This is a Frequently Asked Questions list about Gerald's Lyrics Quiz. The FAQ consists of common questions and facts that every contestant should know, or for any new contestant who would like to know more about the format and the applying rules.

Gerald's Lyrics Quiz is being posted periodically to the Usenet groups rec.games.trivia, rec.music.misc and alt.music.lyrics as is the text version of this FAQ. The HTML version of this FAQ can be found at www.oocities.org/SunsetStrip/Towers/4321/glqfaq.htm.

I hope all the information in this document is accurate, although I feel it may never be complete. If you have any comments, suggestions, corrections, or complaints please e-mail me at dottore@mad.scientist.com.

1.1 HOW ARE THE QUESTIONS ARRANGED?
1.2 WHAT WILL I HAVE TO IDENTIFY?
1.3 HOW MANY POINTS CAN I SCORE?
1.4 WHAT ORDERING RULES APPLY FOR THE LEADING LETTERS?
1.5 I'M STILL NOT SURE IF I GOT THIS RIGHT. CAN YOU GIVE ME SOME EXAMPLES?
1.6 HOW CAN I SUBMIT MY ANSWERS?
1.7 WHAT HAPPENS AFTER I HAVE SUBMITTED MY ANSWERS?
1.8 WHAT'S THIS "HALL OF FAME"-THING?
1.9 AUTHOR'S NOTES
2.1 UPDATE HISTORY

1.1 HOW ARE THE QUESTIONS ARRANGED?

The quiz consists of 10 packs each stating 3 fragments of lyrics from different rock or pop songs.
Each pack's songs were recorded by 3 different artists.
Each pack's artists start with the same letter.
Packs are arranged alphabetically ascending by their leading letter (which is starting letter for all 3 artists contained in the pack).

Starting with quiz #18 some clues will come as 'audio questions' as well. These are sound files in .wav format of about 200kByte each. The version posted to the newsgroups will contain links to the web address the files are stored at. The web form will show a button with moving speakers that will take you to the sound file by simple mouse click. If you have an audio player plugin installed with your browser, clicking on the button will open the audio player plugin and load the sound file. If you haven't installed the plugin you can download the files to your hard disk and play them using your audio- or media-player application. This however will only work on computers with a properly installed sound card. I'm aware that this will lock out a certain number of contestants from obtaining a perfect score but with the music search engines getting more and more powerful is seems to be the only way to make the quizzes a little more competitive again.
There are 2 different kinds of audio questions:

Clues marked as "Shut up and play yer guitar" are sampled as-is from the original CD and will not contain any vocals other than some occasional "Heys", "Yeahs" or "Whoa-hos". Therefore they can even be taken from instrumental tunes.

Clues marked as "A fine mess" will contain very short extracts taken from an original recording which are dubbed and put together at random. They can also contain some short snippets of the vocals.

1.2 WHAT WILL I HAVE TO IDENTIFY?

You are asked to name the SONG TITLE and RECORDING ARTIST for each fragment.
If you only know either title or artist please submit your answers anyway as scoring credit is awarded separately according to the rules stated below.
Songs need not necessarily be listed with the original artist. Any artists who ever did record the quoted song can be given as long as they start with the same letter as the other 2 artists in the pack.

1.3 HOW MANY POINTS CAN I SCORE?

Fragments in each pack are indicated [a], [b] or [c] according to difficulty level (which is of course subject to my personal point of view and may vary from your opinion)

[a]-questions are supposed to be the easiest: memorable hooklines from either rock and pop classics or popular recurrents.
The [a] scoring value is 3 points (consisting of 1 point for correct artist plus 2 points for correct title).

[b]-questions are supposed to be a bit more challenging: taken mainly from rock and pop classics or recurrents as well, thus being taken from a less memorable part of their verses (or from a bit less memorable songs in general).
The [b] scoring value is 6 points (consisting of 2 points for correct artist plus 4 points for correct title).

