60 Fun Facts About Hard Music

Recording of Queen's 'Bohemian Rhapsody' began in August 1975 at which studio near Monmouth, Wales?

The band rehearsed for three weeks at a Herefordshire farmhouse first, then used four more London studios for overdubs, some sections carrying 180 of them.

Everyone knows the first video MTV aired in 1981. Which artist's clip was played second?

Her cover of the Young Rascals' 'You Better Run' followed the Buggles on launch day, making her the first woman ever seen on the channel.

Which country's anthem, the 'Marcha Real', is one of only three with no official lyrics?

The other two wordless anthems belong to Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo. Several sets of Spanish lyrics have been proposed and all quietly abandoned.

What was the first George Harrison composition to appear on a Beatles album?

It sits on 1963's With the Beatles, years before 'Something' and 'Here Comes the Sun' made his songwriting famous.

Which 1975 double album of pure guitar feedback became the most returned record in RCA's history?

Lou Reed's follow-up to a hit live album has no songs at all, just layered distortion running over an hour, and it still sold 100,000 copies before people sent it back.

Which Billy Joel album is generally cited as the first ever released commercially on compact disc?

It reached Japanese shops on 1 October 1982 as one of 50 CDs launched that day, but carried the first catalogue number in the sequence.

Which 1985 album was the first to sell a million copies on CD?

Dire Straits' fifth album was recorded digitally and became the format's showcase; it was also the first album whose CD sales beat its LP sales.

The band behind 'Born to Be Wild' took its name from a 1927 novel by which author?

The group had been a Canadian outfit called the Sparrows until producer Gabriel Mekler suggested renaming them Steppenwolf in 1967.

Dolly Parton wrote 'I Will Always Love You' as a farewell to which longtime duet partner and mentor?

Elvis wanted to record it too, but his manager demanded half the publishing and Parton refused, a decision she says later bought her Graceland.

In Haydn's 'Farewell' Symphony, what do the musicians do one by one during the final movement?

It was Haydn's hint to his patron Prince Esterházy that the orchestra wanted to go home to their families; only two muted violins are left at the end.

Which composer's TV soundtrack won the very first Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 1959?

The Music from Peter Gunn beat Frank Sinatra to the first-ever prize; its title theme later became a staple for surf bands and the Blues Brothers.

Which act scored the first US number-one single to feature rap vocals, in 1981?

'Rapture' name-checks Fab 5 Freddy and Grandmaster Flash, and its video is one of the first times a hip-hop scene appeared on mainstream TV.

Before joining Nirvana in 1990, Dave Grohl drummed for which Washington, D.C. punk band?

He joined at 17, replacing Kent Stax, and only auditioned for Nirvana after the band broke up mid-tour.

Which country won the first Eurovision Song Contest in 1956, held in its own city of Lugano?

Lys Assia's 'Refrain' took the prize; the host nation was also one of only seven countries competing.

On 'Good Vibrations', inventor Paul Tanner played the eerie sliding tone on which instrument?

It looks like a box with a slide, not a true theremin, and keeping its volume steady took 26 takes before Brian Wilson had a usable mono mix.

Country star Harold Lloyd Jenkins picked his famous stage name from what?

He became Conway Twitty by combining Conway, Arkansas with Twitty, Texas, and went on to score dozens of country number ones.

Who produced Captain Beefheart's famously chaotic 1969 double album 'Trout Mask Replica'?

The Magic Band rehearsed for eight months in a rented house before cutting most of it in a single session at a Glendale studio.

Frank Sinatra's 'My Way' is an English adaptation of a 1967 hit by which French singer?

Paul Anka heard 'Comme d'habitude' on holiday in France, bought the rights, and rewrote the words for Sinatra in a single night.

The Verve's 'Bitter Sweet Symphony' was built on an orchestral recording of a song by which band?

The Andrew Oldham Orchestra's version of 'The Last Time' cost Richard Ashcroft his royalties for 22 years, until Jagger and Richards handed them back in 2019.

