There Ain't Half Been Some Great Albums: A Quiz

Answer: John Coltrane

"Ascension" was a sublime album released in 1966 by the American jazz luminary who was nearing the end of his days. It followed what many consider John Coltrane's finest album, "A Love Supreme", and actually returns to that album's musical motif to use it as a springboard into avant-garde, improvised, free jazz. Alongside Coltrane (who played tenor sax here) on the album were pianist McCoy Tyner, drummer Elvin Jones, trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, and saxophonists Pharoah Sanders and Archie Shepp, amongst others.

The piece "Ascension" originally went over both sides of the record and was divided into two parts, but since technology has moved on we can now hear it as one whole thing. Furthermore, there are two versions, "Ascension Edition I" and "Ascension Edition II", essentially two slightly different takes. Again, thanks to technology, many CD releases contains both.

Answer: The Jimi Hendrix Experience

"Axis: Bold As Love" is The Jimi Hendrix Experience's second album and by all accounts, it was a bit of a rush job. Indeed, many people see it as the weakest of the group's three studio albums. Right from the silly intro , "EXP", to the grand finale, title track "Bold As Love", it sounds like the band are having a great time.

Another reason for my boundless enthusiasm is the fact that this album contains some of my favourite Hendrix tunes: "Spanish Castle Magic", "Wait Until Tomorrow", "Little Wing", and "If 6 Were 9"... the whole of side one basically!

Answer: Roots Manuva

"Awfully Deep" is a 2005 album released by British hip-hop artist Roots Manuva, AKA Rodney Hylton Smith. It was either his third album or fourth album depending whether you count the dub reworking of "Run Come Save Me" called "Dub Come Save Me".

It's a strange album. With "Run Come Save Me", Roots Manuva seemed to be on the brink of mainstream popularity and success, but with "Awfully Deep" he seems to have purposefully eschewed acclaim by exploring his darker side. To some, like me, that was a brave move which made him even more interesting as an artist and produced a classic album, but to others it was a wasted opportunity.

Answer: Kraftwerk

German group Kraftwerk's 1974 album "Autobahn" is their fourth outing and the first one to be commercially accessible. They even edited the side-long title track down to 3:27 in order to release it as a single. Moreover, the single even got to number nine in the German charts, and number eleven in the UK charts.

Kraftwerk's first three albums had been entirely instrumental but "Autobahn" introduced vocals to the sound, albeit just eight lines of lyrics. Said lyrics led to a classic mondegreen: the German words are "Wir fahr'n fahr'n fahr'n auf der autobahn", but many of us have always sung, and shall always sing, "Fun, fun, fun on the autobahn."

Answer: Pink Floyd

"Animals" is Pink Floyd's tenth studio album. It was released in 1977, two years after the hugely successful "Wish You Were Here", which of course is considered the year punk rock exploded onto the mainstream music scene and into the general public's conscience. Much has been made of the darker, more nihilistic mood of the album being due to the nasty, negative zeitgeist of the time. The band's drummer, Nick Mason, however, hinted that bad feelings running through the band set the mood as much as the punk phenomena.

"Animals" is my favourite Pink Floyd album. The group can get a bit too self-indulgent for my tastes ("Ummagumma" and "Atom Heart Mother"), or at the other end of the spectrum they get a bit nostalgic and whimsical ("Wish You Were Here" and "The Final Cut"), but "Animals" is just right.

Answer: Sleaford Mods

Sleaford Mods is a duo famed for gritty-yet-witty tales of ordinary British life as seen by an angry middle-aged bloke, Jason Williamson. The 2013 album "Austerity Dogs" was the first Sleaford Mods album to get proper distribution, and also the first to have Andrew Fearn doing the music, although Williamson had been using the name on underground, independent releases.

Williamson's rants are expletive-ridden, but beneath the vulgarity lies anything but ignorance. I'm not sure how well the regional vernacular travels, but anybody familiar with the Midlands argot will struggle to keep a straight face listening to this album, or any of the subsequent releases.

Answer: Rose Tattoo

"Assault and Battery" is Rose Tattoo's second album and it came out in 1981, three years after the group's eponymous debut. The Australian rockers had been touring home and abroad throughout the intervening years, and although they were already a tight unit, on this album they are rock solid probably thanks to that experience.

Rose Tattoo had a real tough-bloke image: jeans, t-shirts, lots of tattoos and, unusually for a hard rock band, a skinhead singer. Said singer dropped his real name, Gary, and chose to call himself Angry Anderson, both on stage with Rose Tattoo, and in his second career on the silver screen. Angry kept up his hardman image as Ironbar Bassey in the film "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome", but had us fans wondering what was going on when he released the dreadful, soppy, ballad "Suddenly" in 1989.

Answer: Scorpions

The Scorpions 1980 album "Animal Magnetism" is their seventh studio release. The band had gone through quite significant changes in style over the years, from the early days of bluesy, psychedelic rock through a tighter hard rock sound, and ending up with what was considered heavy metal by late 1970s standards.

In the Scorpions discography, "Animal Magnetism" is sandwiched between the first album with the harder sound, "Lovedrive", and the album which pointed the way to a more radio-friendly sound, "Blackout". That is probably why it's such a favourite since it balances the two things perfectly. Songs like "The Zoo", "Make It Real", and "Only A Man" became instant classics, but there isn't a lemon on there.

Answer: Japan

A weird cover version of "Don't Rain on My Parade", a song which is from a 1964 musical called "Funny Girl", was the debut single from Japan's 1978 album "Adolescent Sex". It is probably the least representative track of the album, so who knows why it was chosen.

I seem to be in the minority in my love of this album; the critics, the record label, and even the band are said to have disliked the album, and indeed the band's sound at the time. I love the guitar-driven disco rock, and to my ears it sounds fresher than anything else the group ever released.

Answer: Neil Young

"After the Gold Rush" is Neil Young's third solo album and one of his most universally lauded. There's not a single dud on the whole album and despite, or maybe thanks to, the diversity of the material, it really feels like an album.

Neil Young's regular cohorts, Crazy Horse, feature on just three of the tracks: "When You Dance I Can Really Love", "Oh Lonesome Me", and "I Believe In You". The reason for this is that the album sessions started in 1969 when Young and Crazy Horse were still buddies, but after a 1970 tour Neil Young had had enough of Crazy Horse's guitarist Danny Whitten's heroin addiction and he broke ties with them. Whitten died two years later.