There’s a theme that keeps popping up for me as a recovering cynic working in the arts. After many years of seeing what the music industry does to people, it became easier to frown than to smile. When it came to music, I found myself complaining, poking holes, or looking for flaws, but recently an uprising of hope is bursting within me.
The more I stumble across singles and albums from Canadian artists, the more I’m reminded of the hope I felt when I was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. These artists refuse to let me slump back into my negative “we’re doomed” habits, by re-instilling the fact that the music industry is not music. Music is music, artists are artists, and there’s a stupid amount of fresh art – sprouting up through the grass and ripe for the picking – ready to inspire you if you let it.
Sam Casey is the kind of artist I’m talking about. Residing in Collingwood, she came up like every Canadian: listening to the Hip and rushing to morning hockey practice. But the massive presence she’s acquired as an up-and-coming artist is far from ordinary. Casey brings with her the force of an original creator, making an unmistakable name for herself in the Toronto and greater Ontario scene, and for good reason.
The music she makes is hard to categorize because it doesn’t necessarily remind me of anything. There are heavy influences of modern pop and alt, but also of 2010s indie and 90s rock like Alanis Morissette. At times, the music feels like club rock, at times like glam, but outside of genre-talk, it’s genuine, powerful, self-assured, unapologetic and it sticks with you.
Her 2025 single Patient Plight is a clear representation of the growth she’s undergone as an artist and an individual. The song oozes cool, as she generously scatters valuable tidbits of wisdom from a place of composure and experience.
Through strong imagery, vivid scenes and multiple theater-like movements, we feel the prowess of someone who has witnessed the effects of the toxic masculinity that runs rampant in this world. Though, instead of dwelling on it, she chooses to exemplify what it looks like to rise above it, and to focus on power, versus the narrative of a lack thereof. As she sings “my friends and I, we have this fool-proof plan. To all buy farms and live right off the land. No boys who aren’t in women’s studies, no men who say they can’t do laundry,” she builds the foundation for a real-life eutopia, where needs are met rather than ignored, where independence is harnessed, and muscle-memories are rebuilt.
With eloquence, Sam is celebrating the fact that to be a woman is inherently powerful. She expresses the importance of not quieting that, not acting more like someone you’re not, or being “more masculine” to be heard. She speaks to not suppressing rage, not masking, but instead honouring the innate feelings and abilities within.
As the track moves to its third movement, a tagline arises as Casey sings “don’t feed me grapes, feed me fair,” pointing out the inequality that comes with being placed on a pedestal. Being treated nicely doesn’t necessarily mean being treated properly, nor does it negate the need to treat people with equality, or to pay women fairly. It’s a moving track, and one that’s easy to listen to 10-20 times in a row, picking up new nuance each time.
Her vocal delivery: slick, her ideals: spot-on, her sense for dynamic: yup. This song is punchy, loud, controlled and poignant; it carries the kind of energy that I think younger generations need to see, hear and feel.
The most recent effort from Sam Casey comes with the release of her April 2025 single, Drag. When I say that this song brought a sincere, lasting smile to my face, there’s zero hyperbole in the sentiment.
Have you ever felt truly seen? Whether by a friend or a lover, there are few human feelings that match the unadulterated joy of being accepted for who you are, appreciated for your individuality and embraced in your purest form.
Listening to Drag, it’s clear that this is a feeling being both felt and reciprocated by Casey, or by the subject of this story, and even bearing witness to that, through a recording, elicits a feeling that the collective vibration in the world is being raised.
A real love song is the kind that celebrates the weirdness within somebody, it doesn’t romanticize, try to doll-up, or exaggerate; instead, it says I love “your sandals and your socks, and those pants that you zip-off” and the fact that “you do stupid shit a lot”. I wish more songs would follow in Casey’s example here as she once again uses her finely-tuned writing chops to weave her own unique tale about someone who is so perfectly tailored to her, not despite, but because of their quirks and perceived differences.
Sweet and honest anecdotes aside, the song compounds in an anthemic ear-worm of a chorus as her forward, slapback vocals repeat “you’re such a drag, and I fucking love you” over and over again. Listen once; you’ll repeat the phrase, too.
An artist at this age is an indication of the direction new pop, rock and indie music is moving in. Sam Casey is covering ground, starting important conversations, lifting up her listeners and doing so with electric energy, but above all else, she has something to say and is saying it with her entire lungpower.
To stay updated on Sam Casey shows, announcements, new music, and to listen to Patient Plight, Drag and more of her catalogue, visit itsmesamcasey.com.
Written by Marshall Veroni
