Heart’s performance at the Kennedy Center Honors for Led Zeppelin

I have watched the KCH programs for years. Other than the Aretha Franklin’s tour de force tribute to Carole King, this performance still stops me in my tracks ever since I saw it the first time on television.

Ann Wilson remains one of the greatest rock singers in music history. Her rendition of Stairway to Heaven is one of the best covers that comes to the original version that even Robert himself was impressed by it.

Seeing the Bye Bye Baby video for the first time in almost 25 years, it’s hard to understand why the suave lead singer, who was bound for great things, never broke through solo. Instead, the cute boy with the sheep hair became the “Prince of Pop”.

Is it really that easy as pointing the finger to “Justified” being a banger, a controversial Superbowl performance and him getting cozy quickly with people like Timbaland, P.Diddy, Nelly, The Black Eyed Peas and Pharrell Williams?

Hard to pick just one so let’s talk about our 3 favorite debut albums of all time. It’s interesting that when I think about many legendary bands (Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Who), their debuts are ok, but they are hardly great: there are a lot of covers on those albums and the originals are not quite up to snuff yet.

But I have 3 that I think show close to a fully-formed band right out of the gate: The Cars, Van Halen and The Pretenders. Whether one is a fan of these bands or not, I think most would agree that each band’s signature sounds are presented here as are some of each band’s very best songs.

What are your 3?

I'm a 30 something year old, as such I was part of the Pokémon craze growing up, and I still love Pokémon. I like finding out new information on older games, newer games and stuff like that. One of the youtubers I watched around 7 years ago for Pokémon facts and fun bits was named Woopsire. Woopsire had a catchy song as his intro, so I Shazamed it, found out it was a song called Colorblind by a rapper named Pasha featuring another artist named Soul Gem. Wondered if Pasha had any other music, I looked him up on SoundCloud and Spotify, guy's got a decent sized catalog and he's been an "up and comer" in the Norwegian rap scene. Did a few US tours. So Norwegian rap/hip-hop and Pokémon, definitely a weird combination for sure, but it led to a whole new genre of music for me, and a love for one of my favorite rappers.