Rare Earth Day is Friday, April 22, 2011

Today is (Rare) Earth Day, Friday, April 22, 2011.  The album on the left is called Ecology, how fitting.  And hey - who knew - this is another band with a singing drummer.  Name the other bands you like where the drummer sings.  These are both great record album covers for sure.  Rare Earth is sort of an outlyer - they are an American rock band affiliated with Motown's Rare Earth record label (which was named after the band).

    It's a cool band name.  As defined by IUPAC, "rare earth elements or rare earth metals are a set of seventeen chemical elements in the periodic table, specifically the fifteen lanthanoids plus scandium and yttrium.  Scandium and yttrium are considered rare earth elements since they tend to occur in the same ore deposits as the lanthanoids and exhibit similar chemical properties.  Despite their name, rare earth elements (with the exception of the radioactive promethium) are relatively plentiful in the Earth's crust, with cerium being the 25th most abundant element at 68 parts per million (similar to copper).  However, because of their geochemical properties rare earth elements are typically dispersed and not often found in concentrated and economically exploitable forms known as rare earth minerals.  It was the very scarcity of these minerals (previously called "earths") that led to the term "rare earth."  The first such mineral discovered was gadolinite, a compound of cerium, yttrium, iron, silicon and other elements. 

    But back to the band - they were not the first white band to sign with Motown Records, but Rare Earth was the first big hit-making act signed by Motown that consisted only of white members.  The very sad thing is - when I went to play these records, the lp's inside were mismatched.  One was a Black Sabbath record, the other was a Savoy Brown record.  When I buy used records, sometimes that happens.  Bummer.