MetaQuiz: Songs on the Radio About The Radio (7)

Answer: Queens of the Stone Age

Queens of the Stone Age are a heavy rock group that was founded in California in 1996.
"Boombox Generation" goes like this:
"we're happy if our songs get heard at all
so bring forth donations
for the boombox generation
that's right,"
while "God is in the Radio" goes like this:
"I thought I saw him on the video
A trance is keeping him under
I know that god is in the radio
Checkin' the station."

Answer: Israel

"Can you hear the pirate radio? Turn it up, the sound,
of revolution come on,
Play it loud and steal the air while you can,
because were going back in time."

In 2018, Guy Carmel was the only original member still with the band which was formed in Haifa, Israel. The new members included Yotam Ben-Horin, Ishay Berger, and Corey Ben Yehuda.

Answer: Frank Zappa

The vocals on the song are in the style of half-spoken, half sung. Te song feature Zappa immersing into 1950s horror and science fiction B-movies. Actor John Agar is mentioned in the lyrics, he being an actor appearing in many of the movie genre's films.

And now a sample of the silliness:
"The navigator always gets killed by a bad space person
Uh-oh -- the radio is broken
It don't work anymore
The radio is broken
It don't work anymore
The radio is broken
It don't work anymore
We'll never get back to the Earth no more
Uh-oh!
We have to fall in love on Uranus!
The radio is...
That's right -- uh-oh
The radio is broken
The meteor storm
You spilled your coke
You're stepping on the popcorn
JOHN AGAR!"

Answer: Shemekia Copeland

In a radio interview on NPR, interviewer and host Debbie Elliott she felt the song was a commentary of the state of popular music today.
Ms. Copeland sang some of the song for her:
"I want passion, I want feeling.
I want to be rocked from the floor up to the ceiling.
Make it rough, make it smooth,
just as long as I can feel the Earth move.
But something's missing when I turn off the lights.
I need some music to help me through the night.
I want to know..."

But she then conformed the interviewer's assessment saying that "The best part about radio, I think, in the past was was that people [DJs] got a chance to play things that reflected their personalities, you know, and that's what made radio so cool in the past. You just played something because you like it. And I think now a lot of radio disc jockeys and people are forced to play things just because it's what's popular and they don't really get a chance to play stuff that they like."

Answer: Journey

This is the only Journey album on which Randy Jackson (yes that Randy Jackson, of "American Idol") plays bass. The album reached number four on the Billboard 200. It had four singles chart on the Billboard Hot 100.

From the song:
"Mister D.J. make a dedication
Cause I'm All Shook Up over Peggy Sue
I'm Mister Blue,
The hits keep rockin' station to station
In the Midnight Hour in the Sea of Love
My Turtle Dove."

Answer: Fishbone

Founding members of Fishbone included: John Norwood Fisher on bass, Philip "Fish" Fisher (John's brother) on drums, Angelo Moore (vocals, saxophones and theremin), Kendall Jones on guitar, Walter A. Kibby II on trumpet and vocals, and Christopher Dowd on keyboards, trombone, and vocals.

"These are the voices of modern industry
They spell the power that fuels the factory
These are milk and oats of the mix
And screwed... of the airtime
This is the sound behind the machine
These are the voices
These are the voices
These are the voices
This is an emergency broadcast
This is only a test...
This is only a test...
This is only a test..."

Answer: Pink Floyd

Though all those bands were formed in 1965, Roger Waters was a member of Pink Floyd. He was originally a bass player for them, but when Syd Barrett left the band in 1968, Waters took over some of the lyricist and vocalist load.

From his song "Radio Waves":
"He hears radio waves, radio waves
The atmosphere is thin and cold
The yellow sun is getting old
The ozone overflows with radio waves
AM, FM, weather, and news
Our leaders had a frank exchange of views
Are you confused?
Radio waves"

Answer: The Selecter

The Selecter is a ska band while the other bands listed are all emo which according to Urbandictionary.com is the musical genre that is most opposite ska. They say it's because emo is sadder, while ska with its calypso fast tempo is much happier sounding.

The Selecter tookits name from the term "selector", which is a Jamaican word for disc jockey.

Answer: The Smiths

"Hang the blessed DJ
Because the music that they constantly play
It says nothing to me about my life."

Those lyrics from the song were inspired by an incident in which The Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr was listening to the radio with Morrissey when a report on the tragedy of Chernobyl came out. At the conclusion, the radio station launched right into the peppy song "I'm Your Man" by Wham! This incensed Johnny Marr and so he wrote the lyric above.

Answer: Patti Smith

The song is twelve minutes long and includes the lyrics:
"City of stars City of scholarship
Science City of ideas
City of light City
City of ashes"

It is about an Iraqi mother trying to sing a lullaby to her child as bombs are dropped around them. When the song was written American forces had occupied Baghdad.