Dance To My Tunes Trivia Quiz

Answer: The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert

"I Love the Nightlife (Disco 'Round)" was recorded by Alicia Bridges for her eponymous album in 1978. It did fairly well on the charts, but was far more popular in the US than the UK. It reached fifth place on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, sixth place on the US Cash Box Top 100 chart and second place on the US billboard Disco chart. It also managed a top position on the Canadian charts. After being included on the soundtrack to "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" it charted again in 1994 and managed an eleventh position on the Australian chart.

"Oh I, I love the nightlife
I got to boogie
On the disco 'round, oh yea
Oh, I love the night life
I got to boogie on the disco 'round, oh yea"


Incidentally, Priscilla is the name of the tour bus that the characters portrayed by Stamp, Weaving and Pearce travel on. The film was nominated for numerous awards and won an Academy Award, AACTA award and a number of BAFTA awards.

Answer: Cyndi Lauper

The Trammps recorded "Disco Inferno" for the album of the same name in 1976. It was a very successful song for them initially, reaching top position on the US Billboard Dance Club Songs chart, but only reached position fifty-three on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. It was the inclusion of the song on the "Saturday Night Fever"(1977) soundtrack and subsequent re-release that catapulted it to eleventh position on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart.

Tina Turner's cover did not feature on the Billboard charts, but managed a respectable twelfth position on the UK Singles charts. Cyndi Lauper's version was actually the most successful of the lot. Not only did she chart at position eight and position twelve on the the US Billboard Hot Dance Club Play and US Billboard Hot Dance Single Sales charts, the song was also nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Dance Recording, but lost out to Madonna's hit single "Ray of Light".

The 'fun loving girl' clue in the question alludes to Lauper's song "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun".

Answer: Jive

ABBA recorded "Dancing Queen" for their 1976 album "Arrival". It would prove to be a massive hit for the band, achieving top position on the charts on twenty different international charts, including the UK Singles, US Cash Box Top 100 Singles and US Billboard Hot 100 charts.

It was re-released in 1992 and managed nine more top 40 international chart positions, one of them being a sixteenth position on the UK Singles chart. Not only was it ranked at position 148 on the Recording Industry Association of America's Songs of the Century list and 174th on "Rolling Stone" magazine's "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" list, it was inducted into the Recording Academy's "Grammy Hall of Fame" too.

Answer: Miami Sound Machine

Miami Sound Machine recorded "Conga" for their 1985 album "Primitive Love". It charted fairly well, reaching the top ten on several charts, including a seventh position on the US Billboard Dance Club and a tenth position on the US Billboard Hot 100 charts.

Gloria Estefan joined Miami Latin Boys in 1975 and they changed the name to Miami Sound Machine and was comprised of six members. Throughout the years, the band has had twenty-seven members. They released eleven albums from 1977 to 1989. An album was released in 2002, but did not feature any of the original members of the band.

Answer: Tango

"Tango in the Night" was recorded by Fleetwood Mac in 1987 and was a hugely successful album for them, albeit not as successful as their 1977 album "Rumours". The album went to number one on the UK Albums chart and reached seventh position on the US Billboard 200 album chart.

The title track of the same name was not released as a single, but still managed to chart on the US Billboard Mainstream Rock chart. Four other songs on the album, released as singles, reached top ten positions on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart and three reached top ten positions on the UK singles chart. "Big Love", "Everywhere" and "Little Lies" were hits on both sides of the pond and "Seven Wonders" reached position nineteen on the US Billboard chart.

Answer: Portugal

Queen recorded "Bohemian Rhapsody" for their 1975 album "A Night at the Opera". This song has taken top position on a number of charts through a number of years as it has been re-released. It initially charted at number one on the UK Singles chart in 1975 and was at number one in Australia, New Zealand, Netherlands, Belgium and Canada in 1976. it then charted at number one in the UK and Ireland in 1991 and at number one in the Netherlands and on the US Cash Box chart in 1992. It resurged in 2018 again and charted in eighteen countries, but only managed the number one spot in the Czech Republic although it did manage a fourth spot on the US Billboard Hot Rock Songs chart.