Willie Nelson's battered Martin guitar 'Trigger' is named after whose horse?

The nylon-string N-20 has a hole worn clean through its top and has been on every Nelson record since 1969.

Bob Dylan won an Academy Award for Best Original Song for 'Things Have Changed', written for which film?

He accepted the 2001 Oscar by satellite from Australia, mid-tour, and has kept the statuette on his amplifier at concerts.

Who was the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

She was inducted in 1987, only the Hall's second year, and Keith Richards gave the induction speech.

Which Bryan Adams ballad spent a record sixteen consecutive weeks at UK number one in 1991?

It was written for Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and stayed on top from July to late October, a run no single has matched since.

Which composer wrote the 1987 opera 'Nixon in China', with a libretto by Alice Goodman?

It premiered at Houston Grand Opera in a Peter Sellars production and turned a 1972 diplomatic trip into three acts of minimalist music.

Which 1991 shoegaze album by My Bloody Valentine was rumoured to have nearly bankrupted Creation Records?

Estimates of the cost ranged up to £250,000 and Kevin Shields disputed them all; Creation dropped the band anyway soon after release.

Which Italian song, known in English as "Volare", won the first Grammys for Record and Song of the Year?

Domenico Modugno's recording remains the only foreign-language song ever to win Record of the Year.

Long before Soft Cell's synth-pop hit, 'Tainted Love' was first recorded in 1964 by which soul singer?

Her version was a B-side that flopped, then became a Northern Soul floor-filler in Britain; Jones later became Marc Bolan's partner.

Joan Jett's 'I Love Rock 'n' Roll' was originally recorded in 1975 by which British glam band?

Jett saw the Arrows perform it on their own UK TV show while touring with the Runaways and cut her version six years later.

The Bangles' hit 'Manic Monday' was written by which star under the pseudonym 'Christopher'?

It reached number two in the US in 1986, held off the top spot by his own single 'Kiss'.

Which Elton John record was the first album ever to debut at number one on the Billboard 200, in 1975?

His autobiographical concept album pulled off the feat first; his next release, Rock of the Westies, did it again months later.

Which 1968 Wendy Carlos album, played entirely on a Moog, was among the first classical records to go platinum?

It reached number ten on the pop chart and did more than any advertisement to make the Moog a household name.

Which Wilco album did Reprise reject in 2001, only for another Warner label to release it in 2002?

Nonesuch Records put it out in 2002 and it became the band's best-selling album, meaning Warner effectively paid for it twice.

Which is the only Beatles album on which every song was written by Lennon-McCartney?

It was also the first Beatles LP with no cover versions; every later album carried at least one Harrison or Starr composition.

Which blues guitarist founded Fleetwood Mac in 1967, initially billing it under his own name?

He left in 1970 after giving away most of his money, years before Buckingham and Nicks turned the band into a pop juggernaut.

In Prokofiev's 'Peter and the Wolf', which instruments represent the wolf?

The bird is a flute, the duck an oboe, the cat a clarinet and the grandfather a bassoon; the hunters' shots are the kettle drums.

Berry Gordy launched the label that became Motown in 1959 with a family loan of how much?

The money came from a Gordy family savings cooperative and paid for the first Tamla release, Marv Johnson's 'Come to Me'.

Which dancer commissioned Ravel's 'Boléro', originally asking for Albéniz orchestrations?

Ravel found the Albéniz rights were taken and wrote an original piece instead, later calling it a masterpiece with no music in it.

Who choreographed the sensational 1913 Paris premiere of Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring"?

The word 'riot' was only attached to the premiere years later; contemporary reviews described uproar but no fistfights.

Before going solo, Björk fronted which Icelandic band formed in 1986?

Their debut single 'Birthday' made them college-radio darlings abroad, and they split in 1992 the year before her album Debut.

Who made the original recording of 'Hound Dog' in 1952, four years before Elvis Presley's version?

