Signature Songs 04: 70s-2000s Edition Quiz

Answer: Cheap Trick

Cheap Trick released their song "I Want You To Want Me" on their second album, the 1977 record "In Color". The studio version did not chart in the US; however, it went to Number One in Japan. Due to its success, as well as the singles "Clock Strikes Ten" and "Surrender", Cheap Trick toured Japan, resulting in their most famous album "Cheap Trick at Budokan".

In 1979, Cheap Trick released a live version of "I Want You To Want Me" which quickly became their biggest selling single, peaking at Number Seven on the Billboard Top 100.

Answer: R. E. M.

Like several other great bands, it is debatable what R.E.M.'s signature should should be classified as. From the early part of their career, that designation most likely goes to "Radio Free Europe", "It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)", "and "The One I Love". In the early 1990s, R.E.M. shifted gears and released the massive single "Losing My Religion" for their "Out of Time" album (which is in my opinion their most uneven album to date, although it has some of their best material).

The most famous songs are often the most universally applicable, and "Everybody Hurts" is certainly applicable. Mostly written by drummer Bill Berry, the song appeared on their 1992 album "Automatic for the People".

From the liner notes of "In Time - The Best of R.E.M. 1988-2003", Peter Buck said "the reason the lyrics are so atypically straightforward is because it was aimed at teenagers. I've never watched 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer', but the idea that high school is a portal to hell seems pretty realistic to me."

In 2005 Buck told the BBC "If you're consciously writing for someone who hasn't been to college, or is pretty young, it might be nice to be very direct. In that regard, it's tended to work for people of a lot of ages."

John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin fame provided the string arrangement.

Answer: Hanson

One of the biggest debut singles in music history, Hanson's single "MMMBop" went to Number One in twenty seven countries. The band recorded the song twice: once for their self-released 1996 album "MMMBop", and then on their major label debut from 1997 "Middle of Nowhere". "Middle of Nowhere" spawned four other hit singles: "Where's the Love", "I Will Come to You", "Weird", and "Thinking of You".

There are three Hanson brothers in Hanson: Clarke Isaac Hanson, Jordan Taylor Hanson, and Zachary Walker Hanson. There are seven children total in the Hanson family. The other four are Jessica, Avery, Mackenzie, and Zoë. They hail from Oklahoma, my home state.

Answer: Van Halen

"Jump' is the only single released by Van Halen that went to Number One on the Billboard Top 100. The song successfully merges synth-drive pop and arena style metal. The song, and the album "1984" from which it came from, marked a radical departure in Van Halen's music, going from a hard rock sound to a more radio friendly pop metal sheen. It was also the first Van Halen album to embrace synthesizers in a major way, although there were keyboards present on Van Halen records as early as their third album, the 1980 LP "Women and Children First".

It was after 1984 that the band broke up. Eddie Van Halen had built his own studio entitled 5150. According to the Rolling Stone interview (April 1995), Eddie said the band's producer, Ted Templeton, and Roth disliked the fact that he had his own studio. According to Eddie "The first thing I did up here was "Jump" and they [Roth and Templeman] didn't like it. I said 'take it or leave it', I was getting sick of their ideas of what was commercial ... At first [Roth's solo EP] 'Crazy From the Heat' was great because Roth laid off me a bit. Little did I know he was testing the waters. Then he called me up and asked me to go to his house and said he was going to make a 'Crazy From the Heat' movie. He had some deal that fell through. But at the time I was depressed. I cried, then I called my brother and told him the guy quit."

Templeton said "'Jump' was recorded at Ed's studio. [Engineer] Donn [Landee] and Ed put the track down alone in the middle of the night. We recut it once in one take for sonic reasons. Dave wrote the lyrics that afternoon in the backseat of his Mercury convertible. We finished all vocals that afternoon and mixed it that evening".

The song has gone on to be one of the 1980s' most identifiable and famous songs.

Answer: Lynyrd Skynyrd

In 1973, Lynyrd Skynyrd released their debut album, "Pronounced 'Lĕh-'nérd 'Skin-'nérd". Of the eight tracks, five have become Skynyrd standards (these being "I Ain't the One", "Tuesday's Gone", "Gimme Three Steps", "Simple Man", and "Free Bird".

Over the years, it has become a running joke in popular culture to shout "Free Bird" as a song request, regardless of the type of concert. In the early 1970s this phenomena also occurred with The Allman Brothers' Band "Whipping Post". On Skynyrd's 1976 live album "One More for the Road", Van Zant posed the question to the crowd of what song they wanted too hear. The crowd responded "Free Bird", which directed the band to play a blistering fourteen minute version of the recording.

After the plane crash of 1977 which killed several members of the band, Lynyrd Skynyrd did not perform the song live with vocals until 1989. Rather, a single microphone was placed on the center of the stage with a spotlight, and the band would play an instrumental version of the song.

