We began our latest trip through the Bible on Wednesday, April 3. 

Here's our Bible-reading plan for the next two weeks for those of you reading along with us:

Sat., June 8 - Joshua 13-15
Sun., June 9 - Joshua…

J. Jackson, lead singer and lyricist for ApologetiX here again.

Here are the latest entries in the "albums that influenced me" series I started writing in May 2020.

Note: Just because an album appears on this list doesn't mean I…

In case you missed our announcement in January, ApologetiX is booked to play what will be our first concert in almost seven years. We've gotten a tremendous response from fans all over the United States and Canada who tell us they're planning to attend.

Our most-recent show was on October 24, 2017. We've been comfortable operating as a studio-only band since then and have been saying all along that it would take something really big to get us back up on stage. Well, this is it!

J. Jackson, lead singer and lyricist for ApologetiX here again.

Here are the latest entries in the "albums that influenced me" series I started writing in May 2020.

Note: Just because an album appears on this list doesn't mean I…

J. Jackson, lead singer and lyricist for ApologetiX here again. 

Here are the stories behind the songs on our 11th single of 2024: 

DUMB DECISIONS

I got the title and theme for this parody on December 9, 2022, and was…

We began our latest trip through the Bible on Wednesday, April 3. 

Here's our Bible-reading plan for the next two weeks for those of you reading along with us:

Sat., June 1 - Deuteronomy 25-27
Sun., June 2 - Deuteronomy 28-30
Mon., June 3 - Deuteronomy 31-34
Tue., June 4 - Joshua 1-3
Wed., June 5 - Joshua 4-6
Thu., June 6 - Joshua 7-9
Fri., June 7- Joshua 10-12

We hope to release our 11th single of 2024 by the end of this weekend, Lord willing. 

Here are your clues. Want to really impress us? See if you can spot all of the references in both entries. We counted a total of 18.

We began our latest trip through the Bible on Wednesday, April 3. 

Here's our Bible-reading plan for the next two weeks for those of you reading along with us:

Sat., May 25 - Deuteronomy 4-6
Sun., May 26 - Deuteronomy 7-9
Mon., May 27 - Deuteronomy 10-12
Tue., May 28 - Deuteronomy 13-15
Wed., May 29 - Deuteronomy 16-18
Thu. May 30 - Deuteronomy 19-21
Fri., May 31 - Deuteronomy 22-24

J. Jackson, lead singer and lyricist for ApologetiX here again.

Here are the latest entries in the "albums that influenced me" series I started writing in May 2020.

Note: Just because an album appears on this list doesn't mean I give it a blanket endorsement. Many of the secular albums on this list are mainly there because they wound up being spoofed by ApologetiX.

1472. Somewhere in England (Extra Tracks Original Recording Remastered) - George Harrison
George Harrison's proposed ninth studio LP, Somewhere in England, was originally submitted to Warner Brothers in September 1980, but the record label rejected it for not being commercial enough. They even made him come up with new cover art. Harrison eventually returned with four new tracks, including "Blood From a Clone," which was inspired by the initial album's rejection, and the record was released on June 1, 1981. In the interim, Harrison's Beatles bandmate John Lennon had been murdered by an assailant on December 8, 1980, and Harrison eulogized him in another one of the new tracks, "All Those Years Ago," which featured Ringo Starr on drums and Paul McCartney, Linda McCartney, and Denny Laine on backing vocals. Released as the first single from Somewhere in England, it hit #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #1 on the Radio & Radio Records chart. The second single, "Teardrops," also reached #2 ... on the Billboard Bubbling Under chart, which is the equivalent of hitting #102. It did make it to #51 on the mainstream rock chart, while "All Those Years Ago" went to #6. Somewhere in England climbed to #11 on the Billboard 200 and #13 on the U.K. album chart. It was remastered and reissued with the original cover art in 2004, and I bought a copy of that in September 2005, because I needed "All Those Years Ago" for my playlist of #2 songs (although I used to own the 45 back in college). Harrison's next LP, Gone Troppo, came out in November '82 and became his first non-instrumental album to miss the top 20. It sputtered to #108, but George later proved he could do much better once he set his mind to it. 

J. Jackson, lead singer and lyricist for ApologetiX, here again. 

Here are the latest entries in the "albums that influenced me" series I started writing in May 2020.

Note: Just because an album appears on this list doesn't mean I give it a blanket endorsement. Many of the secular albums on this list are mainly there because they wound up being spoofed by ApologetiX.

1465. Best of Freda Payne: Ten Best Series - Freda Payne
Arguably the most famous Motown songwriting/producing team was Holland-Dozier-Holland — Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, and Eddie Holland — best known for writing many hits by The Supremes, The Four Tops, Martha and the Vandellas, and others. After they left Motown to strike out on their own, the three formed two record labels — Hot Wax (in 1968) and Invictus (in 1969). The biggest hits on Hot Wax were by the R&B trio The Honey Cone, who had four Top 40 hits, most notably "Want Ads" (#1 pop, #1 R&B). Other artists with pop success on that label included 100 Proof (Aged in Soul), The Flaming Ember, and Laura Lee. Meanwhile, on Invictus, the two big artists were Chairmen of the Board, whom I mentioned in my previous entry, and a great female R&B singer by the name of Freda Payne. Like Chairmen of The Board, Payne is best remembered for a huge #3 pop hit from 1970, "Band of Gold" (#3 pop, #20 R&B). That single did even better on the charts of Billboard's rivals (#1 Record World, #2 Cash Box) and also topped the U.K. pop chart. Payne didn't have quite as many hits as Chairmen of the Board, but she did have three additional Top 15 R&B hits — two of which hit the pop Top 25 — "Bring the Boys Home" (#12 pop, #3 R&B), "Deeper and Deeper" (#24 pop, #9 R&B), and "Cherish What Is Dear to You (While It's Near to You)" (#44 pop, #11 R&B). They can all be found on The Best of Freda Payne (part of the Ten Best series), which also included "You Brought the Joy" (#52 pop, #21 R&B), "The Unhooked Generation" (#43 R&B) and "Two Wrongs Don't Make a Right" (#75 R&B). Her only Hot 100 hit missing was "The Road We Didn't Take," which just barely sneaked onto that chart (it stalled at #100) and never made the R&B chart. From 1976-79, Payne was married to singer Gregory Abbott, who went on to have a #1 pop and R&B hit in 1987 with "Shake You Down." The couple had a son together, Gregory Abbott Jr., who was born in 1977.   

We began our latest trip through the Bible on Wednesday, April 3. 

Here's our Bible-reading plan for the next two weeks for those of you reading along with us:

Sat., May 18 - Numbers 19-21
Sun., May 19 - Numbers…

J. Jackson, lead singer and lyricist for ApologetiX here. 

Here are the stories behind the songs on our 10th single of 2024: 

ALL DEAD AND GONE

ApologetiX has a long history with the Eagles song "Already Gone." From 1992-97, we performed and recorded it as a parody about the Rapture under various titles ("Already Gone," "Already Goin'," "All Ready to Go") with gradually changing lyrics. I was never really satisfied with the results and believed we had taken it to the limit.

However, on July 26, 2019, an idea came to me for something totally different — "All Dead and Gone." I didn't get any other lyrics at the time, but I knew the premise: Throughout history, many notable people have made pronouncements about the meaning or meaningless of life and the afterlife, but only Jesus Christ has come back to prove what He said was true. The rest of them are all dead and gone. 

Or to repurpose a quote Keith and I love from the movie Night of the Living Dead, "Yeah, they're dead. They're ... all messed up.”