Songoftheday 12/7/21 - I was lying on the grass on Sunday morning of last week indulging in my self-defeat...
"Steal My Sunshine" - LEN
from the albums Go (Original Soundtrack) and You Can't Stop The Bum Rush (1999)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #9 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 21
Today's song comes from the Canadian indie-pop group LEN, fronted by brother and sister Marc and Sharon Costanzo. Coming together in the outskirts of capital city Ottawa in Ontario, they began as a pop-punk band, releasing two albums independently before getting signed to the Work imprint of Columbia Records. The group put out their third disc You Can't Stop The Bum Rush in the spring of 1999, with the first single being the bouncy novelty of "Steal My Sunshine". Written and produced by Marc using the instrumental of the disco classic "More, More, More" by the Andrea True Connection as the backdrop, giving its writer Gregg Diamond half-credit on the song. But before the album was released, the song was in the teen movie Go starring a young Katie Holmes, and radio latched on to it quickly. Marc and Sharon each get a verse of partly-nonsensical phrases about either being high or bummed out, I'm not sure. Nobody cared. Just like LFO's "Summer Girls", it was more about the (borrowed) groove than the words, and LEN found themselves big on American radio...
"Steal My Sunshine" became LEN's first and only hit in American, reaching the top ten on the pop Hot 100 in November of 1999. The song climbed to #5 on Billboard magazine's Alternative Rock radio chart, while also making the top ten at #7 on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 format list. Internationally, the single reached the top ten in their native Canada (#3) as well as Australia (#3), Ireland (#3), and the UK (#8), while making the top-40 in Sweden (#28), Iceland (#33), and New Zealand (#34). The You Can't Stop The Bum Rush album, released in May of that year, peaked at #46 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, going on to sell over a half million copies.
Despite this multi-format success, the duo faded out as quickly as they came in. In the UK, they had one more top-40 hit with the rap track "Cryptic Souls Crew" which sampled two more disco songs, which went to #28, while in America, they never made the radio or sales charts again. They attempted to recapture the pop market with a remake of Kim Wilde's "Kids In America" from the animated movie Digimon which featured Sharon, but it failed to get noticed and the act was dropped from the label.
Since then, LEN has put out two more albums independently, the latest being It's Easy If You Try in 2012. They were a true "one hit wonder" here, and the record is goofy but pretty entertaining and a good summer vibe. Marc has gone on to brighter shores as a music publishing executive.
(6/10)
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In 2014, the British show Choir Choir Choir took on "Steal My Sunshine"...
Up tomorrow: This country singer is kind of vague.
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