Here, as mentioned in this recent piece about Pop Master, is a round-up of the “3-in-10” questions for 2019. As you probably know, Pop Master is the mid-morning quiz on the Ken Bruce Show on BBC Radio 2, and the final challenge for the winning contestant is this: in 10 seconds name 3 Top 75… Continue reading Pop Master: the “3-in-10” questions, 2019
Here, for the third year in a row, is a summary of my time spent listening to Pop Master, the mid-morning quiz on the Ken Bruce Show on BBC Radio 2. This piece from 2017 (“100 Rounds of Pop Master”) explains the format of the quiz, and notes that this is the most listened-to slot… Continue reading One Thousand Rounds of Pop Master
If you learn to play guitar or piano you will probably end up with a repertoire, a set of songs that you can play for your own amusement, or to entertain others. It might consist of just two or three songs but it’s still a repertoire. If you can only play one song, then you… Continue reading Word of the week: repertoire
It’s a while since a line from a song prompted me to write one of these occasional pieces about lyrics. It has happened again this month, with a performance by Rudimental on the Zoe Ball Breakfast Show on BBC Radio 2. Zoe Ball took over the morning slot from Chris Evans at the start of… Continue reading “How you gonna win when you ain’t right within?”
Pop Master, the mid-morning quiz that forms part of Ken Bruce’s BBC Radio 2 show, has been mentioned many times on this Blog, including this lengthy piece from last summer (“600 Round of Pop Master”). As you will know if you are one of the 7.5 million people who tune in to that part of… Continue reading More Pop Trivia: 15 acts who had one big hit and at least one less well-known hit
Here in the UK there have been five complete decades of chart history, from the 1960s through to the 2000s. The first official singles chart was in 1952, so the 1950s are incomplete. So is the current decade, the 2010s, at least until December. A few months ago I was preoccupied with the concept of… Continue reading Stuck at 2: every complete decade of the UK singles chart (1960-2010)
You will be familiar with the work of Ed Sheeran, a staggeringly successful singer-songwriter. His world tour last year grossed more money than any other live tour, $432m according to this piece in the Guardian. Yes, you read that right: four hundred and thirty two million dollars, paid out by people all over the world… Continue reading Sometimes the formula doesn’t work
Yesterday, Paul Gambaccini’s “Pick of the Pops” show on BBC Radio 2 featured the charts from this week in 1971 and 1988. Can you recall the Christmas #1s from those years? The answers appear below. It’s the kind of information that people of my generation (those of us who followed the charts closely) might retain… Continue reading Christmas #1s, and biting the dust at 52
Last week, on his BBC Radio 2 Breakfast Show, Chris Evans played “Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand” by The Beatles, a German-language version of their 1963 #1 “I Want to Hold Your Hand”. I remember enough of my O Level German to know that the title is not a direct translation. “Komm, Gib Mir Deine… Continue reading “Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand”
For the third time this month I have posted a list containing a decade’s worth of “Stuck at 2” songs on the Trivia Menu. These are songs that almost made it to #1 in the UK chart but missed out by one place. Today’s list, which you can see here, is for the whole of… Continue reading Stuck at 2: the whole of the 1990s
The Compartments 