Songs I Love That Everyone Else Hates Quiz

Answer: Wannabe

'If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends...' 'Wannabe' was the Spice Girls' breakout single, and the video featured them running around a dingy hotel in London and dancing. It was supposed to be filmed in Barcelona, but the director couldn't get a permit, so the location was changed to London. Victoria 'Posh Spice' Adams - who later became Victoria Beckham and, ironically, the most famous Spice Girl - missed the writing session as she was at a wedding. According to the Spice Girls, 'zig-a-zig-aah' means something very rude!

Answer: Jefferson Airplane

It's incredible that the hippies who sang 'White Rabbit' and 'Somebody to Love' later became the same people behind 'We Built This City', which was written by Elton John's songwriting partner Bernie Taupin. 'Blender' called it 'corporate and sexless' and pointed out the hypocrisy of Grace Slick singing 'who cares, they're always changing corporation names' when her own band had changed their name. Jefferson Airplane became Jefferson Starship, and then simply Starship. Slick has since distanced herself from the song.

Answer: Dragostea Din Tei

'Dragostea Din Tei' means 'love of the linden tree', and was given the English title of 'Words of Love'. O-Zone were from Moldova, and the entire song was in Romanian, but many people still sang along with the chorus: 'Vrei sa pleci dar nu ma nu ma iei' (which translates as 'you want to leave but you don't want, don't want to take me'). One of the group, Arsenie Todiras, later represented Moldova in the 2006 Eurovision Song Contest.

The song also became famous worldwide thanks to a viral video involving a man called Gary Brolsma dancing along to it.

Answer: Canada

'Your friends don't dance, and if they don't dance, well, they're no friends of mine,' declared Ivan Doroschuk on 'The Safety Dance'. He was inspired to write the song after being kicked out of a club for pogoing (a popular practice in clubs for fans of new wave music).

The song sold much more in the US than it did in the band's native Canada. The video, set in a 'Lord of the Rings'-esque medieval village with dwarves and Morris dancers (actually West Kington in England), featured brief shots of nuclear weapons at the end, but Doroschuk has stated that the song has nothing to do with nuclear war.

Answer: Byker Grove

Why is there a H in 'Rhumble'? For two reasons: firstly, as a shout-out to the rhumba dance, and secondly, to avoid any legal disputes as wrestling announcer Michael Buffer - who is sampled at the beginning - trademarked the phrase 'let's get ready to rumble'.

The song was originally released in 1994 and peaked at Number Nine, but hit the Number One spot almost 20 years later after the duo performed it on 'Saturday Night Takeaway', and it was released as a charity single. PJ & Duncan AKA started using their real names in 1997 with the release of their third album, 'The Cult of Ant & Dec'. Nowadays, they're more famous in the UK for being a TV presenting duo.

Answer: Russia

Serebro are a three-piece Russian girl group with a revolving line-up, similar to England's Sugababes; the 2019 line-up featured Elizaveta Kornilova, Marianna Kochurova and Irina Titova, none of whom were original members. The original trio, who represented Russia with '#1 Song', featured Marina Lizorkina, Olga Seryabkina and Elena Temnikova. 'Mi Mi Mi', released in 2013 with yet another line-up, was the group's first international single, and featured lines like 'I am so super puper druper' and 'I am so cool with my awesome big tits on the ground'.

The song was also featured in the 2015 remake of 'Jem and the Holograms'.

Answer: Kate Pierson

'Blender' described 'Shiny Happy People', which featured Kate Pierson of the B-52s on backing vocals, as 'going out of its way to annoy you' and the main riff as resembling 'a cellphone ringtone chosen by a sociopath'. REM themselves are ashamed of the song; Michael Stipe said that if one REM song had to be sent into space to represent them, it would definitely not be 'Shiny Happy People', and he also called it a 'fruity pop song written for children'.

The band also refused to play it live, and it was one of the few singles that didn't make it onto 'In Time', their 2003 greatest hits album. Though it's not my favourite REM song (that would be 'Orange Crush'), I find it rather sweet. (Patti Smith has, in fact, sung on one of my favourite REM tracks, 'E-Bow the Letter'.)

Answer: Maxwell's Silver Hammer

Even my mum, who is a massive Beatles fan, can't understand my love for 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer', and various websites have listed it among the Beatles' worst songs. In 'Revolution in the Head', the quintessential guide to Beatles songs, Ian McDonald is particularly scathing: "If any single recording shows why the Beatles broke up, it is 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer'." He went on to call it a 'ghastly miscalculation', 'sniggering nonsense' and McCartney's 'worst lapse of taste'.

The rest of the group, especially John Lennon, also hated it.

Answer: Limp Bizkit

The album from which 'Rollin' comes is called 'Chocolate Starfish and the Hotdog Flavoured Water', and it received a mixed reception. Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor was reportedly bemused at 'Hot Dog', another track on the album which parodied the chorus to 'Closer' (as this is a family website, I can't quote the line). 'Rollin' itself, according to 'Blender', sounds like 'a middle-aged man trying to fight his way out of his son's frat party using only random words of youth slang and an unconvincingly gruff tone of voice'.

It was, however, a regular tune on the Friday night playlist in my local rock club in Chester back in 2002-2004.

Answer: Berlin

'Blender' described Right Said Fred as 'horrible, bald novelty Brits' (only two of them were bald, to be fair - guitarist Rob Manzoli had a full head of hair). Amazingly, the song was nominated for an Ivor Novello award. A parody of the song was used to advertise Fruit-tella, a type of gummy fruit sweets, in the '90s with lines like, 'Fruit-tella, too fruity for my cat, too juicy for my dog, too fruity for my shark'. Because of the ad, I always associate 'I'm Too Sexy' with the sweets.