The Leiber and Stoller song topped the R&B chart for her; Elvis learned it from a Las Vegas lounge act's parody rather than her record.

Which 1997 record is the best-selling country album of all time?

Shania Twain's third album has sold more than 40 million copies and produced twelve singles over a three-year campaign.

Kathleen Hanna's graffiti that inspired 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' referred to what kind of product?

Cobain assumed it was a revolutionary slogan and only learned months after the single's release that Teen Spirit was something sold in drugstores.

Which record overtook 'Kind of Blue' in August 2026 as the highest-certified jazz album in the US?

Vince Guaraldi's 1965 soundtrack was certified six times platinum, edging past the 1959 Davis classic that had held the title for decades.

Which song holds the record for the most total weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100?

Mariah Carey's 1994 single never reached the top until 2019, then kept returning every December to stack up more than twenty non-consecutive weeks.

At which 1967 festival did Jimi Hendrix famously set his guitar on fire at the end of 'Wild Thing'?

It was the Experience's first major American show; Hendrix knelt over the Stratocaster, doused it in lighter fluid and smashed it seven times.

Under what name did Led Zeppelin play their first UK tour in October 1968?

Jimmy Page had inherited the Yardbirds' remaining tour dates; the new name came weeks later, allegedly from a Keith Moon joke.

Which keyboardist is the only artist credited alongside the Beatles on a single, 1969's "Get Back"?

The label read 'The Beatles with Billy Preston' at the band's own request; he also played on the rooftop concert.

Which guitarist recorded the solo on Michael Jackson's 'Beat It' free of charge, as a favour?

He cut two takes while the rest of his band was out of town, and later called himself a fool for not asking to be paid.

Which pianist gave the 1952 premiere of John Cage's silent piece '4′33″'?

The first performance was at the Maverick Concert Hall in Woodstock, New York, where the open windows let in wind and rain as the 'music'.

Freddie Mercury was born Farrokh Bulsara in 1946 in which then-British protectorate?

His family fled the island's 1964 revolution for England, and he only adopted the Mercury surname when Queen formed in 1970.

Schubert's 'Unfinished' Symphony, begun in 1822, is which of his numbered symphonies?

He completed just two movements and never explained why; the score sat in a friend's drawer for more than 40 years before its premiere.

Which jingle writer became Brian Wilson's lyricist on Pet Sounds after they met in a Los Angeles studio?

Their partnership began within ten days of meeting, starting with 'You Still Believe in Me'.

What household object was used as a guitar slide on the Pet Sounds instrumental 'Let's Go Away for Awhile'?

Wilson called the track, with 12 violins and four saxophones, 'the finest piece of art' he had made to that point.

Whose yacht was Ringo Starr aboard in Sardinia when he was inspired to write 'Octopus's Garden'?

Starr took the trip after quitting the band for two weeks during the White Album sessions.

Abbey Road was the first Beatles album with which technical distinction?

Recorded on eight-track machines rather than four-track, Abbey Road was never released in mono.

What was the tentative title of Nirvana's second album while it was still planned for Sub Pop?

The album planned as 'Sheep' became Nevermind after Nirvana shopped their demos to major labels.

Which mixer did Nirvana pick for Nevermind because of his work on Slayer's Seasons in the Abyss?

Cobain avoided big-name producers on DGC's list; Novoselic said they agreed 'because those Slayer records were so heavy'.

What was the working title of Fleetwood Mac's Rumours during the Sausalito sessions?

Recorded at the Record Plant in Sausalito in 1976, the album became Rumours and won the 1978 Album of the Year Grammy.

Which institution originally commissioned Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in 1817?

London's Philharmonic Society commissioned it in 1817; the premiere came in Vienna on 7 May 1824.

Who officially conducted the 1824 premiere of Beethoven's Ninth, sharing the stage with the deaf composer?

Umlauf, the theatre's Kapellmeister, led the players; contralto Caroline Unger famously turned Beethoven around to see the applause.