Weird Music History
Think you know everything there is to know about music? Prepare to be blown away as we take a look at some of the most interesting, unbelievable facts about musicians and the music industry.
1. Rap battles have been happening since the 5th century---Historically known as 'Flyting' and mainly practised between the 5th and 16th century - two poets would take turns insulting each other in rhyming verse. Even early Norse literature contains stories of the gods flyting! That's right - Odin was hating on Loki's wack freestyles.
2. Monaco's orchestra is bigger than it's ARMY....The Monegasque army consists of 82 people, which is slightly less than the 85 musicians that make up Monaco’s military orchestra!
3. Leo Fender couldn't play the guitar!...The founder of the famous Fender electric guitars was a saxophonist and couldn't actually play the guitar himself! Mind you we're sure the Andrex puppy doesn't actually use toilet paper either.
4. The greatest opening line to a pop song is "I saw a werewolf with a chinese menu in his hand"...At least, that was the result of a 2004 BBC poll to find the greatest opening song lyric. The winner, Warren Zevon's Werewolves of London - narrowly beat out Bill Haley's Rock Around The Clock and Bruce Springsteen's Hungry Heart. Zevon's classic is to this day considered one of the best werewolf-themed songs.
5. Dolly Parton once entered a drag queen competition as a Dolly Parton lookalike ... and lost!...The 9 to 5 and Jolene country legend didn't tell anyone who she was when she entered, but ended up losing because the audience thought other contestants looked more like Dolly Parton.
6. Rappers Jay Z, Busta Rhymes, Notorious B.I.G. and DMX all went to the same high school...They were all attendees of the George Westinghouse Career and Technical Education High School in downtown Brooklyn. Imagine the lunchtime Flyting battles!
The Beatles were the most popular band in the world - but none of them could read music
In an interview in 2018 Paul McCartney finally admitted that he couldn't read music, and nor could any of the other Beatles! They did pretty well, considering.
—austinveronica14