Two Peas in an iPod Trivia Quiz

Answer: Coldplay and Evanescence

While Nirvana were labelled a Seattle Grunge band, they were in fact from Aberdeen, a small city two hours south-west of Seattle. "Lithium" (1991) was a typical grungy Nirvana song, from their second album "Nevermind" (1991) about the struggles of bi-polar disorder. With typically depressive lyrics, Cobain had to put things into perspective at concerts with quips like, "Hey everybody, why so glum?"
Evanescence was a Little Rock, Arkansas, 1990s rock band featuring the soaring and powerful vocals of pint-sized Amy Lee. "Lithium" (2006), from their 2006 "The Open Door" album demonstrates their usual introspective lyrics about the absence of sorrow of love when taking the mood-stabilising Lithium.

The two "Speed of Sound" songs could not be more different. The Pearl Jam version (2009) was from their "Backspacer" album. For a grunge band, the song is downbeat and tells the story of a man in a bar where everyone has left.
The British band Coldplay's version from their 2005 album "X and Y", is about being overwhelmed and inspired at the same time. The tone and song are upbeat. The song was only the third British act to debut in the US Top One Hundred top ten, and was Coldplay's first US hit. There are similarities between this song and the group's previous UK hit "Clocks" (2002). Take the opening riff out of that song, delete every second note and you have the riff out of "Speed of Sound".

Answer: Thin Lizzy

Two of the 70s most successful heavy rock bands were AC/DC from Australia and Thin Lizzy from Ireland (The latter group's name is a playful twist on the Irish accent and its pronunciation of Henry Ford's "Tin Lizzie")
"Jailbreak" (1976) by AC/DC is based on the true story of a notorious criminal Mark "Chopper" Reid who was sent to jail for 15 years for killing a gang leader. Reid tried to escape from jail. The song tells his story and was released in 1976 as a successful single and on an album ("Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap")in Australia. The song was not released in the US until 1984.
"Jailbreak" (1976), was the most successful Thin Lizzy album. It contained two hit singles: "The Boys are Back In Town" and "Jailbreak". "Jailbreak", the single, was typical Thin Lizzy hard rock: Twin lead guitar harmonies, liberal use of the wah-wah pedal and a driving rhythm section. The single was made more successful by the inclusion in the movie soundtrack of "Detroit Rock City" (ironically a Kiss song title).

Answer: The Eagles

"Victim of Love" was a track on the Eagles' "Hotel California" (1976) album. While there were three tracks released as singles, this was not one of them. The track is particularly notable for two reasons. Don Felder wanted to sing lead but his recorded vocals were not up to standard so he was taken away while Don Henley laid down the final vocals. The second reason was the Eagles were criticised for overdubbing and over-producing their recorded music: On the run out groove of Side 2 of the album, scratched into the vinyl is "V.O.L. is a five piece live". This means that all instruments were played and recorded at once not individually, which was normal practice for any band.
Elton John's "Victim of Love" was a single and title track from his 1979 album. The album was disco and one of John's least successful albums.
"Victim of Love" (1981) was a track on The Cars' 1981 album "Shake it Up" (1981).
In 1987 Bryan Adams recorded his "Into The Fire" album featuring "Hearts on Fire" (1978) as the lead single. The follow-up single, "Victim of Love" (1987), while a creditable song, was not a very successful single.
Whitesnake and Erasure also had successful songs with the same title but different song.

Answer: Bob Dylan

The Traveling Wilburys were a supergroup consisting of Bob Dylan (Lucky Wilbury), George Harrison (Nelson Wilbury), Jeff Lynne (Otis Wilbury), Roy Orbison (Lefty Wilbury), and Tom Petty (Charlie T. Wilbury). The band recorded two albums in 1988 and 1990 (though they assumed different Wilbury names on the second album, except Orbison who sadly passed away before it was recorded).

Bob Dylan released his first album in 1962. The opening track was "You're No Good" written, unlike later album tracks, by someone else. Jesse Fuller wrote this track. The album comprised mainly folk and gospel tracks and was heavily influenced by Dylan's idol, Woody Guthrie (One of the two Dylan compositions on the album was "Song to Woody" (1962)). The album did not receive the acclaim it deserved until Dylan became an established "star".

"You're No Good" was a breakthrough hit for Linda Ronstadt. It was written by Clint Ballard, a regular writer for The Hollies and Connie Francis, in 1963. It was recorded by Dee Dee Warwick in 1963 and released as a single by Betty Everett in 1964 but these were marginal hits. British band Swinging Blue Jeans had a UK Number Three and a US Top 100 hit when they recorded the song in 1964 and switched the song's gender. However Ronstadt made it her own in 1974, making it to Number One on both US charts. Other hits followed and Ronstadt became the best selling US female artist of the 70s.
So by sharing a title with one Traveling Wilbury, Ronstadt had a connection to another (Lefty - Roy Orbison) by recording and taking his "Blue Bayou" (1963) to Number One in 1976. It became her signature song.

Answer: Dire Straits

The Searchers, one of the "British Invasion" bands, were only the second British band to have a US hit in 1964, with "Needles and Pins". "So Far Away" was the B-side to their 1965 hit, "He's Got No Love".
Carole King's version of "So Far Away" was the fourth single off the mega-platinum 1971 "Tapestry" album.
Dire Straits came next with their 1985 version which was the opening track of their fifth album, "Brothers in Arms" (1985).
The Goo Goo Dolls' song appears on that group's 1993 album, "Superstar Car Wash" (1993). Of all the same titles, this is probably the least known - it was never performed live or appeared on any of the three compilation albums released by the group.
Staind wrote a new version with the same title in 2003.
Canada's Nickelback's 2005 version from "All the Right Reasons" LP was actually called "Far Away". It was their fourth Top Ten hit.
In 2010, California metalcore band Avenged Sevenfold recorded a tribute using the now ubiquitous title as a tribute to their drummer Jimmy "The Rev" Sullivan who died from a drug overdose, the year before. This was a radically different type of recording for the group, being stripped back to the basics. In an interview with the group, it was meant to be "one guy with one guitar, sitting there and speaking to his best friend."
Chicago heavy rock group Painkiller Hotel had a minor regional hit with a song of the same name in 2009.
British Synth-Pop New Wave band, Flock of Seagulls, had a UK mega-hit in 1982. The song was known as "I ran" but its full title was "I Ran (So Far Away)".

Answer: Neil Young

You probably cannot get two performers as diverse as Prince and Neil Young but they shared a song title at least. The Prince song is typical Prince: Urbane, chic, beat-driven with a heavy bassline. It was not without controversy. The accompanying video was controversial with its subject matter and polarised audiences. Prince would probably not have had it any other way. The Neil Young song, by contrast, was typically Neil Young: Raw, fuzzy guitar with plaintive vocals, but unusually for Young, it had a strong descending bass line.

The song is about Jean Ray of Jim and Jean fame, folk singers singing Greenwich Village in the 60s. The song is one of three Young wrote for the 1969 "This is Nowhere" album whilst he had influenza and a fever. The other two songs, "Cowgirl in the Sand" (also about Ray) and "Down By the River" were all hits and have been three of Young's most durable songs.

Answer: The Police

In 1952 Jo Stafford was the first woman on both sides of the Atlantic to have a number one hit with "You Belong to Me" (1952) but she was the third person to record this song a few months after it was written by King, Price and Stewart. It started out as "Hurry Home to Me" and was about a WWII soldier who was separated from his girl. Before it was released, it was changed into a more general separation of lovers and the name was also changed to its released name. Since then, it has been covered by over 100 artists including the American doo-wop band The Duprees who recorded it, and named their debut 1962 album after the song.
In 1977, Carly Simon, Michael McDonald and others wrote a song with the same title. McDonald recorded it with his band, The Doobie Brothers, on their seventh album "Livin' on the Fault Line" (1977). Carly Simon herself covered (if that is possible) her own song and recorded it a year later on her "Boys in the Trees" album. This song too has been covered by other artists such as Anita Baker (1990), Jennifer Lopez (2002), and Chaka Khan (2007).
Elvis Costello had a song with this title in 1978. It featured on Costello's second album, "This Year's Model" (1978).
Taylor Swift wrote her own song, a country-pop tune, with this title in 2009. It reached Number three on the Billboard Top 100 and was a world-wide hit for Swift. It was nominated for three Grammys.
"Every Breath You Take" is a 1983 song by The Police about a possessive lover ("You belong to me") based on the line "Every breath you take, every move you make"). The song was one of only a handful that have sold over ten million copies as a single. It was nominated for three Grammys, winning two, listed at song number 84 in Rolling Stones' 2004 "500 Greatest Songs of All Time"; it was the biggest selling single of 1983 and the fifth biggest for the 1980s.

