“Did It for the Money” by Tesla

Tesla's "Did It for the Money" comes off The Great Radio Controversy, their second album, released in 1989 and named for the fight over who really invented radio: Nikola Tesla, the man the band took its name from, or Guglielmo Marconi, who walked off with the credit. The inner sleeve lays out the whole story.

Frank Hannon, Jeff Keith and Tommy Skeoch wrote it. Keith sings lead, Hannon plays electric guitar, Brian Wheat plays bass and Troy Luccketta covers drums and percussion, while Michael Barbiero and Steve Thompson produced and mixed, Barbiero engineering too. It sits on a record whose sound has been summed up as glam metal for a tractor cab, bluesy, denim-clad and wholesome, and one that made the band stars once "Love Song", "Hang Tough" and "The Way It Is" got heavy play on MTV's Headbangers Ball.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz.