As many of you probably already know, my career is in public education. I work for a small school district in the middle of nowhere and I am the technology director for that district. Like most public education jobs, the pay isn't the best (although most people still think we get paid too much), but it affords me some freedoms that you probably wouldn't find with another job.
For example, as long as things are running well and things are getting taken care of, I get to spend most of my day poking around Hive, commenting, posting, and upvoting.
Based on the title alone, the theme of this weeks #threetunetuesday post sponsored by @ablaze should be pretty clear to you. If not, allow me to explain.
I've got a list of theme ideas for these #threetunetuesday posts. I think I have two or three sitting in the queue right now, but sometimes something comes up that makes me go a different direction. The theme this week is one that I planned on writing about several weeks ago, but I just kept putting it off or finding a different theme to write about (thanks for that Taylor Swift!).
I was driving to work one morning when a band came on the radio that I haven't heard in absolute ages. It's going to be the first song I share today and as soon as I was reminded of the band, I made a mental note that I needed to write a post about it.
If you are thinking the theme this week is the Jackson 5 based on the title of this post, you would in fact be wrong. Instead, the theme of this weeks post is bands whose names are just letters. The letters might stand for something, they might just be something they picked on a whim, but each of the three songs I share with you today will be from bands like that.
It's only natural that we should start at the beginning right? Not only is this the song that got me thinking about writing this post, but "Be Near Me" by ABC also sits right at the beginning of the alphabet, so it just makes sense right? I was driving into work this morning when ELO came on and I was thinking I might be able to tuck that in somewhere, but really that feels a bit like cheating since they are better known as Electric Light Orchestra.
I think I prefer to use bands who have letters in their name and then they have to explain what that means. Not bands who actually had a name and then shortened it to something simpler. Does that make sense?
I don't know as though ABC had any other hits in the US. They feel a bit like one of those bands from the UK that maybe had one hit over in the US, but achieved more success in their homeland. I'll have to rely on @slobberchops or @steevc to educate me on that.
The lead singer of ABC actually reminds me a bit of another band (not from the UK) that I am going to be sharing today.
Can you guess who it is?
If you were guessing INXS then you would be absolutely correct. As much as I dig INXS, I probably never would have guessed that they were from Australia until I looked it up on the Internet. Like most amazing musical things I likely would have told you they were from the UK (I'm kidding of course). Really though, I thought they were from the UK.
INXS is a band that always continues to amaze me when I go back and listen to them. Their earlier stuff is really similar to the new wave stuff that you get from bands like ABC, but then as you move into their later stuff, you start getting the hits that we all know and love from the radio.
I truly believe that the loss of Michael Hutchence is one of the single biggest blows to the music world in the past couple of decades. Actually several decades I guess since he passed away in 1997.
INXS continues to be one of those bands that I keep migrating back to and they easily sit in the top 25 list of my favorite bands of all time. I have some of their stuff on vinyl and it is absolutely excellent. Especially when you start digging into some of their deeper tracks at didn't necessarily get any radio play.
There are a lot of directions I could have went with the last tune, but I decided to take you in a bit different direction. Das EFX is probably one of my favorite rap artists from the early days of rap. Even though I didn't really hear about them until more recently. They just have a really cool sound and I like the fact that they keep it relatively clean.
At least on this song.
When you go back and listen now, it's pretty amazing just how good rap music was back in the 90's. It's funny too because I remember how horrible people used to think it was full of swearing and other questionable lyrics. It's actually pretty tame compared to the music we have today.
I'd argue with anyone who suggested that WAP by Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion is less explicit than anything NWA put out back in the day.
Prove me wrong...
That's what I thought.
If you do nothing else today, I encourage you to take the time to dig into some 90's rap that you have never heard of before and see if you can find some hidden gems to maybe share in one of your next #threetunetuesday posts!
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