Back at the start of 2009 MusicRadar brought you a random collection of weird facts and trivia. We called it 101 facts you never knew about music.
But hey, now we have even more. Another 101, in fact.
Did you know that Freddie Mercury turned up in a Japanese anime/manga cartoon? Why Tina Turner is officially scary? Or why Eminem has a link to snooker?
Maybe you did, you smart bunnies. But MusicRadar now has more trivial (yet fascinating) facts to baffle you. Read on for…
101 more facts you didn't know about music
1. Elton John has played New York's Madison Square Garden 60 times, more than anyone in history.
2. Little Boots (birth name; Victoria Hesketh) once auditioned for UK TV talent show Pop Idol.
Little Boots: but she's not wearing boots at all?
3. George Harrison was the first Beatle to have a solo number one on both sides of the Atlantic, with My Sweet Lord.
4. Hey Jude was the first Beatles single to be released on their Apple label.
5. In the same song, you can hear John Lennon swearing in the background as he misses a chord, if you listen very carefully.
6. New Order lost money on each copy sold of the 12-inch single Blue Monday due to the expensive packaging and artwork. Bad business, as it was the best-selling 12-inch single ever.
New Order's Blue Monday 12-inch. Whenever they sold a copy, they actually got poorer
7. Eminem's My Name Is samples Labi Siffre's song I Got The. Which makes the bassist sampled on My Name Is one Dave Peacock of Chas And Dave. Now that's truly snooker loopy.
8. Most of the sounds on Prince's Sign O' The Times single came from the stock library that shipped with the pioneering '80s sampler, the Fairlight CMI.
9. In the 2003 Japanese anime/manga cartoon Cromartie High, the student character of フレディ (Furedi) is a tribute to Queen's Freddie Mercury. Furedi never speaks, but does sing. The bottom of Furedi's microphone stand is truncated, just like Mercury's was in Queen.
Cromartie High 'student' Furedi: Freddie Mercury was never the typical college swot
10. When he was 17, John 'Ozzy' Osbourne applied to join the British Army. They unsurprisingly decided he would not make a soldier, and declined.
11. The first album to sell a million CD copies was Brothers In Arms by Dire Straits.
12. Future Led Zeppelin legend Jimmy Page played guitar on Tom Jones' 1965 hit It's Not Unusual.
13. The Rolling Stones' Brown Sugar has been used in two television adverts, for Pepsi and for Kahlua liquer. Interesting for a song that alludes to cunnilingus or, some believe, slave rape. Mick Jagger will only say the lyric was "all to do with the dual combination of drugs and girls."
14. The Rolling Stones' Keith Richards and regular sax player Bobby Keys were born on the same day.
15. Yamaha's DX7 can only send data on MIDI channel 1 - it was released just before the full MIDI spec was completed.
Yamaha's lauded DX7. Only half finished?
16. Early in 2009, Sly Stone is reported to have made a brief stage appearance with George Clinton while dressed in a child's Spider-Man costume.
17. Posh popsters Keane occasionally perform a live 'mash-up' of Christina Aguilera's Dirrty and Destiny's Child's Bootylicious. They call it Dirrtylicious. How funky are they?
18. Electric piano legend Harold Rhodes created his first instrument during World War II. Known as the Army Air Corps piano, it was designed for injured servicemen to play in bed.
19. Johnny Cash released music every year between his debut in 1957 and 1989.
Johnny Cash: not even arrest could arrest his output
20. The first week of February is an unlucky week for old-time pop artistes. Those who died in that week include Karen Carpenter, Buddy Holly, Bill Haley, Del Shannon and Carl Wilson of The Beach Boys.
21. Tupac Shakur was arrested eight times before he was 20 years old.
22. A misheard lyric, such as "'Scuse me while I kiss this guy" by Jimi Hendrix, which is actually "'Scuse me while I kiss the sky" is called a Mondegreen, after American writer Sylvia Wright misheard the end of a poem as "They hae slain the Earl Amurray / And Lady Mondegreen" when it was actually "They hae slain the Earl Amurray / And laid him on the green."
23. Elvis Presley had almost twice as many American top 40 hits as anyone else with a massive 114. Elton John is second with 59.
24. Gloucestershire Airport in the west of England used to blast out Tina Turner songs on its runways to scare birds away.
Tina Turner: scary bird?
25. Aretha Franklin had two children before she was 17.
We'll have more facts tomorrow!
Liked this? Then try:
101 facts you never knew about music
The 10 guitars that changed music
33 insane facts about Chinese Democracy
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