Welcome to MusicRadar's 101 facts you really never knew about music, the third in a continuing series of trivia blowouts born from the marriage of our insatiable thirst for knowledge with our warm appreciation of the pub quiz.
If you need to orient yourself in MusicRadar's world of trivia then give last year's 101 facts a read. Then possibly follow that up with 101 more.
Otherwise, go on ahead and dive into our 2010 selection: you'll find part 1 here, part 2 hereand part 3 below.
51. Dave Smith (of Dave Smith Instruments fame) was a key player in the invention of MIDI. In fact, he coined the name in 1981 and gave the first public demonstration of it at the 1983 Winter NAMM Show, when he hooked together a Sequential Circuits Prophet-600 and a Roland Jupiter-6.
52. Chesney Hawkes' 1991 number one hit The One And Only was written and co-produced by '80s synth pop star Nik Kershaw.
53. Released in 1997, Seer Systems' Reality is widely acknowledged to be the first 'professional' software synth to run on a Windows PC.
54. Everyone knows that the main theme from Back To The Future is Huey Lewis & The News' The Power Of Love, but did you also know that Huey Lewis made a cameo appearance in the movie, appearing as the teacher who tells Marty McFly that his band's too loud to play at the school dance?
55. When Frankie Laine signed up to sing the theme for '70s Western spoof Blazing Saddles, he didn't realise the film was a comedy. Until he attended the premiere.
56. Lionel Bart is best-known for writing the music and lyrics for the musical Oliver!, but he also penned Cliff Richard's 1959 hit Living Doll.
57. Producer Richard X is actually called Richard Philips. His 'stage name' came into being when someone misinterpreted a kiss on a postcard as an actual X.
58. The vocal effect on Cher's Believe - which was initially added for a bit of a laugh - was originally said to have been created using Digitech's Talker vocal synth. However, it was later revealed that, as many suspected, Auto-Tune was responsible.
59. Before being given to Britney Spears, ...Baby One More Time was offered to both Backstreet Boys and TLC.
60. Despite being released in June 2008, Gabriella Cilmi's Sweet About Me was the most played song in the UK in 2009.
61. It's well-known that, prior to forming Pet Shop Boys, Neil Tennant worked on UK music magazine Smash Hits. However, he'd previously been employed as the London Editor for Marvel UK, the UK branch of Marvel Comics.
62. He may be best-known for his work with Lady Gaga, but producer RedOne got his big break when he created the 'official melody' for the 2006 football World Cup - a track called Bamboo.
63. The chap that wrote Lemar hit If There's Any Justice also wrote the Sheena Easton Bond theme For Your Eyes Only.CW
64. Snoop Dogg is largely responsible for popularising the slang suffix '-izzle'.
65. Leona Lewis's Bleeding Love was originally intended to be released on co-writer Jesse McCartney's third album. However, his record company didn't like so it was rearranged for the 2006 X Factor winner.
66. Dubstep luminary Burial (AKA William Bevan) went to the same school as Hot Chip's Joe Goddard and Kieran Hebden (AKA Four Tet).
67. The title of Amy Winehouse's debut album Frank was chosen both in reference to Frank Sinatra, the star's hero, and the record's brutal honesty.
68. Before either band was famous, Chris Martin asked Keane's Tim Rice-Oxley to join Coldplay.
69. In October 2009, Florence and the Machine's gear caught fire when they were on tour. Bad news, you might think, but the band recorded the sound of the instruments burning and plan to use it as inspiration for their next album.
70. Every song on Kanye West's 808s & Heartbreak album features a Roland TR-808 drum machine pattern.
71. Rage Against The Machine's Tom Morello once gave Tool's Adam Jones guitar lessons. We wonder if he said, "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me" when it came to learning those tricky scales?
72. Deep Purple's Jon Lord played the keyboard part on You Really Got Me by The Kinks.
73. Allegedly, Noel Gallagher played the drum intro on the studio version of Oasis's Live Forever as then-drummer Tony McCarroll couldn't capture the required groove.
74. There ain't no party like an S-Club party.
75. The snare drum is descended from a medieval drum called the Tabor.
