I'm Only Happy When It Rains Trivia Quiz

Answer: Jim & William Reid

The Reid brothers were inspired by a number of diverse musical acts ranging from The Velvet Underground and The Sex Pistols to Phil Spector and The Shangri-Las. In 1985 William Reid was quoted "We all love The Shangri-Las and one day we're going to make Shangri-Las records".
When their father received a redundancy payout in the early 1980's the boys saw the opportunity to use some of the funds to purchase a Portastudio and immediately started to record their own demos.

Ray & Dave Davies were the driving force behind The Kinks, Scott & Ron Asheton were members of The Stooges and Jonny and Colin Greenwood made up part of Radiohead.

Answer: The Poppy Seeds

The name, The Poppy Seeds, was short-lived as was their next option Death of Joey. The Reid brothers soon settled on the slightly blasphemous Jesus and Mary Chain, which partnered well with their image of black clothing and dark glasses. The origin of the name is not known for certain.

At one point the brothers claimed that it was in a line of dialogue in a Bing Crosby movie but they later admitted that this was not correct.

Answer: All these of these were contributing factors

Initially the band only had a core of ten to twelve songs that only ran for two minutes each. There was no interaction with the audience and as soon as one song was delivered they immediately dived into their next number. Consequently, after twenty minutes there was little else for them to do. The feedback that they incorporated into their songs was loud and was nothing short of an assault on the senses of the audience. Legend has it that at one venue the manager was so aghast at their sound that he threw the band off stage four minutes into their set. Starved of opportunities the band resorted to appearing at venues claiming to be the support act, played a short set and then exited as soon as possible.

Answer: The Ramones

Drenching their songs in streams of guitar fuzz became a way for the Reid brothers to differentiate their sound. Whilst it wasn't revolutionary (or overtly commercial) when it combined with the brother's innate pop sensibilities it helped to open doors for 'white noise' pop.

The dense feedback they generated would prove to be an inspiration to acts such as My Bloody Valentine and Dinosaur Jr.

Answer: Upside Down

The record was a confrontational blast of 'noise' pop. Murray Dalglish's pounding on the drums provided the anchor for the band to unleash a highly energetic and feedback laced single. Despite the fact that the song failed to chart it managed to bring them to the attention of a wider audience, new venues and, importantly, the music press. Neil Taylor of NME was so taken he described them as "the best band in the world". The single would not feature on any of the band's studio albums but versions can be found on some of their compilation sets, most notably their 1988 release "Barbed Wire Kisses".

Answer: Psychocandy

"Psychocandy" proved to be a melding of Beach Boys harmonies with Velvet Underground feedback and echo. It was described as the perfect enigma, anti-pop and pure pop in the same breath. Despite its lack of commercial success the album garnered critical acclaim from many quarters. Q Magazine ranked it number 23 in its list of "Forty Best Albums of the 1980's", while Rolling Stone magazine included it in its "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" list in 2003 at number 268. "Psychocandy" would spawn three singles; "Never Understand", "You Trip Me Up" and the precocious "Just Like Honey".

"New Day Rising" was released by Husker Du, "Meat is Murder" by The Smiths and "Bring Me the Head of Yuri Gagarin" was a Hawkwind album. All were also released in 1985.

Answer: Lost in Translation

The song features in the closing scene, adding poignant atmosphere to the movie. "Just Like Honey" would later be commissioned by Volkswagen for their 2011 marketing campaign. Written by the brothers, William and Ben Reid, the song was released in September of 1985.

It displays the unmistakable influence of Phil Spector to the point where it even borrows the drum intro of The Ronnettes 1963 hit "Be My Baby".

Answer: Darklands

It may have been that the brothers had had enough of being compared with The Sex Pistols or them placing too much credence on suggestions that feedback was their one and only trick. Whatever it was, it led to the band stripping back the wall of sound that dominated their first album and, in "Darklands", producing a record with a much calmer tone.

Some of the tracks could almost be described as wistful. "Happy When It Rains" is a soaring track that has strong leanings toward that great Smokey Robinson track "My Girl".

The bouncy "April Skies" would become the band's first Top Ten single in the UK. "The Return of Bruno" is a Bruce Willis album, "The Cost of Loving" was recorded by The Style Council and Prince released "Sign O' The Times".

Answer: Its morbid lyric content

"Reverence" opens with the lines "I wanna die like Jesus Christ" and "I wanna die like JFK".
The track has a clinical precision about it and it's a coruscating way to lauch one of the band's strongest albums, "Honey's Dead". It is on this album that they manage to find that fine balance between rampaging static and their pop smart melodies.
The title of the album, a reference to one of their early singles "Just Like Honey", is a message that the band was making a strong commitment to move away from its original sound to seek a compromised refinement. Tracks such as "Far Gone and Out" gained steady airplay on a number of campus radio stations and helped gain the band an invite to the 1992 Lollapalooza festival, where they shared the bill with Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden.

Answer: Mazzy Star

Mazzy Star, from Santa Monica, is a collaboration of Hope and guitarist David Roback. They're best known for their 1994 single "Fade Into You".
The combination of Sandoval and Reid works beautifully on "Sometimes Always" and it raises the question; why weren't there more collaborations? The single appears on The Jesus and Mary Chain's 1994 album "Stoned and Dethroned", which represents the most radical departure to their sound to date. The majority of the tracks are semi-acoustic and in some places you can sense a country feel to the numbers. The band's trademark feedback was stripped away and, on the rare occasions that it does appear, it merely serves as atmosphere. There is almost a sense here that the Reid brothers have deliberately set about to draw the focus to their songwriting. For years the world had been focussed on their wall of sound that everyone seemed to forget that they could write memorable and melodic pop tunes.
As mentioned earlier, commercial success eluded the band but they did strike a chord with followers of alternative music. "Sometimes Always" reached number four on the US Alternative Songs Chart (also known as Hot Modern Rock Tracks). Previously their songs "Blues From a Gun" reached number one on the same charts while "Far Gone and Out" got to number three.