Lyric Test

November 14, 2003 10:40 AM

Lyric Quiz - Test your knowledge of memorable lines from various hits of the 80's. Watch your spelling. warning: It's a tad cheesy, but fun.
posted by Witty (35 comments total)

This "quiz" totally harshed me out. I got to 40, then realized it went to 100, and so I gave up. I suck :(
posted by Quartermass at 10:55 AM on November 14, 2003

"Oh charles, take it downtown, this is Keri!"

"Dude, I think it's 'Hush hush, keep it down now, voices carry.'"

"Are you serious?"

"Yeah, guy, the name of the song is 'Voices Carry.' I shit you not."

"Well, fuck me."

"Yeah, fuck you."
posted by jon_kill at 11:04 AM on November 14, 2003

70%. Does it count if when I read the answers I said, "Oh, of course!!!" to nearly every one?
posted by orange swan at 11:11 AM on November 14, 2003

I can't remember what I had for lunch yesterday, but useless 80's song lyrics? YEAH! 89.
posted by widdershins at 11:13 AM on November 14, 2003

64 - Don't Push Me.

I only smacked myself in the forehead with half the ones
I left blank.
posted by ursus_comiter at 11:28 AM on November 14, 2003

94. I abase myself.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 11:37 AM on November 14, 2003

Ugh 40, maybe if i didn't rush through... and didn't "video killed the radio star" come out in 79?

...waitress in a cocktail bar... how could I draw a blank on that, like what else could it have been.
posted by bobo123 at 11:48 AM on November 14, 2003

78 and was smacking my forehead after reading the ones I missed. I haven't heard some of this in 15 years. Weird how the memory works...
posted by GiantRobot at 11:48 AM on November 14, 2003

64.5 ...when I read through the answers, I sure said "doh" a lot. Witty, you're responsible for the collective flattening of the Metafilter forehead.

I feel a mix CD coming on...
posted by notsnot at 11:53 AM on November 14, 2003

one. hundred. fifty-nine.
On the first try even. Now, how much of my brain is wasted and rotted out by this?
posted by leapfrog at 11:55 AM on November 14, 2003

35.5 - most of that stuff was top 40/mtv crap, and i listened to more obscure stuff in the 80s. plus the test subtracted 30% from my score because i was born before woodstock. (i'm not a yuppie you little twerp)

yah bobo, a few of those songs were not from the 80s. VKtRS came out the last bit of '79; The Message by grandmaster flash & the furious 5 was released in '78.
posted by t r a c y at 12:01 PM on November 14, 2003

A measly 40.5 for me... I blame my early years of debauchery.
posted by mosch at 12:02 PM on November 14, 2003

57.5, I racked my brain on "...seems to me, reminds me of ______ ______" for 5 minutes. I could hear it in my head but just couldn't bubble the lyrics to the top of my brain.
posted by mbd1mbd1 at 12:07 PM on November 14, 2003

82.5 and I didn't get a bonus because the Eighties are my teen years.

I hit myself over the head a few times after I saw the answers. I missed "Don't push me, cause I'm close to the edge" AARRGGHH. I know that entire song and I missed lyrics to Rock the Casbah!!

It was fun singing the songs sotto voice at my desk to get to the proper line though. Anyone else do that?

{crickets}
posted by Julnyes at 12:19 PM on November 14, 2003

111.5

I didn't get much of the heavy metal stuff. Whitesnake? Never listened to 'em.

Of course, my score can't match leapfrog...
posted by jdroth at 12:32 PM on November 14, 2003

I also got 111.5.

Warm smell of *colitas* for ten ponts, Alex.
posted by shinnin at 12:37 PM on November 14, 2003

I answered every single one correctly but then got penalized for my age group.

Fuckers.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 12:42 PM on November 14, 2003

58.5. And ten points out of that were from "colitas." I suck.
posted by Johnny Assay at 12:48 PM on November 14, 2003

87, with a bonus for my own oldness. I actually hung out with a couple people who worked at K-ROQ in the eighties (which meant lotsa 'new wave' lyrics in my head and almost no heavy metal). Only one real "d'oh" moment: "People are People". Glad they included one Weird Al lyric. Got the obscure Tina Turner song and mis-spelled the "Hotel California" reference (which was definately '70s). Still, an enjoyable time sinker.
posted by wendell at 1:14 PM on November 14, 2003

119 - but I'm an 80s junkie. Got penalized for spelling Jessie and colitas wrong. Bastards.

