MUSC205 Exam #1

I was double-minded at first, but taking MUSC205 this summer was a great decision. Yes, it takes care of my History of Arts CORE, but more than that, I'm gaining valuable cultural knowledge here. And gaining exposure to some great music. Granted, I don't like all of it (esp not a good chunk of the acid rock and heavy metal we've covered), but I've discovered The Beach Boys and Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye, among others, some of 'em one-hit wonders.

Our first exam was this morning, or I guess now it's yesterday (Wednesday) morning. I was up late listening to 80 songs (4:24:58 -- hh:mm:ss playing time), of which 15 were sampled on the exam. 32 MC questions were based on the samples, the rest on the lecture content, for a total of 80 -- all in all, not a bad exam, actually. I was a bit apprehensive going in, since I was at a relative disadvantage. Most of the people in the class grew up listening to most of the music we covered, whereas I was hearing ~90% of it for the first time, which made things more difficult. But, I think I held my own. Hopefully that won't come back to bite me in the ass...

Anyway, now that the first exam is over, it's time to move on to the music for the second/last exam. Before I do that, though, I wanted to make one final pass through the exam #1 music and make a list of the songs I actually enjoyed/semi-enjoyed listening to. Here it is, in approximate chronological order:

Definites
Bill Haley and the Comets - Rock Around the Clock
The Penguins - Earth Angel
The Chiffons - He's So Fine
The Righteous Brothers - You've Lost that Lovin' Feelin'
Dick Dale and his Del-Tones - Misirlou
The Beach Boys - In My Room
The Beach Boys - God Only Knows
The Beach Boys - Good Vibrations
Bob Dylan - Subterranean Homesick Blues
The Byrds - Mr. Tambourine Man
The Beatles - Yesterday
The Beatles - In My Life
The Beatles - A Day in the Life
The Rolling Stones - (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
The Kinks - All Day and All of the Night
The Who - My Generation
The Who - Baba O'Riley
The Who - Pinball Wizard
The Marvelettes - Please Mr. Postman
The Supremes - Stop! In the Name of Love
Marvin Gaye - What's Going On
Marvin Gaye - Let's Get It On
Stevie Wonder - Superstition
Stevie Wonder - Living for the City
Booker T and the MGs - Green Onions
Aretha Franklin - Respect
The Byrds - Eight Miles High
Cream - Sunshine of Your Love
Jimi Hendrix - Purple Haze

Kind ofs
Chubby Checker - The Twist
The Chords - Sh-Boom
Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers - Why Do Fools Fall in Love
The Shirelles - Will You Love Me Tomorrow
Bob Dylan - Like a Rolling Stone
The Beatles - Love You To
The Beatles - Tomorrow Never Knows
The Kinks - You Really Got Me
Mary Wells - My Guy
The Supremes - I Hear a Symphony
The Temptations - My Girl
Ray Charles - I've Got a Woman
Jefferson Airplane - White Rabbit
Jimi Hendrix - Star Spangled Banner
Jimi Hendrix - And the Gods Made Love

Of course, this is only from the required listening; I haven't even gotten to the suggested listening yet, and probably won't until the class is over. If anyone's interested, I can send you the listening list. It's fairly long, at 16 pages, and covers quite a bit of ground. Oh, and since I didn't mention this earlier: MUSC205 = History of Popular Music, covering music from the 1950s to now. Not all music, of course, because that would be ridiculous. The focus is of course on pop/rock, and moreso on artists/groups that were particularly influential in its development. It's split up by genres within rock.

Special thanks goes in particular to Ian and Vlad for ~95% of the music I currently have relating to this class. If anyone reading this has complete albums by any of these artists, let me know! =D I would love to mooch...

Fun fact: GIB = Guy In Back