Test your basic knowledge |

Music Appreciation

Subjects : performing-arts, music
Instructions:
  • Answer 50 questions in 15 minutes.
  • If you are not ready to take this test, you can study here.
  • Match each statement with the correct term.
  • Don't refresh. All questions and answers are randomly picked and ordered every time you load a test.

This is a study tool. The 3 wrong answers for each question are randomly chosen from answers to other questions. So, you might find at times the answers obvious, but you will see it re-enforces your understanding as you take the test each time.
1. Slick variety of rhythm & blues - often with lush orchestral accompaniment: the O'Jays - the Spinners - Al Green - Barry White.






2. Got his start in the 1960s as a member of the famous folk rock duo Simon and Garfunkel. His album Graceland (1986) was a global collaboration recorded in South Africa - England - and the United States. It is the album responsible - more than any othe






3. Singer-songwriter Who wrote many hits in the 1960s with Gerry Goffin. In 1971 - the success of her album Tapestry made her a major recording star.






4. Device that standardized digital technologies - enabling devices produced by different manufacturers to 'communicate' with one another.






5. Band that originated in the 1960s San Francisco rock scene. Their career spanned more than three decades.






6. Country vocalist who scored crossover hits with songs such as 'I Fall to Pieces -' and 'Crazy -' both recorded in 1961.






7. Tragic victim of conflicts between East and West Coast factions within the hip-hop business. He was an up-and-coming star with Los Angeles-based Death Row Records when He was shot and killed in Las Vegas in 1996.






8. The norm since the introduction of recording in the nineteenth century. Transforms the energy of sound waves into physical imprints (as in pre-1925 acoustic recordings) or into electronic waveforms that closely follow (and can be used to reproduce) t






9. The first commercially successful white act in hip-hop. Their early recordings represent a fusion of the youth-oriented rebelliousness of hardcore punk rock—the style they began playing in 1981—with the sensibility and techniques of hip-hop.






10. Got his start in the 1960s as a member of the famous folk rock duo Simon and Garfunkel. His album Graceland (1986) was a global collaboration recorded in South Africa - England - and the United States. It is the album responsible - more than any othe






11. Upbeat variety of rock music represented by artists such as Elton John - Paul McCartney - Rod Stewart - Chicago - and Peter Frampton.






12. Gangsta rapper born in Long Beach - CA - He was a protaga of Andre 'Dr. Dre' Young and collaborated on Dr. Dre's 1992 album The Chronic. Snoop's soft drawl and laid-back-but-lethal gangster persona were featured on Doggystyle - which debuted at the t






13. Singer-songwriter Who wrote many hits in the 1960s with Gerry Goffin. In 1971 - the success of her album Tapestry made her a major recording star.






14. 'The Queen of Soul -' she began singing gospel music at an early age and had several hit records with Atlantic - including 'Respect' in 1967 and 'Think' in 1968.






15. Centered on the creation of a strong rhythmic momentum or groove - with the electric bass and bass drum often playing on all four main beats of the measure - the snare drum and other instruments playing equally strongly on the second and fourth beats






16. Device that standardized digital technologies - enabling devices produced by different manufacturers to 'communicate' with one another.






17. Ice's first album - To the Extreme (1990) - monopolized the Number One position for sixteen weeks in early 1991 - selling seven million copies. When it was discovered that Van Winkle - raised in reasonably comfortable circumstances in a middle-class






18. Genre that developed out of hard rock in the 1970s and achieved mainstream success in the 1980s.






19. The most original - inventive - and influential guitarist of the rock era - and the most prominent African American rock musician of the late 1960s.






20. DJ and leader of the furious five - he developed many of the turntable techniques that characterized early hip-hop music.






21. Marketing category that emerged around 1990; it is most often used to describe bands like are.E.M. - Sonic Youth - the Dead Kennedys - and Nirvana.






22. Form of rock music that blended elements of rock and European classical music. It included bands such as King Crimson; Emerson - Lake - and Palmer; and Pink Floyd.






23. Achieved celebrity as a member of the art rock group Genesis before embarking on a solo career. Gabriel's best-selling single 'Sledgehammer' became Number One pop and Number Sixty-one R&B in 1986. The award-winning video version of 'Sledgehammer' was






24. DJ and leader of the furious five - he developed many of the turntable techniques that characterized early hip-hop music.






