UK Number 40 Hits - 1984 to 1989 Trivia Quiz | Music

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Which old Beatles song did Tina Turner take to number 40 in 1984?

Answer: Help

1984 was a good year for Tina, as she enjoyed great success with her "Private Dancer" album and had several chart triumphs with various tracks from it.

2. Which gender bending pop star reached the bottom rung of the charts with "You Don't Love Me"?

Answer: Marilyn

Whether Marilyn (real name Peter Robinson) actually believed he was the reincarnation of his idol Monroe or not is unclear - she died the year he was born - but the title of this hit was prophetic anyway, as it was his last chart entry of any kind.

3. Which band, whose name sounds like a famous Hardware Store, had a number 40 hit with the song "Genie"?

Answer: BB & Q Band

BB & Q actually stood for "Brooklyn, Bronx and Queens" and the band was a funk outfit whose sole entry in the Guinness Book of Hit Singles was this number 40 hit.

4. Blancmange had seven UK top 40 hits overall. Their last reached number 40 in 1985. What was it?

Answer: What's Your Problem?

Stephen Luscombe and vocalist Neil Arthur recorded some classy singles in the early eighties. The three most well known ones are the top ten hits "Living On The Ceiling", "Blind Vision" and the paranoid sounding "Don't Tell Me".

5. Which track, with the same name as an old Beatles ballad, did Julian Lennon have a minor hit with?

Answer: Because

"Because" was originally a US hit for the Dave Clark Five, peaking at number three in 1964.

6. There have been several versions of the perennial hit "White Christmas", but who took it to number 40 in 1985?

Answer: Keith Harris and Orville

Shockingly, the cheesy ventriloquist and his nappy wearing green duck puppet Orville proved they were not a "One Hit Wonder" after the top 10 success of "Orville's Song", and grazed the top 40 again with this atrocity. Harris has even made something of a comeback in recent years, winning the Channel Five reality TV show "The Farm" in 2005 and appearing in several cult comedy shows.

7. More festive fun - This song is always played at Christmas time, but it only just made the chart. What is it?

Answer: Chris De Burgh - "A Spaceman Came Travelling"

One of the few Christmas songs NOT to mention the word "Christmas" anywhere in its lyrics, you would be forgiven for thinking this was a top ten hit. Having said that, it fared better than The Waitresses' track "Christmas Wrapping", which peaked at a lowly number 45.

8. Back in the early eighties, there was an alarming spate of records released by children's choirs. Which of the following tribes of tots made number 40 with "The Queen's Birthday" song?

Answer: St. John's College and the Band of Grenadier Guards

Thankfully most of these choirs failed to make much of an impact, except for the cringeworthy "There's No-one Quite Like Grandma" by St. Winifred's School Choir, which was - horrifyingly - a number one smash in 1980. One of the girls from that choir was Sally Lindsay, who went on to play Shelley Unwin in the hugely successful soap "Coronation Street".

9. What was the title of Mantronix's number 40 hit of 1987?

Answer: Who Is It?

Mantronix were a fairly influential hip-hop and electro funk group founded in Manhattan in 1984. They would go on to score their biggest UK hit, the number four "Got To Have Your Love", three years later, assisted by Wondress.

10. What was unusual about 1989 for number 40 hits?

Answer: There weren't any

1989 was a fine year for music - especially albums - if you ask me: "Doolittle" by Pixies, "Hup" by The Wonder Stuff, the Stone Roses' self titled debut, "Disintegration" by The Cure and Neil Young's "Freedom" were all released this year, and ALL of those would make my all time top 50!

11. Which brotherly group reached number 40 in 1988 with "Stalemate"?

Answer: McCampbell Brothers

The McCampbell Brothers had previously scored a UK number eight hit and a US Billboard number one smash when featured on the Mac Band's "Roses Are Red".

12. Marc Almond just grazed the top 40 with "Bitter Sweet" before going on to have a number one hit called "Something's Gotten Hold Of My Heart" with which now deceased sixties icon?

Answer: Gene Pitney

I interviewed Marc shortly before he suffered a life threatening motorcyle accident and I found him to be thoroughly charming with a wicked sense of humour, describing his former band Soft Cell as "the seedy underbelly of the North". Thankfully he recovered against all medical expectation and was out of the hospital within a matter of months.

13. What was the name of the male model who reached number 40 with "Tell Me"?

Answer: Nick Kamen

Hilariously sent up in the Carling Black Label television commercials featuring Stephen Frost and Mark Arden, Kamen was the chap who stripped to his boxer shorts in an advert for Levi's jeans.

14. One of my favourite bands had their first top 40 hit (of a dozen) in 1989. It was called "It's Yer Money I'm After, Baby". Who released this single?

Answer: The Wonder Stuff

The Wonder Stuff were part of a scene that came out of the West Midlands in the late 1980s which also included Ned's Atomic Dustbin and Pop Will Eat Itself. The "Stuffies", as us fans liked to call them, were the pick of the bunch though and I think it's a crying shame that their albums never get mentioned in these "Greatest Albums Of All Time" polls that various publications are so fond of running.

Sadly, original bassist Rob "The Bass Thing" Jones passed away in 1993 from a drug overdose, and drummer Martin Gilks died in a motorcyle accident in 2006, leaving only vocalist Miles Hunt and guitarist Malc Treece as surviving founder members.

15. Disregarding re-entries and re-issues, how many singles peaked at number 40 during the 1980s?

Answer: 35

There were nearly 200 number one singles during the eighties. You see? It's a FAR more impressive feat to reach number 40!

Source: Author DUFFMONKEY

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor agony before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

UK Number 40 Hits - 1984 to 1989 Quiz

The third quiz in my trilogy of the hits that never quite made it... As ever, all answere can be verified by checking the "Guinness Book Of British Hit Singles".

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