If you don’t spend your time on TikTok, there’s a good chance you have absolutely no idea who Stella Lefty is or why people are suddenly talking about her.
So let me catch you up.
There is a singer named Noah Kahan, who became incredibly popular over the last few years, especially because of his song “Stick Season.” Even if you don’t know the name, you’ve probably heard the song. It was EVERYWHERE, especially on TikTok.
Now there’s another singer, Stella Lefty, who has been promoting her own song, and people started pointing out that it sounds very, very similar to “Stick Season.”
And listen…
I am TERRIBLE at recognizing when two songs sound alike.
People will play two songs for me and say, “Can’t you hear that they’re basically the same?”
And I’m like, “No? They both have instruments?”
I am not musically trained. I don’t know anything about chord progressions. I don’t know what key something is in. If you asked me to explain music theory, I’d probably just start making things up.
But even I can tell these songs are damn near identical.
I’ve been around for plenty of celebrity copyright-infringement drama over the years. Look at Ed Sheeran. Look at Olivia Rodrigo. I know these situations can get complicated, and I’m definitely not a copyright lawyer.
I’m just saying that if you played these songs for me and asked whether I thought they sounded similar, I wouldn’t even need to think about it.
Yes.
These songs are damn near identical. Like, I’m sorry, but at some point you can’t just put a slightly different outfit on the same song and expect me not to notice.
And then there’s the accent.
Stella sings the song with this very thick Southern accent, which is… a choice.
Especially because the song is about Boston.
Boston.
Massachusetts.
Girl, why are we singing about Boston like we’re about to tell me about grandma’s sweet tea recipe?
Maybe there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation. Maybe that’s just how she sings. I don’t know.
But then I started thinking about the bigger picture.
Stella Lefty has been heavily promoting the song on TikTok. And when I say heavily, I mean I swear I’ve seen her mention or post about “Stick Season” approximately one million times trying to get people to listen to her song.
And now?
People are listening.
People are searching for her.
People are comparing the songs.
People are talking about her.
And now she’s being talked about outside of TikTok too.
Which brings me to my conspiracy-theory-adjacent thought:
Is this actually a marketing strategy?
But honestly, the more I see this whole situation, the more I start wondering if the controversy itself is the point.
Because let’s be real: no publicity is bad publicity… until suddenly bad publicity is GREAT publicity.
If you’re an unknown artist trying to become famous, getting people to argue about your song online is still getting people to listen to your song.
Before this, I had never heard of Stella Lefty.
Now I know who she is, I know about her song, I know about the comparison to Noah Kahan, and I’m writing a whole blog post about it.
And now?
People are talking about her.
People are searching for her song.
People are comparing her song to another song.
People are making videos about her.
And now I’m writing an entire blog post about her.
So whether this was intentional or completely accidental…
So congratulations, I guess? You got me.
Maybe I’m giving her too much credit. Maybe she genuinely had no idea people would compare the songs. Maybe there is a perfectly legitimate explanation for everything.
I have no idea.
But I do know that I went from knowing absolutely nothing about this girl to sitting here thinking:
“Stella Lefty, what are we doing?”
And honestly, if the goal was to get people interested in her, it worked.
P.S. I also got into a VERY serious argument in the TikTok comments about this yesterday because someone compared the situation to Olivia Rodrigo and I was like, oh no.
You can compare a lot of things to a lot of people, but I will defend Olivia Rodrigo until the end of my days. 😂
Apparently this is where I draw the line.
