The Chain is officially the longest listener-generated thematically linked sequence of musically based items on the radio. As all regular 6 Music listeners will know, it is a Radcliffe and Maconie feature whereby listeners connect one track to another, and the next listener picks up where the last one left off and continues the connected sequence.
This quiz is simple: two sets of 30 questions, which make up one chain of 60 connected answers. The chain closes at the end as the answer to 60 refers back to the first question.
Answers: here
1 Who played the stylish picked guitar on Bob Dylan’s 1979 Christian album Slow Train Coming?
2 What was the 1984 comeback album that relaunched the career of Tina Turner?
3 What was the opening track on that album, reputed to be reflective of Tina’s notion that she was an Egyptian ruler in a previous life?
4 Which album gave Queen their first UK number one?
5 And which song from the album gave them similar success in the singles’ charts?
6 What was the Dandy Warhols’ only UK Top 10 single, in 2000?
7 Whose self-named 1967 debut album featured a picture of a banana, painted by Andy Warhol, on the cover?
8 Who was that band’s primary songwriter, having a hand in all the tracks on that debut?
9 With which band did this artist collaborate on the 2011 album Lulu, the last he made before his death in 2013?
10 The fourth single from that band’s . . . And Justice for All album became a concert standard and was also a Grammy winner for best metal song. What is the song?
11 U2 released a song with the same title on their 1991 album, Achtung Baby. Who covered it on the third volume of his American Recordings series in 2000?
12 Who was the American producer and founder of Def Jam records behind this series of recordings?
13 For which band did he produce a number of albums through the peak of their career, including the 1999 breakthrough Californication?
14 In a break with this arrangement, the band’s 2016 album was producd by which member of pop-dance act Gnarls Barkley?
15 What was this duo’s massive selling hit worldwide in 2006?
16 Who had a hit in 1962 with a Willie Nelson-penned song with the same title?
17 What was the title of this singer’s hit that became the title of a biopic made about her life, starring Jessica Lange?
18 Which British band had a big hit with the same title in 1983?
19 The Eurythmics drummer is also an integral part of Blondie: what is his name?
20 Blondie had a big hit with ‘The Tide Is High’. Which girl band did the same in 2002?
21 What is the derivation of the title of the OMD hit ‘Enola Gay’?
22 Whose 1979 single, ‘Nuclear Device’, was a dig at the right-wing Governor of Queensland, Australia at the time, Joh Bjelke-Petersen?
23 The same band released an excellent cover of the Bacharach and David song ‘Walk On By’ in 1978: who had the original hit with this song?
24 And who composed her biggest UK hit, ‘Heartbreaker’ (1982)?
25 Why was ‘Jive Talkin’’ the odd track out on the multi-million-selling Saturday Night Fever soundtrack?
26 Who wrote the title track to the following year’s musical sensation, Grease?
27 And who sang it?
28 Which Beatles’ song was at number one in the UK for five weeks from November until late December 1963?
29 Who replaced the Beatles at the top early the following year with their first number one, ‘Glad All Over’?
30 When that band were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008, which of their hits did Joan Jett sing, having recorded it on a 1981 album and used it as a live staple?
31 What was the title of that Joan Jett album and also her chart-topping single off it, comfortably her biggest hit?
32 Who covered this song on her second album and also sang it in her 2002 showcase movie, Crossroads?
33 Which singer-guitarist had a 1991 hit with the song ‘Girlfriend’, and also featured in Crossroads?
34 He has released three albums of cover versions recorded with Susanna Hoffs, formerly the singer in which successful all-girl pop rock band?
35 What was this band’s first US number one single, whose title implied ambulatory cultural appropriation?
36 What was the biggest UK hit for quirky American new wave artist Jonathan Richman?
37 On which album did the Sex Pistols release a version of Richman’s classic track, ‘Roadrunner’?
38 The film to which that Pistols’ album was an accompaniment was directed by Julien Temple. Which English R&B band were the subject of his 2009 documentary, Oil City Confidential?
39 Who was the band’s original guitarist before he left to pursue a solo career that included a 2014 hit album with Roger Daltrey?
40 Daltrey starred in the 1975 rock opera Tommy, directed by Ken Russell and based on whose songs?
41 This songwriter’s second rock opera (not including a shelved project) was made into a 1979 film directed by Franc Roddam and starring which young actor as a disaffected mod?
42 Who co-starred as the Ace Face, bellboy by day, coolest of the mods by night?
43 He sang with a band who had great success with their second album, Regatta de Blanc: what was the lead single that gave them their first UK number one?
44 Regatta de Blanc translates as White Reggae (sort of). Which band, playing exactly that, released their debut album, Signing Off, in 1980?
45 Which Elvis Presley song gave this band a UK number one in 1993 and gave their career a second lease of life?
46 What was the title of the last album Elvis released before his death in 1977?
47 On the Threshold of a Dream (1969) gave which prog rock band their first UK number one album?
48 The band’s singer (or one of them), Justin Hayward, had a hit with the song ‘Forever Autumn’: from which musical project was it taken?
49 Who played the ill-fated Parson Nathaniel on the original 1978 album?
50 Which friend of his played guitar on the 1979 album Black Rose: A Rock Legend and also collaborated on the single ‘Parisienne Walkways’ off his own album Back on the Streets?
51 That artist’s 1995 album, Blues for Greeny, was a tribute to which major influence on his career?
52 Hanging around their necks, what was the UK number one that this guitarist and singer’s band recorded in 1968?
53 Apart from a re-release of that single, this band didn’t reach the UK Top 30 again until ‘Dreams’ in 1977. Which member of their new line-up wrote and sang this song?
54 When this singer released her first solo album, who co-wrote and duetted on the lead-off single, ‘Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around’?
55 Paul Michael Glaser (Starsky and Hutch) made a film in 1986 called Band of the Hand, a crime caper originally pitched as a TV series. Who recorded the title song for the soundtrack, with (54) and his band backing him?
56 Both (54) and (55) were members of which late eighties supergroup?
57 Which 1990 hit film used the title of a signature tune of another member of this supergroup?
58 The lead actress from this film appeared in a similarly successful British romantic comedy in 1999, featuring songs from Bill Withers, Elvis Costello and Ronan Keating on the soundtrack: which film?
59 What was the name of the one-off band whose only album, Missing . . . Presumed Having a Good Time (1990) reached number two in the UK album chart?
60 This band played ‘When It Comes To You’ on their tour, a song which appeared on On Every Street in 1991, the last album by which English rock band?