James Marshall Hendrix was born in Seattle. After his discharge from the army he became a musician, spending years gigging with acts like Little Richard, Sam Cooke, and Ike & Tina Turner. Despite his immense talent, it wasn’t until he…
The Bangles’ work has two facets. There’s the 1960s garage rock sound of their early singles and reunion work. And there’s the mainstream pop/rock of ‘Manic Monday’ and ‘Eternal Flame’. Susanna Hoffs formed a band with lead guitarist Vicki Peterson…
Every New Zealand #1 single… 1 Mississippi by Pussycat Topped the NZ chart for 11 weeks from 19 March 1976 ‘Mississippi’ is a country song by the Dutch band Pussycat. It pushed Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ off the top of the…
There might be one final outtakes quiz, but we’ve reached the end of the alphabet. There aren’t many famous X,Y, and Z albums – even with all three, I think it’s one of the tougher quizzes in the series. …
Of the indie guitar bands proffered by Dunedin’s Flying Nun label in the 1980s, Straitjacket Fits were the most likely to break through to a mass audience. The Fits were based around two vocalists and songwriters who were an unlikely…
We have music from both sides of the pond this week. There’s folk from Richard Dawson and blackgaze from Deafheaven. The two acts don’t have much in common, but both vocalists are acquired tastes – Dawson’s warbling and George Clarke’s…
The success of Rhino’s 1998 Nuggets boxset justified a follow-up. The sequel covers the rest of the world since the first volume only chronicled the USA. Nuggets II: Original Artyfacts from the British Empire and Beyond, 1964–1969 emerged in 2001.…
This quiz is fun – it might be the only Sporcle quiz to feature Julie Andrews and Lou Bega together. Can you complete the titles of these 16 list songs. It’s not too tricky, so please record your time if…
Jessie Ware is the UK’s most likeable pop star. She’s charming where other mainstream acts leave me cold. Ware has a gorgeous voice, but she’s closer to Sade’s sophisticated poise than Celine Dion’s vocal histrionics. Ware’s dance-pop and blue-eyed soul…
Bread struck AM gold in the early 1970s, with a sentimental string of soft-rock hits written by David Gates. David Gates had contributed to the rich tapestry of 1960s music – he wrote The Murmaids’ #3 hit ‘Popsicles and Icicles’…
