Rolling Stone's 500 "Greatest Albums" Part 22 Quiz

Answer: Love

In 2003, "Speakerboxxx/The Love Below" was the fifth album from the Atlanta, Georgia hip hop duo OutKast. It was to top the Billboard 200 and was also a number one on the UK R&B charts. André "3000" Benjamin and Antwan "Big Boi" Patton got together in 1992 and garnered a reputation as one of the top acts in the genre.

Among six studio albums, plus a 'greatest hits' OutKast sold more than 25 million records. They had, as the "Guardian": newspaper put it "...redefined music as we knew it".

Answer: Post

Björk Guðmundsdóttir became the first singer from Iceland that most people elsewhere had ever heard of. "Iceland Travel" dryly noted: "Björk was Iceland's first celebrity to truly achieve overseas notoriety." She was a childhood musical prodigy and recorded her first album at the age of 11. International recognition came with the release of the single "Birthday" by her band Sugercubes.

"Post" was her second album and rose to number two in the UK - a place where her sparky personalty and sometime bad behaviour was appreciated. It reached number 32 on the Billboard 200 and number one (naturally) in Iceland.

Answer: Lovers

In 1976 "The Modern Lovers" was a self-titled album from a bunch of New England rockers. Songwriter Jonathan Richman had a moving eye that found songs everywhere and was backed by a bunch of more than able bandsmen. Who else could have written songs called "Abominable Snowman In The Market" or "Here Come the Martian Martians"?

The album was produced by John Cale and was greeted with an avalanche of approval by the critics - even though the band had already broken up. Richman was to go solo, although his later output was often said to be "unbearably cute".

Somewhat confusingly, a second album entitled "Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers" was also released in 1976, but had a different track listing.

Answer: Tambourine

Formed in Los Angeles in 1964, The Byrds brought forward a style that was heavily influenced by The Beatles and was anchored by the unique picking sound of Roger McGuinn and his 12-string Rickenbacker guitar. When the band recorded Dylan's "Mr Tambourine Man" it heralded the beginning of the folk-rock revolution.

The title track became a number one single -and the album hit number six on the Billboard 200 in 1965 and number seven in the UK. The legacy of The Byrds should not be understated in terms of the musicians who served their apprenticeships there. Apart from McGuinn that number included Gene Clarke, Chris Hillman, Gram Parsons, and David Crosby.

Answer: Californication

Hailing out of Los Angeles, The Red Hot Chili Peppers included a cornucopia of music genes in their song lists. In 1999 "Californication" was their seventh album and reached number three on the Billboard 200. It was a number one in Australia and hit number five in the UK. Four hit singes came from the album and it helped cement their reputation as top class rockers.

Incidentally, the band sued a US television company for naming a show "Californication" without permission. The TV company resisted, claiming the term 'Californicate' existed before the song and in any case most times a song title cannot be copyrighted

Incidentally, incidentally (!): if you carry out an internet search be careful about what you enter or you could end up with "Red Hot Chilli Pipers", who hail from Scotland and claim to be "The most famous bagpipe band on the planet".

Answer: Lovers

In 1971. Big Star blasted out of Memphis Tennessee with their brand of power pop. "Third/Sister Lovers" was their third LP but, like the first two, achieved little on the charts. That maybe prompted National Public Radio to declare Big Star "The Unluckiest Band In America".

Big Star did have an enormous influence on many bands that would come later. In a 2010 article, NPR's Ed Ward commented: "The best Big Star songs are a distinctly American take on the kind of pop the British Invasion had brought to this country..."

Answer: Road

Released in 1996, "Down Every Road" was a retrospective compilation of some of the best Merle Haggard recordings. With almost 40 number one hits, Haggard was one of the most popular country music performers of the late 20th century.

Haggard had the back story to make it as a rebel singer. He grew up in a poor family background and was involved in juvenile crime before serving his first serious jail time in San Quentin. He had already been active on the music scene and later songs were to reference that time. At some times associated with the American right, he wrote notable songs such as "Okie From Muskogee" and "The Fightin' Side of Me".

In 2017, "Rolling Stone" ranked Haggard at number one among the "100 Greatest Country Artists of All Time".

Answer: Girls

In 1979 the double album "Bad Girls" became Donna Summer's biggest-selling LP and hit the top of the Billboard 200.

LaDonna Adrian Gaines -'The Queen of Disco - was born in Boston and had more than 40 Billboard chart hits. Her story was one that followed the footsteps of many other singers; from church choir to massive commercial success. Summer will probably always be identified with the disco sound but as the "New York Amsterdam News" noted in a 2013 obituary, the lineage of later singers "...can be traced right back to Summer and her gift to pop music. Summer is the mother of the modern pop singer."

Answer: Hours

Among more than 60 studio and live albums recorded by Frank Sinatra, in 1955 "In The Wee Small Hours" was the ninth. In a career that lasted 55 years - including retirements and comebacks - Sinatra sold more than 150 million records (estimated figure). Almost incredibly for his popularity, only three albums made the top ten of the Billboard 200.

He had two singles top the Hot 100, "Strangers In The Night" and "Something Stupid" (with daughter Nancy).

Answer: Nilsson

In 1971, Nilsson Schmilsson" was the seventh album from the Brooklyn, New York City born Harry Edward Nilsson III. It was also to be his most successful, reaching number three on the Billboard 200.

Nilsson was a singer whose failure to make it bigger than he did puzzled many in the music business. "The (London) Times" noted that in the late 1960s and early 1970s Nilsson was much admired by John Lennon and had built up a reputation as "... one of the sharpest musical minds in America." Will Hodgkinson lamented: "...he should have been up there with Dylan and Cohen." He added that Nilsson "... died of heart failure, broke and broken, in 1994."