Saturday, November 22, 2014

NAME THAT TUNE (AGAIN)!



By time out, we’re returning to the charts of November 1984.  Looking at the Top Ten albums for the week of November 24th, 1984, the # 1 album was “Purple Rain” from Prince.  # 3 was Tina Turner’s “Private Dancer”.   The Honey Drippers album “Volume One” was at # 5.  Huey Lewis & The News had the # 7 album with “Sports”.  And the # 9 album that week was Billy Ocean’s “Suddenly”.  That’s the odd numbered albums anyway.  The five questions for this quiz involve the names of the albums that were the even numbers.  Good luck.       
              
QUESTIONS

1.  The # 2 album for the week of November 24th came from a musician who was born in New Jersey.  In fact, he’s one of that state’s favourite sons.  He’s won 20 Grammy Awards, a Golden Globe and an Academy Award (and many more).  He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999.  This superstar was featured on the cover of both Time and Newsweek magazines the same week, October 27th, 1975.  He is tireless on stage and has become legendary for his 3 hour plus concerts.  The albums’ cover photo shows a photo of this performer from behind with a red bandana in his right pocket and the American flag in the background.  Seven of the songs from this album went into the Top Ten.  What’s the name of this 1984 best selling album?       

2.  The # 4 album for that November week in 1984 was the soundtrack for a movie starring Kelly LeBrock.  The songs in the movie (and the soundtrack album) were written and recorded by a Motown legend.  One of those songs, “I Just Called To Say I Love You”, was # 1 on Billboard Magazine’s Hot 100 chart for 3 weeks in October ‘84.  Can you name the movie and this ‘wonder-ful’ songwriter/performer/producer?       

3.  Daryl Hall and John Oates had the # 6 album that week.  It was album number twelve for the Philadelphia duo.  A couple of hits came from this album – “Out of Touch” and “Method of Modern Love”.  The album has three short words in its title, all starting with the letter ‘B’.  Hope that helps.  What’s the name of this 1984 Hall & Oates classic album?            

4.  # 8 on Billboards’ album chart for November 24th, 1984 came from another Motown superstar.  He’d been a member of a hit making ‘70’s Motown group before embarking on a successful solo career.  This was the third best selling album of 1984 and garnered this artist 5 Top Ten hits, which included two # 1’s.  For some strange reason, this album also made the country charts and climbed to # 55.  Go figure, since it was not a country album.  Can you name this singer/songwriter originally from Tuskegee, Alabama?      

5.  Finally, the album that was at # 10 during the week of November 24th in ’84 was by a female singer who’s so unusual.  Well, she’s more eccentric than unusual, but boy is she talented.  She hails from Queen’s, New York and still carries that accent around with her wherever she goes.  On TV, she’s played herself on such shows as “Queer As Folk”, “Kathy Griffin: My Life On The D List”, “ and “30 Rock”,  From 1993 to 1999, she appeared in 5 episodes of the Paul Riser/Helen Hunt sitcom “Mad About You” as Marianne Lugasso and in 2009, she was a contestant (but didn’t win) on the Donald Trump reality series, “Celebrity Apprentice 3”.  From 2009 to 2013, she played the recurring character of Avalon Harmonica on the TV series “Bones”.    Her debut album, released in 1983, became a huge hit around the world, climbing to # 4 on Billboard Magazine’s album chart.  Like most girls, she just wants to have fun.  So who is this ‘kinky’ performer?

ANSWERS

1.  Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen is the artist – the album is “Born In The U.S.A.”, which was the best selling album in the U.S in 1985 (and Springsteen’s most successful album to date) with sales of 30 million copies worldwide.  The seven songs from “Born In The U.S.A.” that made Billboards’ Hot 100 chart Top Ten are: “Dancing In The Dark” (# 2), “Cover Me (# 7), “Born In The U.S.A.” (# 9), “I’m On Fire” (# 6), “Glory Days” (# 5), I’m Goin’ Down” (# 9) and “My Homtown” (# 6).  “Born In The U.S.A.”, the album, went to # 1 in eleven countries, including the U.S. and Canada.   

2.  The soundtrack that peaked at # 4 was “The Woman In Red”.  Stevie Wonder wrote all of the songs except one (an instrumental by Ben Bridges).  Dionne Warwick sang the Stevie Wonder written “Moments Aren’t Moments” on her own, plus Dionne and Stevie sang two other songs as a duet.  “I Just Called To Say I Love You” from the movie’s soundtrack became Stevie’s 8th # 1 single.  That song went on to win an Academy Award for ‘Best Original Song In A Motion Picture’.  Although this album only got to # 4 in North America, it did make # 1 in Norway, Italy, Spain and Sweden.        
    
3.  The Hall & Oates album that was # 6 for the week of November 24th was “Big Bam Boom”.  It would climb one more spot on the album chart the following week to reach its highest position of # 5.  Of the two hits from “Big Bam Boom”, “Out of Touch” got to # 1 while “Method of Modern Love” climbed as high as # 5.   
                  
4.  Lionel Richie is the man with all those hits from his 1984 “Can’t Slow Down album.  The singles that made the Top 5 are:  “All Night Long (All Night)”, which went to # 1; “Running With The Night”, which climbed to # 7; “Hello”, also a # 1 hit; “Stuck On You” which got to   # 3 (as well as # 24 on Billboards’ Hot Country Singles chart) and “Penny Lover”, a # 8 hit.  “Can’t Slow Down” had been # 1 on Billboards’ album chart in December of ’83 and spent the entire year of ’84 (all 52 weeks) in the Top Ten.  “Can’t Slow Down” won the Grammy Award for ‘Album of the Year’ in 1985 and had sales of over 20 million.                      
  
5.  Her full name is Cynthia Ann Stephanie Lauper, but she’s much better known as Cyndi Lauper.  Her 1984 album is “She’s So Unusual”, which had climbed to # 4 on the album chart back in June of ’84 and spent 21 weeks in the Top Ten (although not consecutive weeks).  Cyndi has sold over 50 million albums worldwide, plus an additional 20 million singles.  At the Grammy Awards in 1985, Cyndi cleaned up, winning ‘Best New Artist’, plus ‘Album Of The Year’ for “She’s So Unusual”.  Her # 1 song, “Time After Time” won the Grammy for ‘Song of the Year’.  “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”, her first solo hit, took home the Grammy statuette for ‘Record of the Year’ and ‘Best Female Pop Vocal Performance’.  During her career so far, she’s won 15 Grammy Awards.  Cyndi’s won 3 of the 4 biggest show business awards, an Emmy, a Grammy, and a Tony.  The only one missing is the Oscar (give her time).  Her 2013 Tony Award was for ‘Best Score Written For the Theatre’ for the Broadway production, “Kinky Boots”. 

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