other.  

The dual vocals were due to the fact that Marc really wanted to make a new "Don't You Want Me".  Ultimately, his song was a success in its own right, without the need for so much synth.  

Shockingly, the band directed this video themselves.  It was recorded one afternoon in Daytona Beach, FL at a cost of $100,000.  It was recorded over sevem afternoons because a large portion of that $100,000 was spent on alcohol the band consumed the night before, and they needed the morning to sleep off their hangovers and the evening to get drunk.

Seriously.  They had so much booze they broke an elevator at their hotel - by exceeding greatly the WEIGHT limit. So they shot between 1 and 5pm.

The song was absolutely the greatest song of the summer of any summer.  It was not, however, the official Song of the Summer declared by Billboard in 1999 - "Genie In A Bottle", for the record - but anyone who thinks this song wasn't everywhere in the summer of 1999 doesn't remember the summer of 1999. 

But, then again, Len were probably drunk all summer, too.

Len was never really much of a band - it was just something Marc did in his garage and occassionally dragged his sister and best mates into. 

So, really, any time Marc performs this song, it's a Len performance of this song - like this performance he did last year with Brooklyn-based Charly Bliss (who did a fantastic cover in their own right).

25 March 2025 - Cœur de Pirate ft. Loud - Dans la nuit

I thought about not posting any Cœur de Pirate this year.  

Then I remembered that I LITERALLY OPENED the first Maple Leaf March with three of her songs. 

And one of those posts was quite unusual, and for the rest of this post, I am going to ATTEMPT to replicate what I did in that post.  

Plongeons dans l'univers envoûtant de "Dans la nuit", une pièce maîtresse de l'album En cas de tempête, ce jardin sera fermé de Cœur de Pirate. Cette chanson, fruit d'une collaboration inattendue avec le rappeur montréalais Loud, nous offre un mélange captivant de pop mélancolique et de rap introspectif.

Les paroles de "Dans la nuit" nous transportent dans un monde de relations complexes, où l'apparence et la réalité s'entrechoquent. Cœur de Pirate explore avec finesse les nuances de l'amour et de la solitude, évoquant ces moments où l'on se sent à la fois utilisé et utilisateur. Cette dualité se reflète dans la musique elle-même, où la mélodie hantée de Cœur de Pirate se marie parfaitement avec le flow incisif de Loud.

Musicalement, la chanson crée une atmosphère réflexive, presque onirique. Les notes de piano caractéristiques de Cœur de Pirate s'entrelacent avec des beats plus urbains, créant un paysage sonore qui oscille entre douceur et tension. Cette fusion des genres souligne parfaitement les thèmes de la chanson, incarnant cette danse constante entre connexion et déconnexion.

"Dans la nuit" marque une évolution dans le style de Cœur de Pirate, tout en restant fidèle à son talent pour capturer les émotions les plus intimes. C'est une invitation à plonger dans les profondeurs de nos relations, à explorer ces moments d'ombre et de lumière qui définissent nos connexions humaines. Une œuvre qui résonne longtemps après la dernière note, nous laissant contempler nos propres expériences dans le miroir de ses paroles poignantes.

Les deux sont montés sur scène lors des Juno Awards 2019 pour interpréter la chanson ensemble.

Au final, c'est SA chanson, et elle peut l'interpréter toute seule. Elle le fait ici, au piano.

Merci beaucoups, Google Translate.