I first discovered Lights circa 2008 after hearing her music featured in an Old Navy commercial campaign. Something about her synth-pop sound and the simplistic, but meaningful lyrics really resonated with me. However, the commercials gave no indication as to who the singer was or what songs were being played. Social media and song recognition apps weren’t as prevalent as they are today, so I had to dig deep into Google search results until I miraculously stumbled upon her MySpace page. She quickly became one of my favorite musical artists, as well as one of my favorite human beings. I even featured her in my Top 8!

Lights was an independent artist with a prominent and dedicated MySpace following. I appreciated her equal devotion to her fans and her efforts to communicate with her fanbase via social media. But not only did she make supercute music, she also had rad tattoos and was interested in nerdy things like comics and video games and had absolutely no shame about it. She was the inspiration my geek girl heart needed at the time. Suffice it to say, Lights is my personal heroine.