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Stars: 'Wishful' Thinking In A Fizzy New Song

Stars will release a new 7" single, "Wishful"/"The Light," on Sept. 10.
Norman Wong
Stars will release a new 7" single, "Wishful"/"The Light," on Sept. 10.

The Montreal pop band Stars wears many faces, literally and figuratively: Singers Amy Millan and Torquil Campbell swap lead vocals in songs that range from effervescent pop-rock to grandiose dance music to melancholy, string-enhanced dirges. With so much to choose from in the group's toolbox, a few gems are bound to get left off its records — a wrong Stars will help right with a new single next month.

Two charming songs, each an outtake from last year's The North, will come out both digitally and as a limited-edition 7" single on Sept. 10. The fizzily concise A side, "Wishful," provides a particularly strong showcase for Millan, in the spirit of the recent "Backlines" or the less recent "Ageless Beauty." The new track finds ample room for sweeping synths and booming guitars, but Millan is its lead instrument for sure, as she feeds "Wishful" her signature cocktail of vulnerability and wry grace.

Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Stephen Thompson
Stephen Thompson is a host, writer and reviewer for NPR Music, where he speaks into any microphone that will have him and appears as a frequent panelist and guest host on All Songs Considered. Thompson also co-hosts the daily NPR roundtable podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, which he created with NPR's Linda Holmes in 2010. In 2008, he and Bob Boilen created the NPR Music video series Tiny Desk concerts, in which musicians perform at Boilen's desk. (To be more specific, Thompson had the idea, which took seconds, while Boilen created the series, which took years. Thompson will insist upon equal billing until the day he dies.)

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