Al Kooper, who also played organ on Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone", played the organ and mellotron on "Free Bird" as well, under the name "Roosevelt Gook".

Answer: Johnny Cash

The Reznor song first appeared on the 1994 Nine Inch Nails record "The Downward Spiral". The single was never released as a commercial single, although a promotional single was manufactured.

In 2002, Johnny Cash released the song on the album "American IV: The Man Comes Around". Cash recorded the song after Rick Rubin, Cash's producer and mutual friend to Reznor suggested the track. Cash went with the edited version of the lyrics, which changed the line "crown of ----" to "crown of thorns". The track became critically acclaimed, as did the music video that was directed by Mark Romanek. Five months after Cash shot the video he died.

Reznor was "flattered" by the idea of Cash recording the song, but thought "the idea sounded a bit gimmicky." In the Suns News Paper on August 1st, 2008, Reznor said "The Cash thing was a couple of years into being clean I was very unsure of myself. Did I have anything to say? Could I still write music? Did anyone still care? I'd been out of the limelight for a while. I'd put the brakes on everything to try to get my life in order, to try to get healthy and stay alive. I'd been friends with Rick Rubin for several years. He called me to ask how I'd feel if Johnny Cash covered 'Hurt'. I said I'd be very flattered but was given no indication it would actually be recorded. Two weeks went by. Then I got a CD in the post. I listened to it and it was very strange. It was this other person inhabiting my most personal song. I'd known where I was when I wrote it. I know what I was thinking about. I know how I felt. Hearing it was like someone kissing your girlfriend. It felt invasive."

After seeing the video, however, everything changed. "I pop the video in, and wow... Tears welling, silence, goose-bumps... Wow. I just lost my girlfriend, because that song isn't mine anymore... It really made me think about how powerful music is as a medium and art form. I wrote some words and music in my bedroom as a way of staying sane, about a bleak and desperate place I was in, totally isolated and alone. [Somehow] that winds up reinterpreted by a music legend from a radically different era/genre and still retains sincerity and meaning--different, but every bit as pure." (Alternative Press #194. September 2004. )

Answer: The Clash

"Rock the Casbah" peaked at Number Eight on the Billboard Top 100.

According to the liner notes of the box set "The Clash on Broadway", the lyrics originated when Bernie Rhodes, the band's manager, asked them "Does everything have to be as long as this râga?" after they had recorded a long track for the album. Râga is an Indian style music that is both lengthy and complex. Joe Strummer wrote the lyrics shortly after Rhodes made his comment.

Answer: Counting Crows

"Mr. Jones" is the third track and first single from the Counting Crows' debut album "August and Everything After". The song became a big hit around the time Kurt Cobain killed himself. According to Adam Duritz, the primary songwriter and vocalist, Cobain's death had a large effect on him.

"We heard that, that [Kurt] had shot himself. And it really scared the heck out of me because I thought, these things in my life are getting so out of control..." (From The New Counting Crows FAQ).

The song is often seen as an allusion to Bob Dylan's "Ballad of a Thin Man", which is all about a Mr. Jones whose world is rapidly becoming unmade. Dylan is name-checked in the lyrics with the line "I wanna be Bob Dylan, Mr. Jones wishes he was someone just a little more funky." The line fits in perfectly with the theme of "Ballad of a Thin Man".

During the "Recovering the Satellites Tour" the band would often include the first verse of The Byrds' "So You Want to Be a Rock and Roll Star?".

Answer: Outkast

"Hey Ya" is notable for being the newest song included on the Top 500 Songs of Rock and Roll that Rolling Stone published in 2004. The track won a Grammy for "Best Urban/Alternative Performance".

Answer: Rick Astley

"Never Gonna Give You Up" was written by the songwriting team Stock Aitken Waterman. This songwriting and producing trio of Mike Stock, Matt Aitken and Pete Waterman proved to be one of the most successful musical partnerships in the music industry, scoring over 100 Top 40 UK hits.

In 1987, Rick Astley burst onto the scene with the hit "Never Gonna Give You Up", which hit the Billboard Top 100 number one on March 12-18, 1988. "Never Gonna Give You Up" was Astley's first Number One.

In 2008, "rickrolling" entered popular consciousness. To "rickroll" someone is direct people to a link that has the music video to "Never Gonna give You Up"; all the time the people going to the link thinking they are going to a different website that does not have the video. Essentially you mask your intent.

In 2008, there was a Facebook campaign to make "Never Gonna Give You Up" the Number One single for Christmas 2008. The attempt eventually failed. However, the same group reorganized and managed to make the Rage Against the Machine song "Killing in the Name Of" the Number One single in the UK for Christmas 2009.

Congradulations! This quiz has just bee rickrolled!