With spring break behind us now, it was time to gear up and get ready for the push that is the end of the school year. I think my wife was saying we only have about 50 days left in the year and we are now entering into what I call testing season.
This is the time when we are required to administer all of the state and federally mandated standardized assessments to the students. It used to not impact me that much, but in the last five to ten years they have moved everything to an online format, so now it pretty much takes up all of my energy.
This year schools in my state tried to get a waiver to not have students take the tests again like last year due to Covid. The federal government said nope, you need to give the assessments, but they will not count for anything. They will have zero impact on your students grades or your districts funding. So basically it is a whole lot of work for absolutely nothing but to show the government we did it.
Keeping that in mind, I needed something a little different to give me some motivation this week. Here you go:
When Nine Inch Nails was really popular, I honestly wasn't that into them. I was still a good wholesome young man and their variety of music was pretty foreign to me. It wasn't until several years later that I was able to look past all of the negativity and criticism and really start to enjoy them.
Probably around the "With Teeth" time frame. I was lucky enough to be able to see NIN twice in concert. The first time we ended up in the middle of a mosh pit because we had floor ticket and it wasn't that pleasant of an experience. We had to fight four out lives to get out the there. I am pretty sure I stepped on a girls ankle trying to get out of the crowd. I have never really been that light of a person, so whoever you are, where ever you are, sorry for that lady.
I picked up Pretty Hate Machine on vinyl a while ago from I am guessing Hot Topic and Sin is really one of my most favorite songs on the album.
Part of what I love about this Facebook group I am part of called Michigan Record Collectors is that I get to hear about bands that I have never heard of before. Either that, or I get to remember bands that I totally forgot about.
This supergroup started by David Bowie is one of them. I jumped over to Spotify to listen to their one album the other day and I was shocked to see that it was recorded in the 90's. It is easy to forget that it wasn't really that long ago that we lost David.
I was lucky enough to see him in concert at The Palace of Auburn Hills. The venue is gone now, they demolished it after they built the new Little Caesar's Arena, but it still brings back some fond memories.
If you are looking for something a little different, but still a bit Bowie'esque, you should check out Tin Machine.
Finally, I am going to leave you with some Taylor Swift in honor of the re-release or her album Fearless. In case you don't know the story, at some point someone bought the rights to all of her previous music. It then got sold to another person and he was being a major dick and not allowing her to perform any of it.
In the past year, it was ruled in court that Taylor could re-record all of her past albums. In a stroke of marketing genius, she is doing just that. Agree with it or not, she is going to make a ton of money recycling material she already made a ton of money on. I dare you to say she isn't a savvy businesswoman.
Anyway, I wanted to revisit this song because listening to this early stuff of hers really reminds me of just how insane of a writer she is. I mean think about it, she was maybe 13 to 16 when she wrote some of this stuff. Sure some of it is just "empty" (I use that term loosely with Taylor because she always has some meaning to each of her songs) pop, but then you hit a song that is so deep and beyond her years at the time that it just blows you away.
Anyway, I will be listening to the full Fearless remake today since it dropped at Midnight last night.
Have you been listening to anything awesome this week? Let me know about it in the comments. Better yet, write you own post and use the #weeklyspins tag!
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