I struggled with the country songs and scored 20/24.
You’ve probably heard the big announcement, but the Australasian Crested Grebe dominated New Zealand’s bird of the century competition. It scored 290,374 votes, 22.5 times as many as the North Island Brown Kiwi, which placed second.
Graham Fyfe is probably the only music blogger to appreciate Neil Diamond and Ariana Grande. Aphoristic Album Reviews features reviews and blog posts across a growing spectrum of popular music.
39 Comments
24/24, 2:28 left. Around a third of them were lucky guesses.
Wow – good work. I’m amazed at all the 24/24s this week.
Score not worth noting. ‘First Cut’ you may know is an old Cat Stevens song recorded by everybody. And unless I missed it, you’ve cleverly left out the fact that that bird won entirely due to John Oliver’s influence.
I love that song. It’s so great. The only other one I know is Rod Stewart besides Cat Stevens.
I didn’t know she sang that one. That looks like it was from about 1975 or something. Did she do it on any of her albums too? It was awesome.
Not that I’m aware of, which seems odd. She has a live album, and it’s not even on that.
That was pretty cool – not recording a studio version seems like a wasted opportunity.
Absolutely. I did check and could find no studio version. Surprising. She killed everything she sang.
Wikipedia says 6 different versions were hits – although I only know 3, I think.
I liked how John Oliver got involved. Way more votes and donations than usual. The kiwi came second even though John Oliver described it as a rat carrying a toothpick.
Sometimes towns get their quiet revenge in Mr. Oliver.
I only saw the top ten, and they didn’t make it into that. The Kakapo (a fat, flightless parrot) represented NZ though.
Now I remember that another one that we used to have was budgie. I think the ones that are green and yellow are budgies and the ones that are white with other colors are parakeets. And we also had finches, but they were like real fragile or something and they died quickly. I remember one time I bought one at Woolco and and by the very next morning it was already dead!! So we didn’t get those anymore.
Budgies have a few different colours – there are blue ones, yellow ones, green ones, maybe more.
My childhood budgie died on lead poisoning. We didn’t realise until afterwards, but its cage had lead paint and it got addicted. We covered it with newspaper but it would just chew through and hit the paint.
I never thought of lead poisoning. I don’t think we ever had a painted cage though. If you used to wrap the cage in newspaper, how could you see the birds? I don’t get it.
My brother said that it was my fault that the birds always died because I used to give them things to eat that you’re not supposed to. You’re only supposed to give them bird food and seed and I used to give them things like bread and crackers and cookies and stuff. I don’t think that was why they died though.
Represented parrot-kind, I mean….
24/24 with 1:48 remaining. Not the fastest, but I got ’em all again. And congrats on the winning bird!!
Great work!
24/24 with 2:32 remaining. Those grebes are such show boats…
I’ve never actually seen one. I think they’re extinct in the North Island, but recovering in the South.
For someone who has many blind spots in popular music throughout this millennium, my 19/24 score is not bad. Congratulations to that grebe. Apparently its selection had a lot to do with TV personality John Oliver.
Good work! The contest got WAY more votes than usual.
23/24 for me this week.
Great work – that was a tough one.
I only got 15/24. Which actually wasn’t too bad considering there was only about three that I didn’t have to guess at. About 20 of them I never even heard of before. The 2000s suck ass.
I normally find things I like in every year. 2005 is a terrible year for mainstream pop though, as we’ve been discussing on the Crazy Frog post. Especially in NZ, where Crazy Frog topped the charts for 16 (I think?) weeks.
16 weeks??!! Holy crap. I wonder what’s the longest time for a number one in the United States. I’ve heard of things like 6 or 8 weeks but I don’t think anything close to 16.
15/24. I really don’t know my 2000s apparently.
You clearly know your 2000s indie.
On this quiz, it wasn’t nearly enough.
There’s a 1980s punk/indie quiz that I’ve been wanting to post. I think you’d smash it, but many other regular competitors would bomb out.
I don’t mind bombing out. Keep doing what you’re doing. These weekly quizzes are fun when I get to them.
Wow, this was harder than I thought! I got 14/24, which is 58%.
Good job.
Thanks for the quiz! I had fun!
11/24 most of them guessing.