And once I got "I Want to Know What Love Is" in my head, it was all over...
posted by MsVader at 1:28 PM on November 14, 2003

about question 42 or 43 i realized i was too far out to sea to turn back -- that and taken en masse and out of context, i found myself covering my ears and desperately trying ot squeeze my brain into remembering.
still 120.5 means i've certainly wasted my fair share of headspace.
slightly OT: I have a theory that when you sing out loud a song -- particularly pesky nostalgic ones -- that's stuck in your head, it exorcises it. works 99 percent of the time.
posted by chandy72 at 1:30 PM on November 14, 2003

thank god, i missed almost every single metal ballad lyric. Can't believe i missed Erasure. 57.something. No bonus, no penalties for age.
posted by th3ph17 at 3:34 PM on November 14, 2003

"The Message" wasn't released in 1978. It was released in 1982. Kurtis Blow and the Sugar Hill Gang were both releasing rap songs before Grandmaster Flash had records out. But "The Message" was a classic, no doubt about that.

It is true that "Video Killed The Radio Star" technically predates the 80s, but in the US, its popularity was well within the 80s. It was a minor hit here a couple of years after it was in the UK.
posted by litlnemo at 5:41 PM on November 14, 2003

103.5. Missed all the cheez-metal except for the Poison song, and many of the overrought ballads, but knowing the obscure ones more than made up for it.
posted by contessa at 6:07 PM on November 14, 2003

"-30% for being a yuppie."

Yeah, thanks, jerk. (Yuppie? Since when? Just because I was born in '65? The yuppies were baby boomers. Get it right.)

83.75 but that's after the lame 30% reduction. So around 125 raw score.
posted by litlnemo at 6:37 PM on November 14, 2003

131. Though, I just finished completing a 500-strong MP3 collection of 80's hits.

You'd be surprised what songs are actually from 79 (too many!) and thus don't qualify. I had to make a separate directory just for '79.

By the way, Hotel California is not now, nor ever was an eighties song. It has to be one of the most quintessentially 70's songs ever made, by one of the most quintessentially 70's bands ever. Why in the world would he put it on an 80's test?
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 7:05 PM on November 14, 2003

31.5
I didn't want my MTV bad enough...
posted by donth at 7:38 PM on November 14, 2003

I made it to about question #20 before my brain shut down in self-defense.

I was then foolish enough to put the score button, and dumb enough to glance through the answers.

Now my brain hates me, and I've got "video killed the radio star" whining inside my skull.

Witty, I hate you. Don't ever do that again. [shudder]
posted by five fresh fish at 8:52 PM on November 14, 2003

I got a lot of high-scoring answers, and missed (or mangled) some really easy ones. The end result:

You were probably working in a bank in the 80's. 15% handicap on the Gen Xers. (...) Final Score: 111.95
posted by LinusMines at 9:38 PM on November 14, 2003

I got a 60.3. that with a 10% bonus for being born in '82. Oddly enough I didn't learn these lyrics until the '90's.
posted by wintereclipse at 1:51 AM on November 15, 2003

I only smacked my forehead once ("How long must we sing this song") and the rest I had never heard, because I spent most of the eighties listening to other stuff.

If they had written the test so that it read

1. Holiday in _________, it's tough kid but it's ________
2. She's like __________ to me, she cannot miss a _______
3. We don't care what you say, _________
4. I wanna be ____________________

I would have aced the damn thing.
posted by jokeefe at 2:09 AM on November 15, 2003

2.

ha.
posted by advil at 3:45 PM on November 15, 2003

1. cambodia, life (dead kennedy's)
4. anarchy (Sex Pistols).

Don't know 2 or 3. Got a 73.5 on the quiz. jokeefe, you should put together a punk version of questions. I'd be happy to code it and host it for you.
posted by wheat at 8:39 AM on November 16, 2003

104.5. Including colitas.
posted by Vidiot at 3:06 PM on November 16, 2003

Wheat, I would have filled in "sedated" for #4 in the punk quiz. ;)
posted by litlnemo at 4:12 PM on November 16, 2003