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<\/p>\nConfession: I am a hoarder.<\/p>\n
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My entire existence is built on finding interesting and obscure facts about music. It really is a 24-7 thing.<\/p>\n
Most of what I find ends up in the radio show\/podcast, The Ongoing History of New Music and the podcast, Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry.<\/p>\n
But what about the research that doesn\u2019t get used? This is information that is outside the mandate of what I usually do on-air and online. Do I just disregard this material and throw it away?<\/p>\n
Heavens, no! As I said, I\u2019m a hoarder, and that includes hoarding information, trivia and knowledge. If it has to do with music, I save it, regardless of whether it has any immediate or short-term use. Rather than keep it all to myself, I save the best unused trivia for an end-of-the-year data dump.<\/p>\n
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Here is the 2025 edition. What you do with this material is completely up to you.<\/p>\n
1. The mysterious \u2018WKRP\u2019 end credits<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re a fan of WKRP in Cincinnati, that classic TV show about a bunch of misfits at a radio station, you can probably hum the opening theme in your head. But how about the closing theme, which is a lot rockier?\u00a0It\u2019s officially known as the WKRP in Cincinnati end credits and was composed and performed by an Atlanta musician named Jim Ellis. He never bothered to write any lyrics for it \u2014 he just vocalized gibberish. Why? As a statement on how many rock songs feature lyrics that no one can hear.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
2. The hit that was entirely gibberish<\/p>\n
In 1972, an Italian singer named Adriano Celentano wrote a song called Prisencolinensinainciusol. Don\u2019t worry about translating it because it doesn\u2019t mean anything. In fact, the whole song is that way. It kind of sounds like American English, but it\u2019s all just garbage. Celentano wanted to prove that Europeans would buy into any music they thought was from America. When it was released as a single, it charted in several countries, reaching number two in Belgium and the top 10 in Italy and the Netherlands. I can see why, too. Despite the lyrical nonsense, the track is a banger.<\/p>\n
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3. A \u2018Smoke on the Water\u2019 secret. Two, actually.<\/p>\n
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The riff for Deep Purple\u2019s Smoke on the Water is one of the most iconic of all time. Guitarist Ritchie Blackmore claims that he based it on a backwards rendition of the opening notes of Beethoven\u2019s Fifth Symphony. It\u2019s also extraordinarily similar to a bossa nova song from 1964 called Maria Moita.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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4. \u2018Ridiculousness\u2019 makes an insane amount of money for Devo
Ridiculousness, the clip show that basically took over MTV and MuchMusic, uses a Devo song as its theme. The track is Uncontrollable Urge from the band\u2019s 1978 album, Are We Not Men? We Are Devo! It was never released as a single, but it was a live favourite to the end.<\/p>\n
The composer was Mark Mothersbaugh. He reportedly made a million dollars a year by licensing the song to Ridiculousness. I did talk to him about that, but he was a little evasive on whether this was 100 per cent true. Whatever the case, Ridiculousness was cancelled in November 2025, so unless it lives on in reruns, Mothersbaugh won\u2019t be making anything from it now. (Fun fact: In 2020, Ridiculousness played on MTV for 36 hours straight. One week, it accounted for 113 of the 168 hours in MTV\u2019s broadcast week.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\tOver $1.7 million raised for 88-year-old army vet working in grocery store\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n \t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\tDozens of Indigenous artifacts return to Canada from Vatican\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n 5. A degree in heavy metal? Sure!<\/p>\n Summa College in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, offers degrees in heavy metal<\/a>. You can study singing (including the death metal voice) and any number of instruments. Upon graduation, students are offered placement opportunities. I\u2019d like to know what those are.<\/p>\n 6. A radio station programmed by ducks<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tMore on Entertainment Run by six English ducks \u2014 yes, birds \u2014 living in a garden, Duck Radio<\/a> operates with a sensor that encourages the birds to peck at it. Every time they do, the station switches to another online station broadcasting from somewhere in the world. Listeners never know what they\u2019re going to get or for how long they\u2019re going to get it.<\/p>\n 7. Amazon\u2019s amazing internet<\/p>\n Amazon\u2019s biggest moneymaker is AWS, which provides cloud storage solutions for big, big companies. To keep up with the demand, Amazon has plans to lay a new undersea cable in the Atlantic capable of streaming 12.5 million high-def movies at the same time. I did the math, and that\u2019s equivalent (I think) to 585,937,500 CDs a second.<\/p>\n 8. Was \u2018Sesame Street\u2019 always this subversive?<\/p>\n If you\u2019re a certain age, you\u2019ll remember this counting song from Sesame Street. Officially called Jazzy Numbers, it was sung by Grace Slick of The Jefferson Airplane, the creator of drug songs such as White Rabbit.<\/p>\n Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<\/p>\n 9. Is This the true origin of the pumpkin spice latte?<\/p>\n Pumpkin spice latte starts showing up everywhere in late August. It\u2019s a flavour that dates back more than a century and is used in all manner of baking recipes, but not, as far as anyone can tell, in any coffee beverages. Starbucks, which introduced the pumpkin spice latte in 2003, is the biggest supplier in the known universe. However, if we wind things back to 1995, there\u2019s a documented bit of audience banter from Tori Amos during a show in Seattle. I quote: \u201cYou all have your own Starbucks things. I have one that tastes like pumpkin pie. It\u2019s my own invention. It\u2019s my contribution to Halloween.\u201d Again, this is eight years before Starbucks introduced it, so\u2026<\/p>\n By the way, Kenny G claims to have invented the frappuccino. And Ariana Grande allegedly has something to do with the cloud macchiato.<\/p>\n Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n 10. The karaoke machine that was a danger to Canadian police and the EMS<\/p>\n A unit called the Soundstage Party Cube came with a wireless microphone component. About 905 of them were sold in Canada between March 2023 and June 2025. Earlier this year, there was a recall. It turned out that the frequency used by its wireless mic interferes with the radio transmissions used by police and EMS in Canada. Health Canada flagged the machine because of the potential injury hazard to people requiring emergency services, as someone\u2019s rendition of My Way using a Soundstage Party Cube creates an interference, for instance.<\/p>\n For more facts like this, check out The Ongoing History of New Music Podcast, 60 mind-blowing facts about music in 60 minutes<\/a> (2025) edition.<\/p>\n See you next year.<\/p>\n \n\t\tCurator Recommendations\n\t<\/p>\n![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Untitled-design-50.png\")
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