Music Quizzes - Is being older an advantage?

Today on Popmaster we had a contestant who had just finished university. On that basis I assumed she'd be in her early 20s and therefore wouldn't do very well. This proved to be true as she only scored 3.

She never gave her age as an excuse, but some contestants do say it was before their time which seems to annoy Ken Bruce, he always say's that's no excuse. As someone who's written and hosted music quizzes myself I've had people complain to me about the music being too old, and I'm inclined to agree with Ken, it's not like I'm going to ask their date of birth and ensure every question is related to music after that date. However it does raise the question of whether being old enough to remember the music gives you an advantage.

Back in the early 2000s there was a quiz on the BBC called "Test the Nation" and one of the shows was specifically about music. As the title suggested, this wasn't a quiz for contestants as such, it was a quiz for everybody to play along to. At the end your score was put into a category but this depended on your age group, the idea being to make the top category of "Music Genius", the older your age group the higher the score you need. This therefore implied age does give you an advantage.

More recently though we have a new music quiz on the BBC, "The Hitlist". In the most recent edition it was a grandad and his grandson who won. Sounds quite logical as you have the demographic to cover old and new music. Their victory though was mainly to do with the grandson, so that would imply being older didn't have an advantage.

However, what I did notice was that most of the questions the grandson answered correctly were modern ones so I thought I'd give it another watch and take note. They answered 21 questions correctly, grandad got 5 and grandson got 16. Of those 16 questions, 12 of them charted in 2015 or later and 3 of the remaining 4 charted in the last 10 years. Given the number of songs they skipped in the final round it's likely they would have struggled had it not been for the modern ones.

One thing that springs to mind from personal experience was when "Sounds Familiar" came to my workplace to do a music quiz. Me and a colleague who's known to like a quiz were on the same team and many thought it was inevitable we'd win. But we didn't.

The quiz rounds were 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s and recent hits. It was a point for the artist and point for the title. The problem was the older ones were very obvious ones such as "Stayin Alive" by the Bee Gees, the recent hits may have been just as obvious but none of us knew them. We got 100% on the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s rounds and got a pretty decent score on the 00s but flopped on the recent hits. Given that recent hits tend to be by everybody featuring everybody else, there were more points available on that round too. Therefore being young and knowing modern music proved to be advantageous.

In these too examples though it's only really proved that modern questions suit young people which is what you'd expect. But in reality they suit whoever follows modern music irrespective of age. Do older music questions better suit older people though?

Well recently I went on holiday and took part in 4 music quizzes. There was certainly a lot more older music than new, plenty of music from before I was born but after no doubt many of my competitors were born. We won all 4 quizzes though.

One time when I was 28 I went to a music quiz where everybody else was at least 50 and the quizmaster warned me that it would mostly be music before my time. We won that one as well.

It could be argued that learning about older music is easier than learning about modern music. Take an era of music such as the 70s, there is a finite amount of music from then, there hasn't been a new 70s record for nearly 40 years and there will never be another 70s record made again. If you weren't born then you've still had all your life to learn it. Modern music on the other hand keeps being made, if it came out last week you've only had since last week to learn it.

That said, nothing beats living through it. I can relive my life by going through many 90s artists singles discography, some of whom are now long forgotten. With a 60s artist it's always been part of the history books. The point of your life that relates to those songs is probably the point where you decided to listen to their greatest hits.

Is being older an advantage then?

The obvious advantage is living though an era means you can effortlessly remember many songs from that time whereas if you weren't born then you need to learn your history in order to know them. Therefore you are probably at a disadvantage until you've had enough time to learn your history, but once you reach that point it's probably more of a level playing field.

The Hitlist Review

Last night we had the first episode of a new TV music quiz, The Hitlist. Here's what I made of it:

When I saw a trailer for the show the impression I got was mixed. On one hand it's a music quiz so should be right up my street. But in the trailer they said "Do you know your Ed Sheeran from your Ariana Grande?" which implied it might be too modern for my liking. The fact it's presented by a member of JLS and a member of The Saturdays would also imply that.

There were 3 pairs of contestants who walked into the studio to a song of their choice. First was a father and daughter who came out to "I Drove All Night" by Roy Orbison, good song. Then came Glen and Christopher who came out to some Cheryl Cole song, a terrible choice but more to the point surely they should have came out to "Diamond Lights". Finally we had 2 females come out to "The Best" by Tina Turner. When the female presenter asked why they chose "Simply the Best" I shouted at the TV for the first time saying it's "The Best" not "Simply the Best.

The introduction went on far too long for my liking, but that's a complaint I have about most TV quizzes. It was 7 minutes into the show before we had our first question.

Round 1 was Number Ones and Number Twos. They played a clip of a number one and the contestants had to buzz in and give the artist and title. If they got it correct they'd get played the number two record from the same week as the number one and would be the only contestants to get the opportunity to answer. The first 2 pairs to get 5 correct would progress to the 2nd round.

The first clip was played and it was something modern I didn't know. Obviously the number two record was also modern, and I didn't get that one either. Fortunately not all clips were modern so I got some. I think I knew all the 20th Century clips and the only 21st Century one I got in that round was "I Kissed A Girl" by Katy Perry.

Onto the 2nd round where the contestants would pick a category that would contain 4 clips. Each clip would have a clue as to who the artist is, for example there was the category "Stage Names" and the clue was the real name of the artist in the clip. Each pair would take it in turns to pick a clip and they'd have 45 seconds to name the artist and title for all the clips they hear with the option to skip 3 clips, first to run out of time would get eliminated.

Again I was good on the older clips but not so good on the modern ones. They had to be entirely accurate when giving the artist and title, when played "Re Rewind (The Crowd Say Bo Selecta)" by Artful Dodger the contestants weren't given it because they said "Rewind" instead of "Re Rewind". Fair enough, but then in another clip the contestants were given it when they said "Mysterious Girl" by Peter Andre when it's in fact by  Peter Andre and Bubbler Ranx.

It was the father and daughter who made it to the final round. They picked a category and would be played clips related to the category. They would begin the round with £10,000 and would have 5 seconds to give the artist and title of each clip, after which the money would start going down like a clock until they gave the answer. They would have the option to skip and be played a new clip, but the money would continue to go down. After 10 correct answers the contestants would win however much money is left.

I knew all the clips in the final round including the ones the contestants skipped, but that was because there was nothing too modern in there. It was the father who answered all the questions in this round, but his daughter did get a few of the modern ones earlier on in the quiz.

How did I find the quiz then?

Well I'd say it's as good as can be expected. Ideally I would want there to be no waffle at the beginning and no modern questions, but that was never going to happen. It wasn't as modern as I expected it to be though which is a good thing.

Would I apply to go on?

Not sure, the problem is I don't know anyone with decent knowledge of modern music to go on with. I've done music quizzes before with some pretty knowledgeable people and got all the 20th century questions correct, but ended up not winning from flopping on the modern ones. But never say never.