Head East – "Never Been Any Reason" (1975)

There’s never been any reason

For you to think about me

The Musicoholics website recently ranked all 50 states based on the contributions to popular music made by the residents of each state.

For each state, the author of this irresistible piece of clickbait listed the most prominent individual musicians who were born or lived in that state, and also noted the best bands that had been formed in the state.

There are some surprises in that ranking.  There are also a number of obvious mistakes.

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It’s no surprise that Wyoming ranked 50th and last on the list.  

Here is the list of musicians who were born or lived in Wyoming: Scott Avett, John Perry Barlow, Ronnie Bedford, Loren Driscoll, Cary Judd, Chancey Williams.

Have you ever heard of any of these people?  

The only band from Wyoming that was listed was an allegedly Ramones-esque band called the Lillingtons.

Never heard of them.

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Wyoming ranks 50th in population, so it comes as no surprise that they rank 50th on this list.

The state ranked 49th on the Musicoholics list – Maine – ranks 42nd in population.  That’s not a huge discrepancy, I suppose.

But Iowa, which is 48th on the Musicoholics list, seriously underachieved given that it ranks 31st among the 50 states in population.  

According to Musicoholics, the best band ever formed in Iowa is Head East – whose first album, Flat As a Pancake, included today’s featured song, “Never Been Any Reason”:  

I’m second to none in my love for “Never Been Any Reason,” but if the best band to come out of a state is Head East, it’s no wonder that state ranked #48 out of 50 for your contributions to popular music.

And things are about to get even worse for Iowa: despite what Musicoholics says, Head East was actually formed in Illinois – not Iowa.

Musicoholics may have been confused by the fact that Head East was inducted into the Iowa Rock ’n’ Roll Music Association’s Hall of Fame in 2011.  According to that Hall of Fame’s website, Head East “has always been highly received in Iowa and has played hundreds of gigs throughout the state over the decades.”

I guess that’s why they are in the IRRMA Hall of Fame and the Beatles aren’t – the Beatles were certainly highly received in Iowa but didn’t play hundreds of gigs there.

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The less said about the musical contributions of the next five states – North Dakota (#47), South Dakota (#46), Delaware (#45), Alaska (#44), and Montana (#43) – the better.

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Colorado, which is ranked 42nd by Musicoholics, may be an even bigger underachiever than Iowa.  It’s  21st among the states in population, so you would think it might have produced a decent number of good musicians.  But while The Apples in Stereo – an excellent band – formed in Denver in 1992, the musical pickings from the Centennial State get mighty slim after that.

The biggest band from Kansas (ranked 41st in musical contributions by Musicoholics) is Kansas.  Further about Kansas the affiant sayeth naught.

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The states in the second quintile of the Musicoholics rankings – in other words, the states ranked from 40th to 31st (in that order) Connecticut, Utah, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Nevada, Vermont, West Virginia, Nebraska, Idaho, and Hawaii.

Connecticut was home to some very talented musicians (like Moby, Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, and Richard and Karen Carpenter), but loses points for Michael Bolton and John Mayer (who were born in New Haven and Bridgeport, respectively).

Vermont – which ranks ahead of only Wyoming in population – seems to have been ranked #35 on the strength of Phish (which formed in Burlington, Vermont’s largest city, in 1983).  

Musicoholics may be fans of Phish, but 2 or 3 lines isn’t.  I’d like to rank Vermont dead last, but Wyoming has earned that spot fair and square.

By the way, did you know that Burlington, Vermont – population 42,545 – is the smallest city to be the largest city in a state?  (Do you know what the second smallest city to be the largest city in a state is?)

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Click here to listen to the record that would be the best record ever made by a band from Iowa if that band hadn’t actually formed in Illinois. 

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon: