Rock & Pop History Quiz — 7 Free Questions

Question 1

Which New Jersey songwriter, backed by the E Street Band and nicknamed the Boss, broke through with the 1975 album Born to Run and reached a wider peak with the 1984 record whose defiant title track was widely misheard as a patriotic cheer?

Question 2

What is the name for the decades-long trend, much criticised by engineers, of mastering recordings at ever higher average volume and heavier compression so they jump out on radio and in playlists, at the cost of quiet passages and dynamic contrast?

Question 3

What is the name for the fast, short, deliberately crude and confrontational music that broke through around 1976, led by the Ramones in New York and the Sex Pistols and the Clash in London, and aimed squarely at the bloated stadium rock of the day?

Question 4

Which Boston hard-rock band, fronted by the singer Steven Tyler and the guitarist Joe Perry, had a 1970s run with Dream On and Walk This Way, sank into drug addiction, then revived in 1986 when the rappers Run-DMC covered Walk This Way with the band guesting?

Question 5

What is the name for the style of the mid to late 1960s that tried to suggest or enhance the experience of hallucinogenic drugs, using feedback, sitars, backwards tape, swirling organ and extended improvisation?

Question 6

Which American singer, a child star with his brothers' group before going solo, was crowned the King of Pop after the albums Off the Wall, Bad and, above all, a 1982 record that remains the best-selling album ever made?

Question 7

Which musician from Minneapolis, who played most instruments on his own records, starred in and scored the 1984 film Purple Rain and had hits with When Doves Cry, 1999 and Kiss?

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About Rock & Pop History

Rock and pop have been the mainstream of popular music for 70 years, and this quiz traces that history in eighty questions. Each describes an act, a genre, a movement, an era, a landmark record, a piece of jargon or a famous event, and asks you to name it from four choices, then fills in the story, the fallout or the myth attached to it.

The first pack is the canon: Elvis, the Beatles, Dylan and the Rolling Stones; the birth of rock and roll and of Motown; the British Invasion; Michael Jackson, Madonna, Led Zeppelin, Queen, Pink Floyd and David Bowie; punk, grunge and disco; the Beach Boys and U2; the launch of MTV; and the Live Aid concerts.

The second pack widens the field. More acts, from Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly through the Who, Hendrix, Marley, the Kinks, the Doors, Fleetwood Mac, Springsteen and Prince to the Sex Pistols, the Clash, the Ramones, Metallica, Aerosmith, Radiohead and Oasis. The genres, grunge, Britpop, heavy metal, progressive rock, new wave, glam, reggae, ska, rhythm and blues, folk rock and psychedelia. And the machinery around the music, the concept album, the Billboard Hot 100, Woodstock, the 27 Club, the supergroup, payola and the Wall of Sound.

The third pack is scandal, disaster and legend: the 1959 plane crash called the day the music died; the killing at Altamont; Lennon's bigger-than-Jesus remark; the Monterey and Woodstock festivals and the shambles of Woodstock 99; the Spice Girls and girl power; Napster and the collapse of the CD; the Paul-is-dead hoax; Auto-Tune; Disco Demolition Night; the Beatles' rooftop finale; the Battle of Britpop; Milli Vanilli; the charity records Band Aid and We Are the World; Elvis's 1968 comeback; Dylan going electric; the loudness war; MTV Unplugged; and the Grateful Dead's touring culture.

The wrong answers are always the same kind of thing as the right one, an act beside acts, a genre beside genres, so a shaky guess is easily caught. Where a picture is used it is deliberately neutral, a jukebox, a drum kit, a guitar, a turntable, a mixing desk, a synthesiser, and never a portrait or an album sleeve, because those would give the answer away outright; each one has been checked against its own four options.

Nothing here assumes musical training. Facts, dates and chart claims have been checked against reference sources, and several persistent myths are corrected along the way: the 27 Club shows no real statistical spike at that age, the anti-disco backlash carried a strong charge of racism and homophobia, and Milli Vanilli's singers really had signed their voices away. Coverage runs from the 1950s to the streaming era and tries to balance the famous with the genuinely important.