I know the Music round is my chance to score points on University Challenge, but for gods sake!!!

Popular culture at Oxbridge = "let's vote Paxman for Provost!"

See, Tico, it all sucked when you were there, It wasn't like that in the late 90s, no way, we rocked bells. < /ex-college disco DJ>

And now, three years after I left, I prolly know less abt pop culture, definitely abt hip-hop, which is what I liked then.

I agree with Robin loads here, btw, although I don't think I've tried to fit anyone on these boards into pre-existing stereotypes, mainly because I know very little about any of youse. Also, social classes aren't merely ideas, and they won't be changed by cultural revolution alone.

now let me say this: nick and dom DO NOT want a know-your-place society. they are not out to oppress anyone, but i would wager that they do not want to not be talked down to by someone whose sole reference to the outside world appears to be radio 1. needless to say, this is not healthy.

Agweelairier?

Ahgweelara?

They looked puzzled, embarassed and said techno to every one.

This was funny and far too much like that episode of The Young Ones.

(time changes: In the program intro montage, J.Rotten and Mick Jagger feature..)

Last night: music round, who is the lead guitarist:

"Whole lotta love" plays. eight blank faces. Suddenly one beeps:

"Um, Jeff Plant?"

(this is going to be a low scoring round)

Haha, yeah - although I got the subsequent ones completely and embarassingly wrong. Loads of music rounds in last night's one - guess the indie record label was choice. Warp Records on Uni Challenge, who'd have thwanked it?

even weirder - the second one was Fierce Panda - wtf? i actually saw the panda logo and thought - "that can't be fierce panda, surely?" and lo...

"Um, Jeff Plant?"

How's the UC rules, is last name sufficient for a correct answer?

(Yesyes I know it would still be wrong, but it would be a less laughable answer)

it was good when they had Derrick May's "Strings of Life" on it and were asked what genre it was associated with. Long pause followed by "....synth"

Sadly Paxman didn't shout exasperatedly "it was TECHNO, exactly what were you doing in the late 80s???"

"No, no, no, no - it's Factory records you clot!"

JPax missed his Roy Walker opportunity there: "Say what you see.."

"um, Panda up a tree?"

So, they played Patti Smith's "Elegia" from Horses, and said "Who's That?"

York buzz in early and say "PJ Harvey". Lose five points, but yeah, I can see that's not an unreasonable wrong answer.

So, the swot team get the whole song excerpt, and one buzzes in and goes" um, Barbra Streisand?"

"BARBARA BLOODY STREISAND???" says some bloke in our house, oh wait that was me.

(at least they got the eventual bonus round more or less OK, although my kids got the same points between them for Blondie and the Ramones)

That's Radio 2 programming policy for you - the only 1975 records they're allowed to play are Bo Rhap, Born To Run and I'm Not In Love.

Paxman seemed amazed that they got the bonus questions right.

I was quite surprised myself, given their team captain's Streisand gaffe. "X-Offender" wasn't an easy one to throw at them, either. (The theme of the round being "acts who started out at CBGBs".) And then they got "Psycho Killer" within seconds, ditto "Blitzkrieg Bop", with what looked like simultaneous recognition from all four team members. That's the power of the canon for you, I guess...

xpost: The last time I tuned into Radio 2, Chris Evans was indeed playing Born To Run! (They're also allowed to play Make Me Smile, of course...)

Well, they'd been clued in by the CBGB's reference by then.

Funnily enough, I'd been playing the Velvets to Voidoids comp in the car on the schoolrun last week.

Last week or the one before, question something like "What controversial record was placed at number 2 on the official singles chart during the 1977 Jubilee week despite widely being reckoned to be that week's number one seller?", blank looks all round and someone says "err... the Bay City Rollers", accompanied by the sound of me smacking my forehead

Mind you, I might've missed some of the ones on this thread already, so...

Need to make the questions harder, e.g. which TV soap opera featured guest appearances in 1993 from Gerry Marsden and Them Two Blokes Out Of Swinging Blue Jeans, The?

The (barely) revived Crossroads? Or Brookside?

Array it were Brookie, Frank Rogers and the Scotty Dogs like.

Haha. Man i miss Brookside. 'The Magic Rabbits' theme was great too.

Yesterday, JPax played "A Hard rain's a gonna fall" Bob Dylan to the two teams, but they failed to recognise it. Although one team member eventualy offered "Bob Dylan, um, Times they are a changing?"

So after some normal starters three cover versions of "Hard Rain", but blank faces all round for Barbara Dixon and Bryan Ferry, and one guess of Karen Carpenter for Joan Baez.

So, no students listen to old Bob anymore.

