I came across this challenging music quiz yesterday. It comes from Tom Danehy’s Music Grill, Tucson Weekly, Oct. 1996. Some answers are surprising.
Let’s see how good you are!
1. Name the best-selling album of all time which had no hit singles.
2. Name three No. 1 singles whose entire lyrics were in a foreign language. (Title and artist.)
3. What song are they singing about in “Killing Me Softly With His Song”?
4. What’s the biggest-selling rap album of all time?
5. Name two rock groups named for the amount of semen a man ejaculates.
6. Walter Becker and Donald Fagen (Steely Dan) were once members of which American pop group?
7. Name the 10 charter members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. (Hint: Just by coincidence, there were five black acts and five white acts.)
8. What was the original name of Led Zeppelin?
9. Two members of The Champs (“Tequila!”) went on to form a very successful pop duo. Name that duo. (Hint: Their first initials are J. and D.)
10. In terms of record sales and chart appearances, what was the most successful musical group of the 1980s? (Hint: They once had a No. 1 hit song about Patty Hearst!)
11. As we all know, Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” was on the charts longer than any other album in history. Which one of the following is not among the Top 10 longest-charting albums?:
a. Tapestry, Carole King
b. Hymns, Tennessee Ernie Ford
c. Thriller, Michael Jackson
d. Heavenly, Johnny Mathis
12. Members of Linda Ronstadt’s backup band went on to form the most successful American group of the 1970s. Name that group.
13. Which artist won a Grammy in the same category eight years in a row?
14. In terms of record sales, what’s the most successful Seattle-based act of all time? (It’s not Jimi Hendrix!)
15. Name the last No. 1 single by the Beatles.
16. The biggest-selling album of all time in England is 1991’s Stars. Name the artist.
17. Which singer-songwriter won Grammys for singing and writing and was a Rhodes scholar?
18. Name a song that hit No. 1 in three different decades by three different artists (in no particular order: An Australian teen idol, a metal band, and the babysitter of the woman who wrote it).
19. Which member of Delaney & Bonnie & Friends once punched out Elvis Costello after Costello referred to Ray Charles as “just another blind ni—“?
a. Delaney Bramlett
b. Bonnie Bramlett
c. Eric Clapton
20. Members of Joey Dee’s (“Peppermint Twist”) backup band, the Starliters, went on to become one of the most successful American groups of the late 1960s. Name this blue-eyed soul group.
TRUE OR FALSE
The next five are all true or false questions.
21. Rick James and Neil Young both started in the same Canadian bar band.
22. Chuck Berry never had a No. 1 single.
23. Actor Sam Elliott (Tombstone) once played in The Kingsmen (“Louie, Louie”).
24. Elton John didn’t have a No. 1 single in England until 1990s “Sacrifice.”
25. Neil Diamond once made the U.S. Olympic team as a fencer.
26. What was the biggest-selling single of the 1980s? (Heck, let’s make this easy with a hint: LaToya Jackson appears on this record.)
27. Which member of the original cast of Saturday Night Live once played drums in a band with pre-Steely Dan Becker & Fagen?
a. Chevy Chase
b. Dan Aykroyd
c. Garrett Morris
d. John Belushi
28. Which mega-successful group had as its first chart appearance a single entitled “New York Mining Disaster 1941?”
29. After Burton Cummings left the Guess Who (“These Eyes”), the remnants of the group went on to form a successful Canadian rock-boogie band. Name the group.
30. Back in the late ’80s, Billboard started something called the Black Albums Chart. Ironically, two of the first albums to hit No. 1 on that chart were by white British artists. One was George Michael’s Faith. The other was the debut album by a female artist. Name the album and artist. (This is a hard one.)
31. Name the artist who played with James Brown, Dee-Lite and George Clinton.
32. Name the artist who won the Grammy for Best Album three times in a four-year stretch in the mid-70s.
33. Name the artist who was (unsuccessfully) sued for plagiarizing himself.
33 1/3. We all know Mama Cass, John Phillips and Michelle Phillips made up three-fourths of the Mamas and Papas. Who was the other guy?