A Top Ten List, Almost

I've been thinking about pop music lately. I think about pop music a lot, actually. Seeing the Madonna/Justin Timberlake video is inspiring to me. How can Madonna stay so relevant? Will JT ever miss the mark. I love this stuff!

So, in honor of my love of the world of Billboard Top Tens, I offer my top favorite names of pop singers.

SADE: I am pretty sure that no record label would let you have the name Sade in the current pop climate. It's not the name so much as the pronunciation. And I can't believe it got past labels in the 80's, either. How would someone go to Tower Records and find the album by the woman whose song "Smooth Operator" was backsold as "Sharday?" Where do you start to look that up? And now, if you were to type "Sharday" into iTunes, I suspect you might not find what you are looking for. The music business can go for lowest common denominator sometimes and I am impressed that they didn't go all 'hooked on phonics' to help sell records.

RICK ASTLEY: So, I feel like Rick Astley is the kind of guy who might have Google Alerts and he might like seeing his name pop up on the internets, right? And, wouldn't it be cool if Rick Astley read my blog?! It's not like he has anything else to do. But, Rick, I'm never going to give you up. I'm never going to let you down. I promise.





PRINCE: You had to see this one coming, right? I mean he's Prince, he's the Artist Formerly Known as Prince, and he even just rocked a symbol for awhile. Nice. And, you gotta know he has a great name if even the King of Pop himself, Michael Jackson, when naming his children says, "You know what's a great name? Prince." In fact, he liked the name Prince Michael so much he used it twice.









MOBY: There was a great episode of "How I Met Your Mother" where the gang runs into a guy that they are sure is Moby. They have him tag along on their New Year's Eve adventures. It's later discovered that the guy is a) really creepy, and b) someone other than the pop star. So, for the rest of the episode they refer to the guy as Not Moby. I guess there are two kinds of people in the world: Moby and Not Moby. And you have to appreciate the literary reference.



RICK SPRINGFIELD: Okay, so this is a bit of a stretch, and I don't have any intention of loading this list with "Ricks" per se, but I heard a song recently that sleighed me. It's a Rick Springfield song where he laments being confused with "The Boss" himself, Bruce Springsteen. I don't know who confused these two. Ever. But if it's about the "spring" in his last name and that's all it took to inspire this song, I love it! Take a listen to "Bruce" to hear what I am talking about: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EW1Frr4OcRc.



DOLLY PARTON: No one else could pull off the name "Dolly" like this tiny, well-endowed, generously coiffed spitfire. You gotta be bold to call yourself, "Dolly." And with genius tunes like, "Jolene," I am glad she didn't decide to call herself anything else.









If I try to fill in a Top Ten list I am sure boredom will set in, for all of us. So, I am settling for a Top Six, and letting you all throw in your bids for the last four spots. And, if you decide to offer your two cents I will love it, but remember, we are going with solo artists, not bands. Coming up with odd but lovable band names is like shooting fish in a barrel. Chumbawumba, anyone?