Answer: Sheryl Crow

"Strong Enough" (1999) was the second hit from Cher's 23rd album. (Ironically, the first single, "Believe" (1998) which was bigger, shares a title with no less than nine distinct Top 100 songs with the same title). "Strong Enough" tells the story of a woman who is strong enough to live without her man.

The song was slow to chart and it wasn't until it was re-mixed that it charted in the US. It was a strong hit world-wide though. "Tuesday Night Music Club" was a 1994 album by Sheryl Crow. The title refers to a song-writing collective headed by Crow .

She was surprised when "All I Wanna Do" (1994) became a number one smash. "Strong Enough" (1994) - unlike Cher's song where the protagonist is strong enough to be without her man, Crow's song is the reverse; she asks her partner if he is "Strong enough to be my man".

The song was the follow up hit to "All I Wanna Do".

Answer: Joy Division

The bubbly "Love Will Keep Us Together" (1973), written by Neil Sedaka and performed by The Captain and Tennille was the number one selling song for 1975. It won the Grammy for Record of the Year. (Sedaka released the song under his own name successfully in 1973. It was incorporated on his comeback album, "Sedaka's Back" (1973)). In the fadeout to the latter version, you can hear Toni Tennille sing, "Sedaka is back".
"Love Will Tear Us Apart" (1979) was Joy Division's cynical response to "Love Will Keep Us Together". It was written by Ian Curtis, the lead singer who suffered from depression and seizures and was having marital difficulties at the time. The song did not chart but was re-released after his death (suicide) and became Joy Division's only hit. The group had made a pact that if (prophetically, it appears) any one of them would die, the band would break up. This they did, but later the three remaining members formed New Order who went on to be one of Britain's best known bands of the 80s.
"Love Will Find A Way"(1977) was a hit single for American middle-of-the-road rockers Pablo Cruise in 1978.
"Love Will Keep Us Alive" was an Eagles' song (but unusually, not written by any one of the five members). It was first performed on their "Hell Freezes Over Tour" in 1994. It appears on their 2003 compilation album.

Answer: "Just Like Heaven" - Katie Melua

"Just Like Heaven" (1977) was the third single from the "Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me" (1987) album by British alternative rock band The Cure. The song went Top Ten in Britain and was their first US hit. Multi-layered, it is a complex melodic rock song. When I heard Katie Melua's song with the same title, I (gasp!) did not realise it was a cover. It had morphed into a stripped back acoustic version which highlighted Melua's angelic soprano voice. So different from the original, I allowed a cover to reside in my iPod full of originals.
"Stairway to Heaven" (1969) by Led Zeppelin is certainly original though it it has been covered many, many times. It is, arguably, one of the greatest rock songs ever recorded. Andrew Denton, an Australian TV host even had a segment on his variety show, "The Money or the Gun" (1988-89) where guests could sing any song they liked as long as it was "Stairway to Heaven". (For a version that is Australian-quirky, check out the Whippersnappers' version from 1989).
"Knocking on Heaven's Door" is another much covered Bob Dylan song who recorded it for the 1973 movie, "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid". Acclaimed from Dylan's post-acoustic era, its simplicity almost guaranteed it would be covered. For poignancy, one cannot go past Warren Zevon's version; he recorded it when he was terminally ill. Similarly "Tears in Heaven" is also poignant, a very personal song from Eric Clapton who sang about his young son who died in an accident.