'70s

Question 1

The lead singer of post-punk pioneers Joy Division. He committed suicide in 1980.

Answer 1

Ian Curtis

Question 2

The guitarist for Joy Division and later frontman for New Order.

Answer 2

Bernard Sumner

Question 3

What answer fills in the blank in the title of a Brian Eno-produced new wave album from the late 1970s? Q: Are We Not Men? A: _______!

Answer 3

We Are Devo

Question 4

While Paul Weller established himself as a solo artist in 1991, he first rose to prominence as the frontman to this “mod revival” band, whose hits included “Town Called Malice” and “Going Underground.”

Answer 4

The Jam

Question 5

Pink Floyd’s notable 1972 documentary film featured a live performance at an amphitheater in what historical town-city?

Answer 5

Pompeii

Question 6

Paul McCartney has a flower in his mouth on the cover of this 1973 album that produced “My Love.”

Answer 6

Red Rose Speedway

Question 7

This 1979 track is considered to be the first commercially successful rap song.

Answer 7

Sugarhill Gang - Rapper’s Delight

Question 8

This rapper, best known for 1980’s “The Breaks,” was the first to release a commercially successful rap song that incorporated a hook/chorus.

Answer 8

Kurtis Blow

Question 9

What lost household item is Jimmy Buffett “searching for” in Margaritaville?

Answer 9

Salt shaker

Question 10

This Earth, Wind & Fire hit reminds you “what your life can truly be.”

Answer 10

Shining Star

Question 11

Due to improved sales tracking information, albums (including, for example, the last eight released by Eminem) frequently debut at #1 on the Billboard 200 chart, but what artist was the first to accomplish this feat with Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy in 1975?

Answer 11

Elton John

Question 12

What pop music group scored hits in the United States during the 1970s with “Saturday Night,” “Money Honey,” and “You Made Me Believe in Magic”? They were “tartan teen sensations from Edinburgh” and not from a place like San Francisco, Tampa, Norfolk, Monterey, Mobile, or the like (though they were named after a small city in Michigan—apparently randomly).

Answer 12

Bay City Rollers

Question 13

While best known as a founding member and vocalist of one of rock’s most influential bands, Lou Reed released what infamously odd album in 1975 as a solo artist? The album was so unlistenable that some fans still maintain it was a joke.

Answer 13

Metal Machine Music

Question 14

Only one Sesame Street song has been a hit single. Name the song that rose to #16 on the Billboard Top 100 chart in 1970.

Answer 14

Rubber Ducky

Question 15

Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson has said he was surprised when the press began referring to 1971’s Aqualung as a concept album. In response, he conceived a piece that he later called “the mother of all concept albums,” a 44-minute long song (44 seconds of which can be heard below) setting to music an “epic poem” credited on the album’s sleeve to an 8-year-old schoolboy from St. Cleve named Gerald “Little Milton” Bostock. Name this 1972 album, which Anderson followed up in 2012 with a sequel subtitled What Ever Happened to Gerald Bostock?

Answer 15

Thick As A Brick

Question 16

In 1973, a four-song double album loosely based on a single footnote from a book about the Hindu shashtras by Paramahansa Yogananda was recorded by a popular English progressive rock band. The world tour that followed the album’s release is widely cited as a prime example of excess and self-indulgence in rock music in the 1970s, and ever-increasing dissatisfaction with the band’s musical direction led to their keyboardist’s first departure.

Answer 16

Yes, Tales From Topographic Oceans

Question 17

Everybody, it’s a 1973 song from Curtis Mayfield that shares its title with a 1970 book by Alvin and Heidi Toffler. The Tofflers defined the term as an accelerated rate of technological and social change that leaves people disconnected, stressed, and disoriented. What is the shared title?

Answer 17

Future Shock

Question 18

In what city, site of a multi-act music festival that also included (among others) Bill Withers, the Spinners, and Miriam Makeba, was this photo of James Brown and his companions taken in 1974?

Answer 18

Kinshasa

Question 19

He was the primary songwriter and one of the founding members of ounk outfit Black Flag. He was part of the group from 1976-86, and again for reunions in 2003 and 2013.

Answer 19

Greg Ginn

Question 20

The name of what performer, an actual ordained minister since 1976, has been redacted from this LP cover?

Answer 20

Al Green

Question 21

Before leaving to form the post-punk band Magazine in 1977, Howard Devoto was one of two singer-songwriters in what British band?

Answer 21

The Buzzcocks

Question 22

For numerous good reasons (including a 1992 acoustic version and the song’s inspiration), the classic rock and roll song “Layla” is associated with Eric Clapton, but the song was originally released not by Clapton as a solo artist, but by what band, for which he sang and played guitar?

Answer 22

Derek and the Dominos

Question 23

What rock accomplishment did Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show sing about in 1972 and achieve on March 29, 1973?

Answer 23

They wanted to see their picture “on the cover of the Rolling Stone.” The magazine met them at least halfway in 1973, running a cover drawing of the band with the caption, “What’s-Their-Names Make the Cover.”

Question 24

Which radio personality co-created and hosted the weekly countdown show “American Top 40”? He hosted the show from its inception in 1970 until 1988.

Answer 24

Casey Kasem

Question 25

At the Grammy Awards ceremony held in February 1976, Album of the Year winner Paul Simon proclaimed, “I’d like to thank XXXXX, who didn’t make an album this year.” What artist, whose name is redacted in this quote, would go on to win the award again the next year?

Answer 25

Stevie Wonder

Question 26

This duo’s biggest hit was 1970’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water”

Answer 26

Simon & Garfunkel

Question 27

What is the title of Bobby Darin’s cover of the song from Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s The Threepenny Opera, which became the crooner’s trademark, reaching #1 in the US and earning Record of the Year at the second annual Grammy Awards?

Answer 27

Mack The Knife

Question 28

The “2 Tone” movement in British music of the late 1970s, represented by acts such as The Selecter, Madness, The Specials, and The (English) Beat, marked a revival of what musical genre—a precursor to reggae and rocksteady that originated in Jamaica two decades earlier?

Answer 28

Ska

Question 29

The biggest album-to-album sales drop in music history was suffered by what band, between its 1977 and 1979 records, each with a one-word title?

Answer 29

The double LP Tusk sold four million copies upon its 1979 release…which is only disappointing when you consider that its predecessor, Rumours, has sold over 45 million copies. And that’s when Warner Music stopped letting Lindsey Buckingham do whatever he wanted. The band, of course, is Fleetwood Mac.

Question 30

A leading role in the most profitable movie musical ever (at the time) and the release of her provocative album Totally Hot (both in 1978) announced a shift in the career of what artist, whose early US success was in country music (including a Grammy for Best Country Vocal and, somewhat controversially, the CMA’s Female Vocalist of the Year)?

Answer 30

Olivia Newton-John

Question 31

Name the R&B legend whose career highlights include a #1 hit with her eponymous group in 1975 (“Lady Marmalade”) and another in a 1986 duet with Michael McDonald (“On My Own”).

Answer 31

Patti LaBelle