'90s

Question 1

The Verve receives zero songwriting royalties from “Bittersweet Symphony” due to copyright claims stemming from the sampling of an orchestral version of this song.

Update: The band in question has since handed over publishing rights to Richard Ashcroft

Answer 1

Rolling Stones - The Last Time

Question 2

This Australian artist rose to international fame in 1997 with a cover of a song originally recorded by Danish band Ednaswap in 1995.

Answer 2

Natalie Imbruglia

Question 3

In 1991, George Michael and this singer reached No. 1 in the UK with “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me.”

Answer 3

Elton John

Question 4

What artist’s 1982 album Age to Age became the first Christian album to be certified platinum, while her contemporary pop album from 1991, Heart in Motion, was an even bigger success, thanks in part to the #1 hit single “Baby Baby”?

Answer 4

Amy Grant

Question 5

The title of this dance hit, no. 1 for 14 weeks in the ’90s, can refer to a Seville, Spain neighborhood or a woman from there.

Answer 5

Macarena

Question 6

What unusual feature was included on the original CD slipcase to the 1995 Pink Floyd album Pulse?

Answer 6

Each CD case came with a blinking red LED, powered by a battery inside. I just checked and mine stopped blinking sometime in the last 23 years.

Question 7

Awarded a scholarship to the Peabody Conservatory of Music at the astonishingly young age of 5, what singer/songwriter and pianist, who grew up in Baltimore and the DC suburbs of Maryland, released her debut solo album Little Earthquakes in 1992?

Answer 7

Tori Amos

Question 8

The oddly-named Butthole Surfers were a mainstay of strange rock and roll for years. In the mid-90s they began to diversify their sound, and mainstream audiences began to listen. They poured like an avalanche coming down a mountain with what overdue breakout hit in 1996?

Answer 8

Pepper

Question 9

While not actually brothers, what 90s and 2000s two-piece masqueraded as brothers with rhyming names, becoming an in-joke among their very dedicated fanbase? The band is perhaps most famous for their college radio hit “Push th’ Little Daisies.”

Answer 9

Ween

Question 10

Rock and Roll Oddity extraordinaire Weird Al Yankovic once asked Sir Paul McCartney for permission to record the song “Chicken Pot Pie” in an effort to parody one of McCartney’s most famous non-Beatles tracks. McCartney, however, refused the idea on the ground that it would promote the consumption of animal flesh. Which song did Al ask permission to parody?

Answer 10

Live And Let Die

Question 11

Outkast was part of this hip-hop collective that also included Killer Mike and Goodie Mob.

Answer 11

Dungeon Family

Question 12

What hip-hop supergroup featured Ice Cube, Mack 10 and and WC?

Answer 12

Westside Connection

Question 13

What hip-hop supergroup featured Nas, Foxy Brown and AZ?

Answer 13

The Firm

Question 14

What was the name of A Tribe Called Quest’s debut album?

Answer 14

People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm

Question 15

Which Atlanta rap group first used the term “trap” in their lyrics?

Answer 15

Ghetto Mafia

Question 16

Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise” samples what soul song?

Answer 16

Stevie Wonder - Pastime Paradise

Question 17

What was Xzibit’s breakthrough single, which appeared on his 1996 debut album At The Speed Of Life?

Answer 17

Paparazzi

Question 18

What rapper appeared on Jay-Z’s 1996 hit “Ain’t No…”

Answer 18

Foxy Brown

Question 19

What is the name of the debut album by The Fugees?

Answer 19

Blunted By Reality

Question 20

The diary of Nathan Adler or the art-ritual murder of Baby Grace Blue: A non-linear Gothic Drama Hyper-cycle is the name of the short story that appears in the liner notes of, and served as the basis for, what 1995 David Bowie album? It was his first concept album since 1973’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, as well as his first collaboration with Brian Eno since 1979’s Lodger.

Answer 20

Outside

Question 21

This reggae artist has been active since the 80s but found success in 1994 with his single “Here Comes The Hotstepper.”

Answer 21

Ini Kamoze

Question 22

Toni Braxton topped the charts and won a Grammy for this song that pleads “say you’ll love me again.”

Answer 22

Unbreak My Heart

Question 23

Name this mega hit, which appeared on the soundtrack to the film Rush and won Record and Song of the Year awards at the 1993 Grammy Awards. The artist wrote it partly in response to the tragic death of his four-year-old son who fell from a window.

Answer 23

Eric Clapton - Tears In Heaven

Question 24

What band, named by Melody Maker as 1992’s “Best New Band in Britain”, and considered to be one of Britpop’s “big four”, were forced to add ‘The London’ to their name in the USA, due to a trademark dispute with lounge singer Suzanne deBronkart?

Answer 24

Suede

Question 25

“It’s a _____ _____ kind of sky / Let me show you what I can do with it.” Fill in the name of the experimental visual artist Michael Stipe references in this R.E.M. lyric (the name by which he’s known to the world, not his given name of Emmanuel Radnitzky).

Answer 25

Man Ray

Question 26

The title of this REM song is a slight variation on the words Dan Rather claims his assailants said to him when he was assaulted while walking to his Manhattan apartment in 1986.

Answer 26

What’s The Frequency, Kenneth?

Question 27

One night in 1990, Kathleen Hanna of the band Bikini Kill wrote a five-word slogan in Sharpie on a motel wall. The first word was the name of the motel room’s current occupant; the remaining four words went down in rock history. Give the full five-word sentence.

