Throwback Thursday: ‘Steal My Sunshine’ by Len (1999)

"Steal My Sunshine" by Len was the lead single off of the Canadian band's third studio album, You Can't Stop the Bum Rush.

The song samples from the disco song "More More More." The band gave writing credit to the original writer, Gregg Diamond. Unfortunately, he passed before "Steal My Sunshine" was released.

The song was not only influenced by "More More More," but also by the duet "Don't You Want Me" by The Human League. Len member, Marc Costanzo, wanted the song to alternate between male and female vocals, so he enlisted the help of his sister, Sharon.

"Steal My Sunshine" almost didn't make it on any album because the only copy of the track was under Marc Costanzo's bed. He didn't think it was good enough. It became a hit when radio stations started playing it in March of 1999.

According to Wikipedia, the making of the music video is quite an interesting story.

The song's music video was jointly directed by Marc Costanzo and Bradley Walsh, under the respective stage names “The BurgerPimp” and “B-Rad.”^[21] When Len had signed to Work Records, one of its demands was to be able to direct its own videos.^[7] The group used a $100,000 budget to make the video. They flew to Daytona Beach, Florida with two dozen friends while the area was crowded with people on their spring vacations. They spent much of the budget on alcohol, buying so much that they broke their hotel's elevator trying to lift it. They shot the video in the afternoon so that they could recover from hangovers in the morning and drink in the evening.

Ain't that something? The video went on to win Best Video, Best Pop Video, and Favorite Canadian Video at the 1999 MuchMusic Video Awards. I guess all that booze paid off.