I was trying to work out how you scored out of 24, before I realised you were talking about last week.
ooh, Yes I was swamped last week and totally missed the quiz, but when I went looking yesterday I saw it so took both quizzes on same day.
24/24, 2:28 left. Around a third of them were lucky guesses.
Wow – good work. I’m amazed at all the 24/24s this week.
Score not worth noting. ‘First Cut’ you may know is an old Cat Stevens song recorded by everybody. And unless I missed it, you’ve cleverly left out the fact that that bird won entirely due to John Oliver’s influence.
I love that song. It’s so great. The only other one I know is Rod Stewart besides Cat Stevens.
Here’s a nice one from a singer you’ll know.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UwNtgPsjuf8&pp=ygUYZmlyc3QgY3V0IGlzIHRoZSBkZWVwZXN0
I didn’t know she sang that one. That looks like it was from about 1975 or something. Did she do it on any of her albums too? It was awesome.
Not that I’m aware of, which seems odd. She has a live album, and it’s not even on that.
That was pretty cool – not recording a studio version seems like a wasted opportunity.
Absolutely. I did check and could find no studio version. Surprising. She killed everything she sang.
Wikipedia says 6 different versions were hits – although I only know 3, I think.
I liked how John Oliver got involved. Way more votes and donations than usual. The kiwi came second even though John Oliver described it as a rat carrying a toothpick.
Sometimes towns get their quiet revenge in Mr. Oliver.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Oliver_Memorial_Sewer_Plant
What place did Parakeet finish?
I only saw the top ten, and they didn’t make it into that. The Kakapo (a fat, flightless parrot) represented NZ though.
Now I remember that another one that we used to have was budgie. I think the ones that are green and yellow are budgies and the ones that are white with other colors are parakeets. And we also had finches, but they were like real fragile or something and they died quickly. I remember one time I bought one at Woolco and and by the very next morning it was already dead!! So we didn’t get those anymore.
Budgies have a few different colours – there are blue ones, yellow ones, green ones, maybe more.
My childhood budgie died on lead poisoning. We didn’t realise until afterwards, but its cage had lead paint and it got addicted. We covered it with newspaper but it would just chew through and hit the paint.
I never thought of lead poisoning. I don’t think we ever had a painted cage though. If you used to wrap the cage in newspaper, how could you see the birds? I don’t get it.
My brother said that it was my fault that the birds always died because I used to give them things to eat that you’re not supposed to. You’re only supposed to give them bird food and seed and I used to give them things like bread and crackers and cookies and stuff. I don’t think that was why they died though.
Represented parrot-kind, I mean….
24/24 with 1:48 remaining. Not the fastest, but I got ’em all again. And congrats on the winning bird!!
Great work!
24/24 with 2:32 remaining. Those grebes are such show boats…
I’ve never actually seen one. I think they’re extinct in the North Island, but recovering in the South.
For someone who has many blind spots in popular music throughout this millennium, my 19/24 score is not bad. Congratulations to that grebe. Apparently its selection had a lot to do with TV personality John Oliver.
Good work! The contest got WAY more votes than usual.
23/24 for me this week.
Great work – that was a tough one.
I only got 15/24. Which actually wasn’t too bad considering there was only about three that I didn’t have to guess at. About 20 of them I never even heard of before. The 2000s suck ass.
I normally find things I like in every year. 2005 is a terrible year for mainstream pop though, as we’ve been discussing on the Crazy Frog post. Especially in NZ, where Crazy Frog topped the charts for 16 (I think?) weeks.
16 weeks??!! Holy crap. I wonder what’s the longest time for a number one in the United States. I’ve heard of things like 6 or 8 weeks but I don’t think anything close to 16.
15/24. I really don’t know my 2000s apparently.
You clearly know your 2000s indie.
On this quiz, it wasn’t nearly enough.
There’s a 1980s punk/indie quiz that I’ve been wanting to post. I think you’d smash it, but many other regular competitors would bomb out.
I don’t mind bombing out. Keep doing what you’re doing. These weekly quizzes are fun when I get to them.
Wow, this was harder than I thought! I got 14/24, which is 58%.
Good job.
Thanks for the quiz! I had fun!
11/24 most of them guessing.
I was trying to work out how you scored out of 24, before I realised you were talking about last week.
ooh, Yes I was swamped last week and totally missed the quiz, but when I went looking yesterday I saw it so took both quizzes on same day.