In response to explosive fan excitement on TikTok, platinum-selling, and award-winning artist and songwriter Tebey has released a country rendition of The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights,” available now via Jayward Artist Group / The Orchard on all streaming platforms here.
Tebey first recorded a short snippet of the song and posted it to social media, which generated such an immediate, positive response that his team encouraged him to promptly record a full studio version of the cover. The resultant TikTok clip of Tebey’s take on “Blinding Lights” now has over 12 million views in one week.
Tebey’s unique country twist on the acclaimed, record-breaking pop song rapidly captured the attention of users worldwide. It was even noticed by The Weeknd himself, who shared about the song on his own social media account and reposted Tebey’s video on his own TikTok page. It is now the second most viewed video on The Weeknd’s TikTok page since January of 2022 and his 5th most viewed video ever!
Fans immediately started asking for the full version to be released while Tebey and his producer were able to finish and deliver the track in a matter of days and his label was able to get it out to DSP’s by Saturday, March 9th.
“It was never my intention to release a fully produced country version of “Blinding Lights”. This whole thing has been driven solely by the fans, and their reaction to a performance video I made to foster more connection with them on social media,” said Tebey. “I thought that doing a countrified version of a pop song might be a fun piece of content for fans and gain me some new followers on TikTok and Instagram, but I’m just as shocked as everyone how viral this has gone. Once I saw the reaction my version was getting online, my producer and I literally raced to finish the song and get it out to the streaming platforms within days.”
The fan-driven cover was produced by Danick Dupelle (Tyler Joe Miller, Matt Lang) and Tebey, and views across Tebey’s socials continue to build at a rapid rate.
“I got a message from Tebey last week saying I’d like to do a country version of “Blinding Lights,” just a snippet, and asked me how we can go about that? Well, I knew exactly what to do for production, also it was so in his wheelhouse vocally,” said producer Danick Dupelle. “When the short clip blew up, we had to jump back in and finish the song in a huge rush. This version turned out to be SO Tebey. It’s like it was meant to be.”
Fans can look forward to more excitement on social media as multiple celebrities prepare to launch content using Tebey’s infectious new cover in the coming days. Some key Canadian country radio programmers have expressed interest in formally receiving the track. To keep up with the high demand from the public and in response, a radio servicing is being strategized, alongside his current single “Hold Your Horses,” which is just entering the Top 30 of the national country radio chart.
Peterborough, ON native and current Nashville resident, Tebey is an award-winning artist, producer and accomplished songwriter with over 100 million streams, 608,000 Canadian radio spins and an audience of 998 Million to date (Mediabase). Overall, he has had four Top 5 Canadian country radio singles, five Top 10 singles and five Top 20 singles as a recording artist.
Though he’s been experiencing a steady trajectory for over a decade, the past four years in particular have yielded some of Tebey’s biggest successes. These accomplishments include three #1 songs as a writer: a US Billboard #1 with Justin Moore’s “Somebody Else Will,” a Canadian #1 with Gord Bamford’s “Dive Bar” and his first #1 as an artist and writer with his Gold single “Who’s Gonna Love You,” which also received a SOCAN award.
2021 saw the release of Tebey’s most successful album to date, The Good Ones, which included multiple Top 10 hits including the title track, a duet with Quebec pop star Marie Mai, followed by the Sink With The Sun EP in 2022. Most recently, Tebey released his single “Hold Your Horses” this past January, which has been rapidly climbing the country radio chart. He has also continued to perform shows around the world, including two headline tours across Canada, The Good Ones Tour (2020) and the Shotgun Rider Tour (2022/2023) and he is expected to headline a tour in Germany in January 2025.
For more information on Tebey, please visit www.tebeyofficial.com.