The fandango originated in Spain and the earliest melody found is from 1705. Together with the vira, chula, corridinho and malhao, it makes up some of the most popular folk dances in Portugal.

Answer: Little Eva

"Loco-Motion" was written by Carole King and Gerry Goffin and recorded first by Little Eva for her 1962 album "Lllloco-Motion". It did remarkably well and charted in top position on the US Billboard Hot 100, US Cash Box Top 100 as well as the Canadian and Norwegian charts. Despite being covered by artists such as The Vernons Girls and Sylvie Vartan, it would only top the charts again over a decade later when Grand Funk Railroad took their rock version from their album "Shinin' On" to top position on the US Billboard Hot 100, US Cash Box Top 100 and Canadian charts. Kylie Minogue would cover it in the late 1980s for her début album "Kylie" and take it to the top of the Australian, Canadian, Finnish, Irish, Japanese, Peruvian and South African charts. Her version only managed a third position in the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. It is remarkable that this song managed to reach the US top five in three different decades, by three different artists.

Carole King says in her memoir "A Natural Woman":

"Though 'The Loco-Motion' alludes to dance movements, neither Gerry nor I had envisioned an actual dance. Eva had to invent one for personal appearances. Standing beside a locomotive for publicity photographs, with 'The Loco-Motion' playing on loudspeakers, Eva moved her body that day in imitation of the arm that drives a locomotive, and a dance was born."

Answer: Beverly D'Angelo

Bob & Earl's version of "Harlem Shuffle" was recorded in 1963 and featured at position forty-four on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. It was re-released in the UK in 1969 and managed a respectable seventh position on the UK singles chart. The Rolling Stones version recorded more than twenty years later proved to be much more successful. They reached top ten on fifteen different international charts, including a first position on the New Zealand chart and a second position on the US Billboard Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart.

Beverly D'Angelo has acted in over sixty films and numerous television series since her first role in "Annie Hall" in 1977. She portrayed Patsy Cline in the 1980 film "Coal Miner's Daughter" and apart from her recurring role in the "National Lampoon's Vacation" films, she has also acted in a number of notable films such as "Hair"(1979) and "American History X"(1998). She is no slouch in the vocal department, having a number of soundtrack credits to her name in films like "Coal Miners Daughter", "Hair", "Field of Dreams" as well as television series such as "The Simpsons".

Answer: Ballerina

"Tiny Dancer" was recorded for Elton John's album "Madman Across the Water". It managed to achieve two top forty positions, thirty-fifth on the US Billboard Adult Contemporary and twenty-ninth on the US Cash Box Top 100 charts. It managed chart positions on the UK Singles and US Billboard Hot 100 charts, but at position seventy and forty-one respectively.

This song has been covered by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters. The most unusual fact I found, was that US President Trump used this song as his entrance and exit song at presidential rallies during his 2016 campaign.

Answer: Tarantella

Rosemary Clooney, aunt of popular actor George Clooney, had a hit with "Mambo Italiano". It charted in tenth place on the US Billboard Hot 100 and in first place on the UK Singles chart. The song was covered by Dean Martin in 1954 as well as by his daughter Deana in 2006. This song has featured on the soundtracks to a host of films including "Mickey Blue Eyes"(1999), "Married to the Mob"(1988), "Mermaids"(1990) and "Bridget Jones Baby"(2016).

The mambo is a Latin dance from Cuba and the rumba originated in the United States in the 1930. The tarantella, however, is actually an Italian dance. The bite of a tarantula spider was long believed to be venomous and to cause hysterical behaviour called tarantism. With the appropriate music, these hysterical convulsing people would begin to dance. The dance itself was prescribed as a cure for neurotic women. In "Epidemics of the Middle Ages" Justus Hecker wrote:

"A convulsion infuriated the human frame [...]. Entire communities of people would join hands, dance, leap, scream, and shake for hours [...]. Music appeared to be the only means of combating the strange epidemic [...] lively, shrill tunes, played on trumpets and fifes, excited the dancers; soft, calm harmonies, graduated from fast to slow, high to low, prove efficacious for the cure"