[c]-questions are the real tricky ones: taken from my favorite songs from mainly the 80's & 90's that didn't receive the airplay I think they deserved (at least not where I live). Anyway these are songs I'd like to recommend to everyone sharing my taste of music (arguable, of course).
The [c] scoring value is 10 points (consisting of 4 points for correct artist plus 6 points for correct title).

Above that there's a double-up bonus which will be awarded in case you're the only person to correctly identify an artist or title (or both).
Therefore the general perfect score is 190 points, although according to the bonus rules you could reach up to 380 points (in the most unlikely case that you identify all the given fragments correctly and no one else comes up with a correct answer to any of them).

1.4 WHAT ORDERING RULES APPLY FOR THE LEADING LETTERS?

Ordering in general follows the AACR2 (Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules) standard as used in most common publications (like e.g. Joel Whitburn's chart books).

That means bands are listed without article (e.g. BEATLES, THE or ROLLING STONES, THE) and single persons are listed as [Lastname], [Firstname] (like ADAMS, Bryan or ZAPPA, Frank).

Bands that include names of any of their members are listed according to single persons' rules (e.g. Steve MILLER Band -> "M", Huey LEWIS & The News -> "L", The Alan PARSONS Project -> "P", Brother PHELPS -> "P" to name a few).

Bands who use a persons' name other than one of their members are listed with what appears to be the starting letter of the first name (if it was a real person's name). Therefore you would find DANNY WILSON in a "D"-pack, MOLLY HATCHET or MAX WEBSTER in an "M"-pack.

If an artists used various names for different recordings the name used for the actual recording will also be used for pack identification.
This may of course cause some trouble with TAFKAPAHWKASIBAWKWHMPTBFKAITF (The - Artist - Formerly - Known - As - Prince - Although - He - Was - Known - As - Symbol - In - Between - And - Who - Knows - What - He - May - Prefer - To - Be - Formerly - Known - As - In - The - Future).
To avoid controversy I decided not to use songs he recorded with a name other than Prince in my quizzes, so the ones I use will always appear in "P"-packs.
It's a bit easier with TACKAJM (The - Artist - Currently - Known - As - John - Mellencamp): Songs he recorded as JOHNNY COUGAR or JOHN COUGAR will be listed with "C"-packs, the ones he recorded as JOHN COUGAR MELLENCAMP or JOHN MELLENCAMP will be listed in "M"-packs.

I personally tend to make an exception to the AACR2 as I won't take 'A' for an article. Therefore I would list "A FLOCK OF SEAGULLS" or "A TASTE OF HONEY" in an "A"-pack rather than an "F"- or "T"-pack.

1.5 I'M STILL NOT SURE IF I GOT THIS RIGHT. CAN YOU GIVE ME SOME EXAMPLES?

So here are some artists you might find in an "H"-pack:
HOOTIE & THE BLOWFISH
BRUCE HORNSBY & THE RANGE
JOHN HIATT
THE HOOTERS
THE HOLLIES
DARYL HALL & JOHN OATES
COREY HART
GEORGE HARRISON
THE HUMAN LEAGUE
DON HENLEY
etc.

got it now?

1.6 HOW CAN I SUBMIT MY ANSWERS?

If you receive your answers from either of the Usenet Newsgroups the most important thing is: DO NEVER, EVER POST ANSWERS TO ANY NEWSGROUP. E-mail dottore@mad.scientist.com INDIVIDUALLY!!!

If you fail to do so, your answers are open to everyone else!!! This would not only spoil my fun but also might offend some of the other contestants who would like to identify the songs on their own.
Btw. this rule applies to any quiz running at Usenet. Posting quiz answers to Usenet is one of the things you most certainly would get flamed for immediately.

If you have access to the WWW there's the opportunity to enter your answers directly from my web site.
The Current Quiz page always works as a reply form.
If you wish to submit answers simply place the cursor into the appropriate box and fill in your name , then use the TAB key to approch to the next box to enter your e-mail address. Having done thist please specify whether this is your first entry or an amendment to a previous entry by clicking the appropriate radio button. Now place the cursor in the first field you wish to answer and type in your guess. Use the TAB key to jump through the answer fields one by one (with a little assistance from the vertical scroll bar if a question scrolls out of your screen area) until you reach the text area at the bottom where you can drop me a line.
Once you're done with that hit the SUBMIT button at bottom of the page to mail your answers to me or hit the CLEAR button to undo everything you filled in before.
Please be sure to enter a name because I cannot put anonymous entries on the scoreboard.

