Rolling Stone's 500 "Greatest Albums" Part 16 Quiz

Answer: Mind

Released in 1972, "Music of My Mind" enabled Stevie Wonder to write and record what he wanted, rather than what a previous record company contract dictated. It reached number 21 on the Billboard Pop Albums charts. Wonder played most of the instruments on the disc. It was a record that, according to Daryl Easlea at "BBC Music" was "... a work that brims with passion, excitement and exuberance".

Answer: Jams

In February 1969. "Kick Out The Jams" was the debut album from the Lincoln Park, Michigan punk/hard rockers MC5. It was a recording taped over two nights of concerts in Detroit. It reached number 30 on the Billboard 200. The album actually pre-dated the main punk era and the recording was littered with inappropriate language. The record company released a censored version after some radio stations objected.

The band's name was a shortened version of Motor City Five. Between 1970 and 2006, the band released two studio and seven live albums. Confusingly, ten compilation albums also reached the record stores.

Answer: Time

In 2001, "Time (The Revelator)" was the third album from New York City's Gillian Welch. It was nominated for a Grammy Most of the songs were co-written with David Rawlings and their music is generally typified as Americana. (Three days before this quiz was written, Welch and Rawlings won the 2021 Grammy for Best Folk Album for their collection of covers "All The Good Times".)

Dave Rawlings and Gillian Welch - there is a hard G sound to the first letter - became a duo in the mid 1990s and have traced their influences through folkies such as Bob Dylan, Neil Young, and Richard Thompson and country stars like Lefty Frizzell and Bill Monroe. "Folk-country" was the first genre in which Welch wrote songs. In 2004, the "New Yorker" described their music as "at once innovative and obliquely reminiscent of past rural forms" [which sounds a bit of an antithesis to this quiz author.]

Answer: Swords

GZA was born Gary Earl Grice in New York City and was one of the founding members of the hip hop group the Wu-Tang Clan. "Liquid Swords" was his second solo album and reached number nine on the Billboard 200 in 2005. "The Genius", as he was also known, was something of a science geek - quantum physics was his particular field.

Answer: AM

Hailing out of Sheffield, Yorkshire, Arctic Monkeys were an indie rock band that got together in 2002. "AM" was their fifth album and was recorded in Los Angeles. It was a worldwide smash hit; reaching the top ten in many countries. On the Billboard 200 it was a number six, and it reached the top in the UK and Australia, among others.

The band gained popularity in a different way to many. They recorded their own songs onto CD and gave them away to fans. They were also early onto the social media scene for bands. Their use of the internet was, at that time, novel and, as Laura Snapes noted in the "Guardian" in 2015, the way their debut single got to the top of the charts "revolutionised the way music was sold in the UK for ever".

Answer: Wild

In 1973 "The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle" was the second album from "The Boss". It was well received by the critics, but sales were disappointing. Looking back it may be hard to credit, but the future in 1973 looked far from bright for the New Jersey rocker.

His first two albums had sold poorly and his record label were reassessing their future with him. It was not until 1975 that Springsteen was to make his breakthrough with "Born To Run". After that he went on to sell more than 150 million records worldwide.

Answer: Funky

Confusingly, Toots and the Maytals released two albums called "Funky Kingston". The first came out in 1972 in the United Kingdom and a second in 1975 in the USA. Just three tracks were shared between the two releases.

Originally from Jamaica the band got together in 1962 and were active for almost 20 years before disappearing, to reemerge in 1990. The band was led by Toots - Frederick Nathaniel Hibbert - who was credited as the first person to use the word "reggae" in a recording. Often mentioned in the same breath as Bob Marley, Hibbert had more number ones in Jamaica than his countryman.

Answer: Greatest

Sly and the Family Stone came out of the San Francisco psychedelic scene of the mid to late 1960s. Within a few years they had changed to a more funky sound. It did not serve them well: drug abuse and ego clashes took their toll. In his 1998 book "For the Record: Sly and the Family Stone: An Oral History", Joel Slevin opined: "..."there are two types of black music: black music before Sly Stone, and black music after Sly Stone".

The band had five top tens on the Billboard Hot 100. Of those, three went to number one. "There's A Riot Going On" topped the Billboard 200 in 1971. The "Greatest Hits" LP was a number two in 1970.

Answer: Let

"Let It Be" was the 12th and final album from The Beatles. They broke up a month before its May 1970 release. In a feature ranking albums of the Fab Four in terms of "Greatness", the "Independent" newspaper listed "Let It Be" at number ten. It was, Graeme Ross noted in 2019, "a messy break-up album recorded under trying circumstances".

The album was produced by Phil Spector and Paul McCartney was said to have hated the strings he put on. In 2003, Macca was behind a re-engineered release. It became known as "Let It Be...Naked". On BBC Music in 2003, Chris Jones wrote that the Spector original was not that bad and had covered up some of the "sloppiest" music the band had ever committed to tape.

The original went to number one on the UK album charts. It also topped the Billboard 200.

Answer: Dreams

Coming out of that hotbed of music also known as Chicago, Illinois, Smashing Pumpkins were a bunch of alternative rockers who first played together in 1988. "Siamese Dreams": was their second long player. It reached number ten on the Billboard 200 and number four in the UK in 1993. It was regarded by some critics as their best album; topping a list of ten on kerrig.com, for example.

It was not just a rock and roll existence for Smashing Pumpkins, being a member of the combo was a roller coaster of drugs misuse and conflicting egos. "Rolling Stone" magazine included their demise in a list of "The 10 Messiest Band Breakups".