Songs That Criticize the Music Industry Quiz

Answer: Have a Cigar

Part of the concept of Pink Floyd's highly successful album "Wish You Were Here" is criticizing the music industry. One of the songs that does this is "Have a Cigar." This song is sung from the point of view of a record executive approaching Pink Floyd for a record deal for the first time ever.

The record executive promises the band that they are going to be very successful, and flatters the band with praise, but then they ask "Which one's pink?" revealing that they actually know nothing about the band. According to guitarist David Gilmour in a 1992 interview on "In the Studio With Redbeard," multiple people in the music industry really did ask that question to the band, thinking that Pink Floyd was the name of the singer.

The point of the song seems to be that people who run the music industry are liars and should not be trusted.

Answer: Death on Two Legs

In the early 1970s Queen were in a really bad place. They had recorded three albums and a couple of hit songs such as "Killer Queen" and "Now I'm Here," which helped their third album, "Sheer Heart Attack" reach gold. They had toured around the world, often as headliners. However, they weren't making any money. They had signed a bad contract with Norman Sheffield, that resulted in Queen not making the money they deserved.

So, they cut ties with him, got a new manager, and recorded their Make-or-Break fourth album "A Night at the Opera." The first song on the album was called "Death on Two Legs" and it's about Sheffield. The song begins with a piano solo that requires the skills of a virtuoso like Freddie Mercury to play, then when the song gets going, it's a hard rock song. Freddie Mercury sounds seriously angry in the lyrics and in his voice.

Sheffield has tried to sue Queen for defamation of character over this song but he wasn't successful.

Answer: It's a Long Way to the Top if You Wanna Rock and Roll

The idea of being a rock star may seem easy and glorious, writing three-minute songs with simple catchy hooks, doing what you love to do every night, making lots of money, being loved by lots of women, touring the world, etc. It's not everything it's cracked up to be. AC/DC says that they have been "Gettin' old
gettin' gray, gettin' ripped off, underpaid." Basically, they had to go through a lot of misery and get mistreated a lot to get to where they eventually would make it.

In 2003, this song was featured in the movie "School of Rock," with Jack Black singing it with some kids.

Answer: Cherub Rock

On the inside cover of a re-issue of "Siamese Dream", Billy Corgan confirms that the point of this song was to attack the music industry.

The song basically says that you have to do what the music industry wants, not what you want ("Freak out and give in, it doesn't matter what you believe in") because supposedly the music industry knows best ("Cause they know
Who is righteous, what is bold so I'm told"). In reality, the music industry doesn't care about what kind of music you love to make, they just want to make money ("Who wants honey as long as there's some money?"). In the end, Billy Corgan is not even sure he wants to be in the music business anymore ("Let me out!"). However, he remained in the music industry for the rest of the 1990s, creating two multi-platinum albums, and although the Smashing Pumpkins broke up in 2000, they reunited in 2007, albeit without long-time bassist D'Arcy Wretzky, and they remained in the music industry for the rest of the 2000s and 2010s.

Answer: Korn

According to guitarist James Shaffer in an interview with Metal Hammer, they had recorded about ten songs for what would be their album "Take a Look in the Mirror" and the record company asked them if they could write a catchy song to be released as a single. Korn didn't want to do that because, although they had made a few songs that happened to get played on the radio, they weren't the sort of band that writes hit singles.

They want people to buy the whole album, not just the singles. So they wrote this song, telling the record company that they won't write a catchy single. Ironically, this song was eventually released as a single.

Answer: Rush

This song is about how musicians stop making the kind of music they want to make, and they instead give into what the industry wants them to make so they can make money ("One likes to believe in the freedom of music but glittering prizes and endless compromises shatter the illusion of integrity").

"The Spirit of Radio" charted at number 13 on the UK Singles chart, number 22 on the Canadian chart, and number 51 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, making it one of Rush's most famous songs worldwide.

Answer: Barracuda

According to lead singer Ann Wilson, she wrote this song to attack Mushroom Records for making up a story that she and her sister Nancy were a lesbian couple. To make matters worse, a fan at a show walked up to Ann, after the show, asking her how her partner was doing and it turned out he was talking about Nancy.

This outraged Ann, so she wrote this song, with lyrics like "No right, no wrong you're selling a song, a name." She promises that, for making up this story, the record company is "Gonna burn burn burn burn to the wick." These lyrics, along with the iconic riff that Nancy plays in the song, make this song a really angry song and proved to the world that women are very capable of making angry hard rock music.

Answer: The Writ

Black Sabbath's sixth studio album was called "Sabotage." According to lead guitarist Tony Iommi, in a 2001 interview with Dan Epstein, the reason it was called that is because the music industry was trying to sabotage them. Drummer Bill Ward said that it's the first album they recorded with lawyers in the studio. The album's final song is called "The Writ" because while those words never appear in the lyrics, singer Ozzy Osbourne said in his autobiography "Writs were being delivered to us at the mixing desk." Bassist and songwriter Geezer Butler said that the band went through ten months of legal cases.

According to Iommi, these problems caused the album to have a heavy sound even by Black Sabbath's standards. On "The Writ," Osbourne delivers what may be his fiercest vocal performance ever.

Answer: John Fogerty

On the surface, "Vanz Kant Danz," or "Vanz Can't Dance," appears to be a song about a boy named Billy, who gets people's attention by dancing, and his pig named Vanz, who steals money right out of their pockets while they're watching Billy dance. However, the story that the song tells isn't the real story of the song.

The song is about Creedence Clearwater Revival's manager, Saul Zaentz. He made the band sign a contract where he owned all of the rights to their songs. So he made money off of their songs, and with bad investments, he lost money that should have been CCR's money. In addition, he tried to sue Fogerty for plagiarism of his own music; thankfully that didn't work. Fogerty responded by writing a song called "Zanz Kant Danz." Zanz sued for defamation so Fogerty had to change it to "Vanz." So the pick-pocketing pig is really Creedence Clearwater Revivals' manager stealing money from Creedence Clearwater Revival.

This song appears on the album "Centerfield." There is another song on that album about Zaentz called "Mr. Greed." That is a very angry song.

Answer: Elvis Costello

In an interview with the Hollywood reporter, Costello had this to say about the song: "You get into the business of making records and you realize what it's really about is some guy going off with a big sack of money to give it to somebody with hookers and cocaine so that they play your record enough times that people get batted to death with it and that makes it a hit."

On "Saturday Night Live," Elvis Costello played this song against the wishes of his record company, Columbia Records. They wanted him to play "Less Than Zero," his first single, but he was afraid that audiences in the U.S. would be confused about "Mr. Oswald." That refers to a fascist named Oswald Mosely, but Costello thought Americans would think it referred to Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who shot president John F. Kennedy. So, Costello started off playing "Less Than Zero," but midway through the song, Costello ordered the band to stop playing and said "I'm sorry, ladies and gentlemen, there's no reason to do this song here." He then got the band to play "Radio Radio." Because of this, he was banned from "Saturday Night Live" for ten years.