Please note that Geocities frequently upgrade their servers. According to this the mail server might be down from time to time (which will be announced at the Information page) and the reply form won't work.
In this case please try again later or e-mail me directly.

WHAT HAPPENS AFTER I HAVE SUBMITTED MY ANSWERS?

Once I have received your answers I usually reply within 2 business days (as I can only get online from work right now). I will of course only be able to do so if you typed your correct e-mail address into the required fied of the reply form.
This however will not be necessary if you entered one of my quizzes before. In this case I can use my list of contestants' e-mail addresses which is only being used for personally mailing informations regarding Gerald's Lyrics Quiz and will not be used for any commercial purposes or be disclosed to any commercial organizations.

In case you send in your answers over the final weekend I probably won't be able to reply to your entry individually. You will at least receive the correct answers and results shortly after the deadline.

My reply mail will include the score I counted for your entry, your current rank on the scoreboard a list of all your incorrect answers.
If you entered by e-mail you will also receive a hidden link to a file containing extra hints on some questions. In case you don't have access to the WWW just tell me so and I will e-mail the hints to you directly.
If you enter by using the reply form you'll automatically be taken to the hints file right after hitting the Submit button. Be sure to bookmark it if you'd like to access it again later. With the end of the contest the link will expire and a new hints link will be launched, yet with a different address ;).

WHAT'S THIS "HALL OF FAME"-THING?

Once you enter one of my Lyrics Quiz editions you not only score for the very competition you submitted to, you're also inducted to my Hall Of Fame.

The Hall Of Fame provides a ranking by the percentage of points you achieved in the total of quizzes you entered.
The perfect score to each quiz is 190 points which equals 100 %.
According to double-up bonus points which are awarded for being the only contestant to identify a clue from a quiz it's possible to score up to 200 % per quiz.

Your score for the Hall Of Fame is calculated by the number of quizes you entered and the total score you reached at all of them.
A tie in the ranking is only given if percentage AND attendance are equal for more than one contestant. At a different number of attendences the contestant who has participated in the highest number of quizzes is ranked ahead of the others.

AUTHOR'S NOTES

To lead you in the right direction where to find the answers I'd like to add a little information about myself:
I was born 1962 in Vienna, Austria and living there ever since.
I have been working for a couple of record stores (yeah! that's what they were called then, with the approach of different media they turned to "music stores") and radio stations (at least radio stayed radio over the years) in my younger days but since 1991 I've had no professional connection to music business any longer.
My favorite rock acts include Journey, The Eagles, John Hiatt, Jimmy Barnes, Little River Band, John Mellencamp, etc. but I also listen to current rock and pop acts, 60's and 70's oldies as well as New Country music.
As I'm a private person there are no prizes considered (except for honor and pride), thus I might occasionally have an extra CD or (original) tape to give away from my private collection. If so, I will contact the lucky winner.

UPDATE HISTORY

February 15, 1998: Added audio clue information to section 1.1.

Destinations:

This document:
1.1 HOW ARE THE QUESTIONS ARRANGED?
1.2 WHAT WILL I HAVE TO IDENTIFY?
1.3 HOW MANY POINTS CAN I SCORE?
1.4 WHAT ORDERING RULES APPLY FOR THE LEADING LETTERS?
1.5 I'M STILL NOT SURE IF I GOT THIS RIGHT. CAN YOU GIVE ME SOME EXAMPLES?
1.6 HOW CAN I SUBMIT MY ANSWERS?
1.7 WHAT HAPPENS AFTER I HAVE SUBMITTED MY ANSWERS?
1.8 WHAT'S THIS "HALL OF FAME"-THING?
1.9 AUTHOR'S NOTES
2.1 UPDATE HISTORY