Rolling Stone's 500 "Greatest Albums" Part 5 Quiz

Answer: Melodrama

In June 2017, Lorde released her second studio album, "Melodrama". Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor, to give her full name, was born in New Zealand and got into music at an early age, working in the genre of electro pop, and admitted to influences by jazz and soul singers. At the age of 17, she was featured on the cover of "Rolling Stone" magazine.

"Melodrama" was a huge hit, going straight in at the top of the Billboard 200 album charts. It also got good reviews and was nominated for a Grammy. Writing in "The Times" in 2016, Will Hodgkinson noted the album had "a uniquely jarring quality to it that gets under your skin. A sense of oddness that makes the album, like its creator, stick out."

As well as the USA, the album topped the charts in Australia, Canada and New Zealand and was number five in the UK.

Answer: Moon

Scott Ramon Seguro Mescudi was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and was noted as a rapper, songwriter and actor. In 2009 "Man on the Moon: The End of the Day" was his debut album and the first part of a trilogy. It was launched to commercial success and reached number four on the Billboard 200.

Answer: Southeastern

A native of Green Hill, Alabama, Jason Isbell was raised in a musical family, and got his start in the commercial music business in a garage band. At the age of 16 he played the Grand Ole Opry. By the age of 22 he was touring with the Drive-By Truckers and already honing his talent as a songwriter.

His first album "Sirens of the Ditch" was released in 2007 and in 2016 came his fourth, "Southeastern". While it only got to number 23 on the Billboard 200, it was a number seven on the Billboard Top Rock Albums charts. The opening track "Cover Me Up", a song for his new wife Amanda Shires won the Song Of The Year award at the 2014 Americana Music Awards.

Answer: Want

Controversy seemed to follow Co Dublin born Sinéad O'Connor wherever she went. At one time she shaved her head in protest against traditionally-held views, by men chiefly, on women and was ambivalent about her sexuality. In 2018 she converted to Islam. Years earlier she had been "ordained" as a priest by a very far from official Catholic organisation. She also spoke out against the Catholic church's treatment of unmarried mothers and their children in Ireland.

"I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got" was O'Connor's second album and topped the charts in 16 countries, including the USA, UK, Ireland, Canada and Australia. Her singles version of the Prince song "Nothing Compares 2U" was also a chart topper.

Answer: Greatest

Al Green was born near Forrest City, Arkansas, in 1936 and cut his teeth musically singing gospel songs with his family. That ended when the family disassociated him for listening to secular music, such as that by Jackie Wilson. In the early 1970s Green had a number of hits, including "Let's Stay Together", which sold well on Billboard charts, hitting number one on the Hits Dance Club charts.

But just when it looked the future was bright, Green walked away from the music business to become an ordained pastor. For many years he sang only gospel music, but by the end of the 1980s had started to sing secular songs again. "Rolling Stone" magazine included him on their "100 Greatest Artists of All Time" list.

Answer: Go

Bo Diddley was born in McComb, Mississippi, in 1928 and died in Florida in 2008. He was to become one of the most influential performers in the early years of rock and roll music. He began to record blues music in Chicago, adopting the name Diddley after the diddley bow, a one-stringed African guitar he had encountered in the American south. Through the 1950s and the early 1960s, Diddley recorded regularly and influenced many others in his stripped back style of guitar playing.

"Go Bo Diddley" was his second album. Bo Diddley was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.

Answer: Bamyasi

Can were a bunch of German psychedelic rockers who burst onto the European music scene in the late 1960s and stayed there for a decade. The band were noted for their improvisation, even in the studio, and their concert performances were described as "intense". While the mainstream pop industry seemed to ignore them, they were to be cited as influences by the new wave punks who started to emerge in the 1970s.

"Ege Bamyasi" was their third album. The single "Spoon" became a German top 10 after it was used as theme music for a TV show. Ege Bamyasi is the Turkish name for a type of okra vegetable found in the Aegean region.

Answer: Pretty

"Pretty Hate Machine" was released by Nine Inch Nails as their debut album in 1989. Trent Reznor recorded the demos late in the night while working at Right Track Studio in Cleveland, Ohio. Described as an "industrial rock" band, NIN had some difficulties with their record company who said it with was not what they had been promised and Reznor was unhappy with the way it was promoted.

For all that, the record went triple platinum: three million sales in the USA. It topped out at number 75 on the Billboard 200.

Answer: Anthology

For lovers of the sounds of the sixties, there were few better sounding combinations than Diana Ross and the Supremes (regardless of how they were billed). Forty-five of their singles entered the Billboard Hot 100; 20 reached the top 10; and 12 reached number one.

Released in 1974, "Anthology" was a collection of their very best: 35 songs on six discs. That grew to 49 for the 1986 re-release, and there were more additions in 2001. The songs selected were by Diana Ross and the others, songs credited to The Supremes after Ross left were not included.

Answer: First

In 1972, Roberta Flack took "First Take", her third album, to the top of the Billboard Top LPs chart. Central to the success of the album was her cover of Ewan MacColl's "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face", which topped the Hot 100 for six weeks. The single also won a Grammy and was picked by Clint Eastwood for his movie "Play Misty For Me" (1971).

Ewan MacColl had written the song for his lover Peggy Seeger - they later married. She was half-sister to American folkie Pete Seeger. MaColl's daughter, Kirsty, recalled an incident when the song was riding high in the charts saying her dad had written it - and was not believed.