Happy 2019! Here is my cover of Taylor Swift’s song New Year’s Day. This is the last song of Taylor’s 6th studio album reputation which was released in 2017, Aside from being a great way to kick off the new year, I chose to do this song because it is one of my favorites from the record. Of all the things that Taylor is very “swift” at, I’ve found one of these things is she has a very good intuition on how to start and end a record. For me, as a writer and producer, I treat albums both as collections of songs and as “whole units” themselves so the flow of an album and how it starts and ends is very important to me. I think that New Year’s Day is a phenomenal example of Taylor’s craftiness and creativity when it comes to telling a story through an album as a whole. It acts as a wonderfully cathartic and “real” ending to reputation which is an album that takes you on a wild roller coaster ride through some very polarizing emotions and experiences. Unlike my other covers which make a serious effort to reinvent the production of the songs and approach them from a different perspective, this song stays very true to the original which I just loved so much. The main difference with my rendition (other than the vocal range shift) is that I chose to have the backbone of the song held together by an Acoustic guitar with the same flavor as the original did with the main piano part. This rendition does feature piano but it is more of an accent and color instrument than the main scene setter. I hope you enjoy this version and get ready for much more original music coming in the new year!

To celebrate me finally getting to see Taylor perform at the Reputation Stadium tour, Here is a surprise release for the weekend! This is an intimate cover of Taylor Swift's song Dancing With Our Hands Tied. This song has a lot of darkness and loneliness in the story and in the atmosphere surrounding the time and the writing of this song so I felt I would try to create an arrangement and capture a performance that amplified that emotion and dark lyrical coloring. This song is very important for Taylor and she is very close to it and as such this song is also very important to me. I felt it fitting for this to be my song to celebrate this momentous tour. Taylor I am beyond stoked to see you perform tomorrow in Toronto. People are saying this tour is the peak of your career but I know how you soar and I know that this is only another chapter along the way of your amazing work. I look forward to seeing this performance and also everything that your amazing mind holds in the future. This song is also streaming on Spotify and Apple Music.

CREDITS: Saxophone performance by Michael Purse Musical production, performance and music video production by Dylan Lalonde This is a cover I produced and performed of Taylor Swift’s song Delicate from her latest record reputation released in 2017. Both the album version of this song and the very beautiful and breathy Spotify exclusive single really resonated with me. The song is not only well crafted but also has within it a very powerful and moving message of positivity. No matter what happens in your life as long as you have found something (or someone) that makes you happy… nothing that anyone say about you or think of you needs to matter. At the end of the day if you find yourself happy, you must be doing everything right. So… why Taylor Swift… well, I’m a very devout Swiftie as I hinted at above. I owe Taylor a lot. She’s the reason I made it through my rough school years and some of the darkest and most vulnerable times I’ve ever had. She’s also the reason I became a record producer, musician and artist in the first place and also is the person that gave me the confidence to take the plunge and start doing something that I was otherwise terrified to do… singing. If you’re interested in hearing the full story and have a good amount of time on your hands (it’s quite a lengthy read), I have written this delicate part of my past for all to see on the website for my studio at http://www.lydianstudios.com/prelude Thanks so much for watching this video! Be sure to subscribe as there will be more neat produced covers, original songs and collaborations coming down the pipe like this in the future 😉 To go and hear the original song and watch the very cathartic and moving music video to it as well, you can find it here on Taylor’s VEVO channel… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCXGJQYZ9JA

CREDITS: Thumbnail/End Screen Artwork by Aytakin Musical production, performance and music video production by Dylan Lalonde To celebrate the kicking off of her Reputation Stadium Tour, here is a tribute cover I produced and performed of Taylor Swift’s song State of Grace from her fourth studio record RED released in 2012. Both the main album version of this song and the very intimate acoustic arrangement of this song included in the deluxe edition of the record really struck a chord with me. I felt a very emotional connection to these words. In a lot of my life I spent a lot of time being judged by people before I even met them. People hearing things about me causing them to draw conclusions about me before I’ve even had the chance to make a real first impression. Particularly the words to the second verse always stuck with me as I often would dream of meeting someone as a friend that I would have a blank slate with and just start fresh without being weighed down by the things that people think that they know about me. The song as a whole I can relate to because discovering Taylor way back in my middle school days was a very unlikely event as well as being one that truly did change the course of my life for the better. So… why Taylor Swift… well, I’m a Swiftie. I owe Taylor a lot. She’s the reason I made it through my rough school years and some of the darkest and most vulnerable times I can recall. She’s also the reason I became a record producer and even plays a part into the reason why I got into the radio business as a producer as well in more recent years. If you’re interested in hearing this story and have a good amount of time on your hands (it’s quite a lengthy read), I have written this delicate part of my past for all to see on the website for my studio at http://www.lydianstudios.com/prelude Thanks so much for watching this video! Be sure to subscribe as there may be more cool covers coming down the pipe like this in the future 😉 You can also have a listen to my cover of her song Don’t Blame Me here… https://youtu.be/jFKDxv8zABc Thanks so much to my friend Aytakin for allowing me to use her beautiful artwork in the thumbnail and end screen of this video. That image was inspired by a very magical video advertisement that came out recently for AT&T DirectTV NOW. You can watch it here… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJSm23HAJno

This is a tribute cover I produced and performed of Taylor Swift’s song Don’t Blame Me off her sixth studio record reputation released in 2017. When listening to this album and the many different stories told, there were many songs that stuck out to me. This one in particular stood out as one of the songs that I was getting a lot of alternate production ideas for almost immediately while listening to it. So, I decided to record my own rendition. So… why Taylor Swift… well, I’m a very avid Swiftie. I owe Taylor a lot. She’s the reason I made it through my rough school years and some of the darkest and most vulnerable times I can recall. She’s also the reason I became a record producer and even plays a part into the reason why I got into the radio business as a producer as well. If you’re interested in hearing this story and have a good amount of time on your hands (it’s quite a lengthy read), I have written this delicate part of my past for all to see on the website for my studio at http://www.lydianstudios.com/prelude Thanks so much for watching this video! Be sure to subscribe as there may be more cool covers coming down the pipe like this in the future 😉 P.S. Some people have been asking why I did not change the pronoun references in the song. I treat covers like this as more I am telling her story through one of my many stylistic lenses. As such I live to leave the story unaffected. I personally feel as an artist fussing about with things like that does a bit of a disservice to the writer.