A new month means a new @yourtop3 contest over on the Hive platform. This month was a particularly mind melting topic (although to be honest, most of the awesome topics are…😂) – we were to choose our 3 favorite lead singers. As if I could pick just three… even just contemplating it and I’m like…

Luckily at the last minute (as in, just before I fell asleep last night, and today is the final day for entering) I came up with yet another emotion-based way to narrow the playing field. I decided to go for a particular decade and just the lead singers of groups, not solo artists. Naturally I choose the 80s for my decade, since it’s a sentimental favorite – I had my first “real” (meaning not babysitting or dog walking) job at the start of it, graduated high school, went to college, met my hubby, and married him by the end of it. I’ve also had a few interactions on Twitter & Facebook recently that reminded me that the 80s are special for a number of people I hang out with on social media because that’s when they were born. 🤣

So without further ado (and because the clock is ticking loudly) here are my choices…

My Top 3 Favorite Lead Singers

Nomination 1 – Phil Collins from Genesis

REASON While I’d heard a few songs by Genesis whilst Peter Gabriel was the lead singer, I didn’t really fall in love with them until Phil. And I fell hard – well, not like to an obsessive fan level (not that there’s anything wrong with that…lol), but to the point that their albums were in heavy rotation on my turntable (HA! See what I did there?). I spent many hours listening to the same songs over and over, while writing down the lyrics in one of my notebook journals. There was just something so… magical… about capturing the words with pen and paper, and feeling that you’d gotten a small glimpse into the story behind the song.

And Phil himself was a large part of the reason I resonated so strongly. He has a nice voice, but not extraordinary which makes it… relatable… for lack of a better word. His personality doesn’t scream rock star, it’s more like, “hey look, my buddy made good and has a bunch of fans – good on him!” His solo projects also got the pen and paper lyric treatment, and I may have shed a tear or two over some of his refrains…

Interestingly enough, Phil is one of the few artists I listened to that my dad asked me, “who sings this?” He ended up being a fan of some of his songs – the one that comes to mind is “One More Night“, that my dad said – “Good song, you never have to worry about forgetting the lyrics.”

Great story telling, nice voice, seemingly good guy (and I only say it that way because this was in the days before everyone knew everything about everybody so I have no doubt there’s some story out there about him being less than awesome in some way, but I haven’t looked) – what’s not to love?

At any rate, when we first connected our home computer to the mysterious interwebz round about ’96 and I discovered Usenet newsgroups, this was my signature at the bottom of every post/reply…

~ Traci
“Am I wrong to believe in a city of gold/that lies in the deep distance…”
Genesis – A Trick of the Tail

Nomination 2 – Pat Benatar from Pat Benatar

REASON Yes I know, I almost immediately fudge my own self-imposed criteria…lol! However, when I first decided on the 80s filter, she was the first to come to mind. I briefly considered switching her out for Nancy Wilson of Heart (because, band) but Pat kept popping back up in my brain. Thing is, with Myron. Charlie, and Neil (her gorgeous rock and roll husband) pretty much being fixtures on all her albums, it’s ~~easy for me to justify~~ hard to think of her as simply a solo act. I almost view her the same as if Queen went with the name “Freddie Mercury” for the group (and if I’d picked the 70s, he most certainly would be on this list as Jazz, which came out when I was 13, is tied to so many memories from my early teens… a story for another contest I suppose). Does that make sense?

And yes, she was another one that got the “lyrics in my journal” treatment, and even though her voice is amazing, she sings in a way that almost makes you believe you can sing along and sound just as good as she does (which is some major witchcraft indeed!). She was one of the first rockstar goddesses I’d encountered – she could sing like an angel and at the same time was this tough as nails, take not shit kind of chick who also managed to come across as empathetic as she was beautiful.

And did I mention her voice…?

Nomination 3 – Steve Perry from Journey

REASON It’s hard to imagine what my 80s experience would’ve been like without Journey. And Steve is almost the polar opposite of Phil – he’s like the sexy older brother of a friend that you fangirl over every time he walks in a room, who you know writes poetry and has a sensitive side when he’s not out partying with the popular crowd…

Wait, what was I talking about?

Yes, so again, he’s someone with an incredible voice that somehow tricks people into feeling they can do justice to it during Karaoke Night at the bar. And there have been a number of occasions it felt so incredibly satisfying and awesomely cathartic to blast the song below on my parent’s car stereo, driving around town with the windows open, practically screaming along to the lyrics, “Na na na na na….”

There are my choices for favorite lead singers! And while the contest prizes are limited to bloggers on the Hive blockchain, I figure there are lots of other bloggers out there who might want to share their faves too. Instead of offering crypto prizes like the @yourtop3 crew, I thought I’d offer a little social media exposure instead.

So if anyone wants to jump aboard and share your Top 3 Favorite Lead Singers, please feel free to drop a link to your own post (no time limit) in my comment section (along with your Twitter handle, if you have one), and I’ll do my best to take a peek and give it a tweet!

One last thing – a big thank you to the awesomesauce peeps behind this monthly crypto contest (now with the wicked awesomesauce addition of a Champions League!) @plantstoplanks, @nickyhavey, @foxyspirit, and @cheese4ead – you guys and gals ROCK!

Thanks for stopping by!

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