25. Form of dance music popular in the late 1970s - characterized by elaborate studio production and an insistent beat: Donna Summer - Chic - the Village People - the Bee Gees.






26. In progressive country - performers wrote songs that were more intellectual and liberal in outlook than their contemporaries and were more concerned with testing the limits of the country music tradition than with scoring hits. The key artists includ






27. Born in Mexico - he began his musical career playing guitar in Tijuana. He formed his band in San Francisco in the late 1960s. Their 1971 album Abraxas established a Latin American substream within rock.






28. Singer and guitarist who founded the alternative rock band Nirvana. His recordings broke through to the commercial mainstream and popularized grunge rock. He shot himself in Seattle in 1994.






29. Extreme variation of punk - pioneered during the early 1980s by bands in San Francisco (the Dead Kennedys) and Los Angeles (the Germs - Black Flag - X - and the Circle Jerks).






30. Sophisticated approach to the vocal presentation and instrumental arrangement of country music; a fusion of 'country' and 'cosmopolitan.'






31. The most important woman in the history of hip-hop - in terms of both her commercial success and her effectiveness in establishing a feminist beachhead on the male-dominated field of rap music.






32. The most successful white blues singer of the 1960s. Born in Port Arthur - Texas - Joplin came to San Francisco in the mid-1960s and joined a band called Big Brother and the Holding Company.






33. The most important woman in the history of hip-hop - in terms of both her commercial success and her effectiveness in establishing a feminist beachhead on the male-dominated field of rap music.






34. Heterogeneous category that includes artists from Africa - the Near East - and Asia—the ultimate margins of the American music industry.






35. Form of dance music popular in the late 1970s - characterized by elaborate studio production and an insistent beat: Donna Summer - Chic - the Village People - the Bee Gees.






36. Rock style that emerged in the late 1970s. It was a 'back to basics' rebellion against the perceived artifice and pretension of corporate rock music—a stripped-down and often purposefully 'nonmusical' version of rock music.






37. Pioneered West Coast gangsta rap with the release of the album Straight Outta Compton. Their recordings expressed the gangsta lifestyle - saturated with images of sex and violence. The nucleus of the group was formed in 1986 - when O'Shea ;Ice C






38. Hip-hop artist whose work is a self-conscious alternative to the violence and sexism in the work of rap stars such as Dr. Dre - the Notorious B.I.G. - and 2Pac Shakur. Her commitment to female empowerment builds on the ground-breaking example of Quee






39. Music played by San Francisco bands that encompassed a variety of styles and musical influences - including folk rock - blues - 'hard rock -' Latin music - and Indian classical music.






40. The most influential and economically successful member of N.W.A. He founded an independent record label (Death Row/Interscope) - cultivated a number of younger rappers - and continued to develop a distinctive hip-hop production style - christened 'G






41. Kurt KObain's band - Nevermind album






42. Co-founded in 1984 by the hip-hop promoter Russell Simmons and the musician-producer Rick Rubin. During the 1980s - Def Jam cross-promoted a new generation of artists - expanding and diversifying the national audience for hip-hop - and in 1986 became






43. Founded in 1982 - Public Enemy was organized around a core set of members who met as college students - drawn together by their interest in hip-hop culture and political activism. The group included the standard hip-hop configuration of two MCs—Chuck






44. Hip-hop culture - forged by African American and Caribbean American youth in New York City - included distinctive styles of visual art (graffiti) - dance (an acrobatic solo style called breakdancing and an energetic couple dance called the freak) - m






45. Style of electronic dance music that originated in the Detroit area during the 1980s.






46. African American musical style rooted in R&B and gospel that became popular during the 1960s.






47. Style modeled on that of the early acoustic string bands; probably the original 'alternative country' music.






48. The leader of the Wailers and a national hero in his native Jamaica - Marley was reggae's most effective international ambassador. His songs of determination - rebellion - and faith - rooted in the Rastafarian belief system - found a worldwide audien






49. Prince is one of the most talented musicians ever to achieve mass commercial success in the field of popular music. He has sold almost forty million recordings. Between 1982 and 1992 - he placed nine albums in the Top 10 - reaching the top of the cha






50. The first commercially successful white act in hip-hop. Their early recordings represent a fusion of the youth-oriented rebelliousness of hardcore punk rock—the style they began playing in 1981—with the sensibility and techniques of hip-hop.