That Bryan Ferry one was hard to get, though, as it didn't really sound like him until the end of the sound clip when he went to the next verse, and my ears immediately clicked 'Roxy'.

They should have got Joan Baez simply by process of elimination -- it was clearly a '70s folky singer who wasn't Joni Mitchell, so there's only one other person it could have been.

My favourite was: jazz musician, born in Belgium in 1910, famous as the founder of the Quintette du Hot Club de France. Answer given: Adolphe Sax. I suppose at least they knew Adolphe Sax was Belgian.

at trivia last week there was a question about which singer was previously known as Elston Gunnn. Nobody got it.

I don't what singer was previously known as Elston Gunn

had to wiki it

I didn't know that either!

There was once one were they had to identify different genres of dance music, made deeply unfair by the fact that Paxman didn't have the faintest clue about any of it, but acted as if he did. Contestant: "That's jungle" Paxo: "No, it's obviously drum n bass" (withering stare).

Recently, they had a round where they played brief snips of the intro for all the tracks off an album. Kinda easy, and the team got them all except for:

"tinklytinkly/BAMBAMBAMBAM/skirrrrskirrrr"

Stude: "Um, The Velvet Underground?"
Paxo: "No, that's the third album, this was the Velvet Underground and Nico.."

that's totally unfair.

Well that depends on whether the question was to name the artist or the title. If he was after the title then I think Paxo was within his rights.

It was for the title, yes.

Suggests that Paxo is familiar with the VU oeuvre

The question was to name the album title and the dick was wrong and I was yelling him the right answer at the telly.

It was a "kooky" female art/design student who got it wrong

Was that the London College of Art or whatever? Pretty knowledgeable team on the whole in that episode.

Stude: "Um, The Velvet Underground?"
Paxo: "No, that's the third album, this was the Velvet Underground and Nico.."

I never really pay much heed to who's actually playing on the telly.

Tonight's resident indie dude recognised Strokes, Arcade Fire and Yeah Yeah Yeahs but mistook Radiohead, of all people, for Jose Gonzalez. You could see him wracking his brains for the name of the Gonzalez album. Tsk.

That made me laugh a bit.

Haha, oh God, none of them recognised John Lennon.

Or Otis Redding

Or Eva Cassidy (ok I can let them off that one).

I figured then most likely to have recognised Eva Cassidy given Lennon fail, tbh.

Times change:

Recently, the music round featured "bands/acts that Jack White has featured prominently in"

and the one guy on the Uni team got them all right.

I guessed at all but the last "White Stripes" one, in hope.

yeah the last few pop music rounds have been tough!

This weeks music round is a "Pazz and Jop" themed round.

I got none but the starter, the team guessed more obscure bands than the correct answers, and Jeremy clearly knew none of them.

I guess the days of "ummmm, The Who?" are well and truly over.

I somehow got TV on the Radio right even though I don't think I've ever heard them.

This week, music round was based on the momentous "Sex pistols 1st gig at the Lesser free trade hall" gig.

Specifically, the bands that had members that were there. As opposed to the 2nd etc.

(Mark E Smith wasn't at the first one, it has now been established)

I know the Music round is my chance to score points on University Challenge, but for gods sake!!! even my gran knows that Cole Porter sounds bugger all like Bo Diddley!!

Well, I laffed. So did paxo..

Trying to think what the other team got that wrong with.

But god to think further on that, unless Cole Porter was a totally random name, what does that say about timeless vital music. Just wondering if Bo can just sound like old music to people. I guess it's 60 years old now but I'd just find it too electrifying to categorise like that. Not to disparage Porter of course.
I guess the Sex Pistols are grandad music by now too. Does dadrock gain a generation as it gets older?

Yeah, I was laughing at that sequence.

Cole Porter/Woody Guthrie for Bo Diddley
Modest Mouse for The Cure
"don't know" for The Clash
Wham for George Michael (so close!)

Not that anyone needs to know this stuff, but the kids looked so lost.

Really do wonder if there was any thought behind the 2 suggestions for Bo Diddley beyond being names of old artists that the tema member had heard of.
Or odes it all blend into one great big continuum of old timey folky stuff without electronic beats.

Since most of the Cole porter I've heard has tended to be later interpretations wonder if there is much real similarity. An attempt to make popular music based on black rhythms and influences? But I bet the original still sounds pretty staid by today or even 50s/60s standards.

I'm guessing they were just naming old artists whose music they'd never actually heard (or never linked up with that name). And to be fair to Manchester, Paxman wouldn't let them go without taking a guess.