Answer 27

Kurt Smells Like Teen Spirit

Question 28

1992–1993 was an eventful time for this scene: Archers of Loaf and Polvo released their debut albums, and the storied club Cat’s Cradle moved to the next town over. Oh yeah, and the local college basketball team won the national championship. Name the town.

Answer 28

Chapel Hill, NC

Question 29

Jeff Tweedy of Wilco and Jay Farrar of Son Volt were founding members of what seminal alt.country band based in the St. Louis suburb of Belleville, IL? As far as anyone knows, neither of them has a relative from Elvis’ birthplace.

Answer 29

Uncle Tupelo

Question 30

“Teardrop,” by the trip-hop band Massive Attack, is probably most famous as the theme song to what medical drama?

Answer 30

House M.D.

Question 31

Over the years, this band has released concept albums about goth culture, the Bible, pro wrestling, and the disintegrating marriage of the so-called “Alpha Couple,” but never (so far) about Oreamnos americanus.

Answer 31

The Mountain Goats

Question 32

How indie can you get? How about having a #1 song on the Billboard Hot 100 without even having a record contract? Such was the case of Lisa Loeb and the song “Stay (I Missed You).” It became a smash hit thanks to its inclusion on the soundtrack of what 1994 Gen X angst movie?

Answer 32

Reality Bites

Question 33

This indie luminary detailed the many ways bands get stiffed by major labels in his 1993 essay “The Problem With Music.” For his part, he’s long refused to take royalty payments for his work as a sought-after audio engineer (not “producer”).

Answer 33

Steve Albini

Question 34

The 1994 Supreme Court case Campbell vs. Acuff-Rose Music Inc centered around the decision of whether a 2 Live Crew parody of what original song qualified as fair use?

Answer 34

Roy Orbison - Pretty Woman

Question 35

Music video director Rene Elizondo, Jr. appeared on the September 1993 cover of Rolling Stone magazine–but only his hands. What musician was the real subject of that cover?

Answer 35

It was Elizondo’s wife at the time, Janet Jackson, whose cover photo added the word “handbra” to the national discourse.

Question 36

What three words have been redacted from this graffito, which recreates a phrase originally scrawled on an apartment wall by musician Kathleen Hanna in 1990?

Answer 36

Kurt, Teen Spirit

Question 37

The biggest hit by Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, in 1991, shared its name with a better-known single by what band?

Answer 37

“Good Vibrations” hit #1 for Marky Mark for one week in 1991, just as another song of the same name did for the Beach Boys in 1966.

Question 38

Who was the only artist to play every single date of the popular 1990s music festival Lilith Fair?

Answer 38

Why, it was pet lover/Lilith Fair cofounder/Canadian Sarah McLachlan, of course!

Question 39

What musician’s 20th studio album “Banana Wind” features the song “Jamaica Mistaica”, recounting a true incident in Jamaica on January 16, 1996 in which local authorities mistook his seaplane, the Hemisphere Dancer, for a smuggling operation and subsequently attempted to bring down the plane by gunfire?

Answer 39

Jimmy Buffet

Question 40

The song “Come With Me”, written & performed by Puff Daddy for the soundtrack to the 1998 film “Godzilla”, recreates what 1975 Led Zeppelin song, and even features Jimmy Page on guitar?

Answer 40

Kashmir

Question 41

In 1995, what artist used the instrumentation (and part of the title) from Stevie Wonder’s 1976 “Pastime Paradise” for his biggest hit?

Answer 41

Coolio (Gangsta’s Paradise)

Question 42

Name the heavy metal band, which formed in 1994 as “Burn the Priest”, whose current name comes from the section within the Ordinary of the Roman Catholic Mass known as Agnus Dei?

Answer 42

Lamb of God

Question 43

In a move some thought was crazy, Taylor Hawkins left his successful gig as the touring drummer for a famous Canadian singer-songwriter in order to join Foo Fighters. Name that singer-songwriter.

Answer 43

Alanis Morissette

Question 44

In 2020, Rolling Stone magazine named a 1998 song by what artist as the greatest debut single of all time—a song which, it could easily be argued, is also the most successful single of all time whose title begins with an ellipsis? Note, name the artist.

Answer 44

Britney Spears (“…Baby One More Time”)

Question 45

“Genius of Love” by Tom Tom Club, “Games” by Chuckii Booker, “The Humpty Dance” by Digital Underground, and “Feel The Heartbeat” by The Treacherous Three were among the many songs sampled, in part, and/or interpolated in what #2 Billboard hit from the mid-‘90s?

This song was featured in a 2017 Burger King ad campaign surrounding a Cheetos-based menu item and in a 2020 McDonald’s commercial in the UK promoting a gradual reopening of restaurants.

Answer 45

Mark Morrison - Return of the Mack

Question 46

The 1992 song “Deep Cover”, from the movie of the same name, was the first collaboration of two rap music icons who would go on to work together on their respective debut solo releases which were among the most successful rap albums in 1993. Name either of these two artists, who hail from the neighboring California cities of Compton and Long Beach.

Answer 46

Dr Dre, Snoop Dogg

Question 47

The 1993 album Stone Free, which featured Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Buddy Guy, Slash, Pat Metheny, and many others, was a tribute album celebrating what rock musician? This musician wrote a song with that album’s name and recorded it with his namesake band in 1966.

Answer 47

Jimi Hendrix

Question 48

Performance artist Michael Portnoy, who had been hired as an extra at the 1998 Grammys, suddenly pulled off his shirt and danced strangely at the front of the stage for almost half a minute right next to what artist who was performing his song, “Love Sick”? Later that evening this artist would win Album of the Year over OK Computer.

Answer 48

Bob Dylan