Well the response to this quiz has been kinder than I thought.
When I wrote this quiz,I had expected it to be "small square" front page item, like "Counties of California" or "V Speech", interesting to a small group, but not to everyone's taste. Having read complaints that so many music quizzes were Americentric, I thought I could at least appease the Anglocentric crowd.
So to answer your questions, and even some that weren't asked:
- Why 8 weeks? It was an arbitrary choice, mostly to limit the size of the quiz. More weeks would make the list too short, fewer would make it much longer.
- Why "Two Tribes" instead of "Relax"? Well, "Relax" was banned by the BBC for its sado-homoerotic content and imagery. That was enough to get it to #1, but not for 8 weeks.
- Elvis: Has anyone found the "alternate" answer for this title? It's a sort of Easter Egg and is legitimately equivalent to the actual answer. If so, post the answer in comments so you can boast about your discovery.
- So what were the biggest UK hits for the big UK acts mentioned? Not surprisingly, The Beatles came closest to making this list. Both From Me To You and Hello Goodbye spent 7 weeks atop the charts. The Stones biggest UK hit was Honky Tonk Women at 5 weeks on top. The Who never had a UK #1, but two songs reached #2: My Generation and the novelty I'm A Boy. (That's still better than in the States, where The Who have only ever had one top ten, I Can See For Miles which made #9!)
- And Led Zeppelin? They've made the singles chart only twice in their career. And both times were more than 10 years after they split! In 1997, about 27 years after it was recorded, Whole Lotta Love was finally released as their first single, and made #21. Then in late 2007, when their catalogue was made available on iTunes, Stairway To Heaven reached #37 on digital sales. Zep were definitely not a singles band.
- And finally, no grapes on cereal, but yes, Grape Nuts are still made. |
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