Long hair and loons don’t tell the whole story of the seventies, a decade during which social unrest was followed by a spell of retrenchment and conservatism that carried over into much of the eighties. It may have been an era of three-day weeks and power cuts, but it was also a period defined by great leaps forward in human rights and freedom of expression. Here are 30 questions about it. If you get stuck, call your dad.
Answers: here
1 What was the title of War’s 1975 US Top 10 single about cruising around in a 1948 Chevy? Which American comic duo featured the song in their 1978 stoner comedy Up in Smoke?
2 Which song became Golden Earring’s biggest hit in 1973 and an enduring school disco favourite for the next 20 years? In which country did the band enjoy most success?
3 Who came Alive! in 1976 on one of the biggest-selling live albums ever released? Featuring a wah-wah guitar intro, what was the album’s lead single that gave the singer his only UK Top 10 hit?
4 Whose mum gave Dr Hook their first UK Top 10 single in 1972? Later that year, which magazine held a dream for them?
5 How did ‘Pigs’, ‘Sheep’ and ‘Dogs’ have an impact on the albums chart in 1977? Which famous London landmark featured on the cover of the record?
6 Who replaced Bernie Leadon as the guitarist in the Eagles between 1975 and 1976? What was his only UK Top 20 single as a solo artist, taken from the album But Seriously, Folks . . .?
7 City to City was a big-selling album by Scottish songwriter Gerry Rafferty largely due to the success of which single, featuring a famous saxophone solo? With which band had Rafferty previously been the singer?
8 Which band’s finest moment was ‘More than a Feeling’, the opening track to their first, eponymous album in 1976? Which US city were the band from?
9 Queen’s anthems ‘We Will Rock You’ and ‘We Are the Champions’ are the opening two tracks on which album from 1977? What’s the name of the next track on it, which seems to belong on their earlier 1974 album?
10 Who connects pop band Slik with Band Aid? With which hard rock band did he play guitar from 1979 to 1980 as an emergency replacement for Gary Moore?
11 Which seventies prog rock band featured Sonja Kristina on vocals and the classically trained violinist Darryl Way? What was their only hit single?
12 Manifesto, Roxy Music’s 1979 ‘comeback’ album (they had only been away for four years), spawned two UK Top 10 singles. What were they?
13 Which Geordie folk rock band released an album called Fog on the Tyne in the summer of 1971? Who duetted with the band on a new version of the title track in 1990, taking the song back to number two?
14 ‘Yodelling has no place in popular music,’ begins a chapter of Stuart Maconie’s book Cider with Roadies. To which 1973 hit was he referring? And what was the title of the band’s even more successful follow-up single?
15 By what name were Mick Ronson, Trevor Bolder and Mick Woodmansey better known in 1972? With which prog band did Bolder have a long career from 1976?
16 Which member of the Dad’s Army cast had a UK number one with ‘Grandad’ in 1970? Which T Rex single, their first significant UK hit, was kept at number two by it?
17 Michael Parkinson, Christopher Lee, John Conteh and Clement Freud are among the celebrities who posed as escaped convicts for the cover of which classic seventies album? Which track was the first single to be taken from it?
18 Which rock and roll revival band from Leicester enjoyed ten UK Top 10 singles between 1974 and 1978? What was their only number one?
19 According to Boney M, who ‘brought up her sons to handle a gun’? And who was ‘a cat who really was gone’ and ‘big and strong, in his eyes a flaming glow’?
20 ‘Save the Children’, ‘Wholy Holy’, ‘Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)’ are all tracks from which 1971 Marvin Gaye album? Who produced it?
21 Which seventies TV series lauched the career of Julie Covington? Which member of Roxy Music co-wrote the show’s songs with Howard Schuman?
22 On his 1973 album Billion Dollar Babies, what did Alice Cooper tell us he didn’t want to be any more? But what, on the same album, did he want to be?
23 Which track from Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours became the theme tune for the TV coverage of Formula 1? Which Stevie Nicks song, originally the B-side of ‘Go Your Own Way’, was added to later reissues of the album?
24 Which movie soundtrack stayed at number one on the albums chart for 18 weeks in 1978? Which classic soundtrack from 1965 has spent the most total weeks on the UK chart?
25 Which band started as an offshoot of the Move, when Roy Wood and Jeff Lynne wanted a side project to develop some different ideas? And which band did Wood go on to form in 1972?
26 ‘I won’t laugh at you, if you boo hoo hoo . . .’ What’s next in the lyrics to Slade’s first UK number one? And what was their sixth and final chart-topper, released late in 1973?
27 In 1971, what became Diana Ross’s first solo UK number one hit in 1971? Which then-BBC Radio 1 DJ is credited with having persuaded her label to release the song as a single?
28 Which 1974 single gave Status Quo their only UK number one? And with which 1977 hit did the group open Live Aid at Wembley Stadium?
29 Mott the Hoople acquired a loyal following during the early seventies. What was their preferred form of ‘Boogie’? And from where did they travel all the way to the UK top 10 in 1973?
30 Who were the brothers at the heart of seventies glam pop band Sparks? What’s the title of their brilliant 1974 album, which spawned the singles ‘This Town Ain’t Big Enough for Both of Us’ and ‘Amateur Hour’?