Music Review // Keep Dancing Inc "Start up Nation"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHoL327wOBM //

If you're bold enough to name your band Keep Dancing Inc you better bring a certain amount of energy which makes the listener want to get up out of their seat.   Somewhere between the past sounds of an artist like Human League and a more recent idea of someone like maybe The Killers, Keep Dancing Inc does just that as this song is definitely a dance number.   There is a steady bass and it just makes me want to move even if it isn't all that fast.

This video shows everything from the band playing the instruments to the beach and it just has a great look to it overall- like something I would have seen on MTV back in the 1990's before a lot of this sound sort of faded (but in some ways I miss bands like this, that make me think of everyone from Aha to Talking Heads) and along those same lines this would have been a video I saw and then went out and bought the cassette.

Lyrically, it's hard to ignore the words in this song because they are on the screen during the video (which maybe they don't need to be, but if it places a stronger emphasis on them then I'm all for it)  The idea of the "Start up Nation" is that if you can't get a job, create your own.   I know that people use the term "side hustle" a lot, but I always think back to my parents and grandparents, how they have this idea of if you work one job for 40 hours a week you should be able to pay your bills.

The concept of "Start up Nation"- and why it is so important in our modern business model- is that many people cannot find jobs so they create their own, but also if they are working jobs which don't make ends meet then they end up doing that side hustle which sometimes can become a main source of income in the end.   I really wish I could have played this song for my grandfather, but going forward I do feel it's important to document the time when we went from working one job and it being enough to having to forge ahead with our own paths.