I'm constantly amazed at how simple the popular music questions are and how rarely they get them. Like I don't understand how you can live your life knowing the most obscure aspect of fluid dynamics but not recognise a really famous top ten single.
I guess more and more it's basically 'they're young'

Most 19 year-olds not hugely interested in 20-30 year-old pop music feels reasonable

Also less and less likely to access music thru older curators like "classic radio" etc

Also always been posh kids on UC who don't have much interest in pop music of any era

infuriates me when they act all embarrassed for actually knowing a pop music question

Well that's a different kind of douchiness but hardly limited to kids

yes, but it's a common occurrence on the TV show University Challenge

It's usually Paxman who starts it

that's true

It's sad/irritating when kids have those packaged opinions about things they're too young to have experienced as "live" cultural moments but if my boy's anything to go by I blame reading and watching too many internet Fantanos

"received wisdom": not quite an oxymoron but something like that

Posts, yes if its something like knowing the lineup of One Direction or some such, but genuine annoyance if its something they 'should' know, (see the 'Velvet Underground AND NICO' up thread)

I think the relative importance of 1D or the VU is your opinion, not a historical truth, and to a 19-20 year-old that's an even more arbitrary distinction.

Sure, but then that's what this quiz is about: Knowing the year of accession of King Henry III vs the year Ringo joined the Beatles. In 1972 only one of these facts were deemed important.

Something about pop music questions not being tied into canonicity - it's a different kind of question/knowledge, just as akin to current affairs or sociology as it is to catalogues of dates. By kinder's argument upthread I see no difference between the likelihood of knowing about the Beatles or Drake or fluid dynamics or etc

Or in shorter words, thinking one pop question should be more obvious than another is nothing but a product of age and upbringing.

The idea that out of 1D and VU, only one would be in a library.

(Not an actual library obv, one of those fusty old ones that politicians like to stand in front of to look important)

Most 19 year-olds not hugely interested in 20-30 year-old pop music feels reasonable

Pretty sure some have been more contemporary though. I wasn't making the argument that one pop question should be more obvious than another, not at all, in fact that's what astonishes me is that as a rule they hardly ever get them right whether it's VU or Elton John.
Plus I disagree, I don't set out to listen to Katy Perry or w/ever but somehow it just gets absorbed by my brain somewhere while I'm doing other things, or some info on pop culture will be thrust in my face while I'm online or standing in a shop - this doesn't happen with physics facts.

I would love to see a list of past music questions.

http://play.bbc.co.uk/play/pen/g9bwm75d4q

Well, here's a BBC quiz that ties in with this quiz, so hey its Friday so as the great Hans Keller obce said, 'after all, why not?'

Nice, thanks. 8/10 on my first attempt. Not good enough :/

9/10

8/10 which is a lot higher than I though since my answers were about 50/50 complete guesses or slightly educated guesses

Well, here's a BBC quiz that ties in with this thread, so hey its Friday so as the great Hans Keller once said, 'after all, why not?'

fixed. my typing is worse than my score on that test (hey, how could it not be?)

7/10

(I'll admit: I got them all)

8/10

(I should have got the Bowie one right. Manc bands? Who gives a flying one?)

I remember that Bowie one on the show : It threw them too.

9. Was guessing on the Salieri one

9. Unlike Hans, I didn't grow up with string quartets sucka

9, but mostly guesses

Awwww..

I mean, Johnny Cash and June Carter as a wrong guess (actually Nick Cave and Kylie) is fair enough, but the discussion was nearly Kate Bush and Vic Reeves!

First time for a long time, a music round with rock bands that want naming.

So, they got U2, missed Bruce in favour of Jeff Beck, and thought the 'not the best band in the world, they're better than that' review referred to Oasis.

But, hey.

Oh and they did get AC/DC to be fair

"Outkast! Correct. Four more examples of Alabama based rap, name the artist...."

I’ll be honest I got OutKast and Ludo but couldn’t name the other two...

And today, The Who get a play-on.

Team gets it plus all the bonus round thanks to the Rob Newman lookalike.

At which, Paxo goes "not such a wasted youth then!"

I guess he is a Who fan, like Pete s said, upthread.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wi5SJKI6RpU

I think Jeremy Seller deserves better than being written off as a Rob Newman lookalike. Amongst other things he's the guy behind acid brass - https://www.jeremydeller.org/AcidBrass/AcidBrassMusic.php - and got Leftfield like a shot in the last round so he's not just a Who fan either.

Deller, thx autocorrect.

Oh I didn't realise it was he.

Still, though...

(wasn't dismissing him, just noting his stylistic difference)

Ok, so “Stiff Records” I could probably pick as my specialist subject on Mastermind..

I’ll allow the Dead Kennedys as a decent guess..

But, The Overtones is about as far away from “New Rose” by The Damned as you could get!

Plummet Airlines would have foxed me, but probably nothing else.

Nah, no bother even there