ALBUM QUIZ: All the hoopla over the...

ALBUM QUIZ: All the hoopla over the arrival of the 20th-anniversary CD edition of Pink Floyd’s “The Dark Side of the Moon” has put Pop Eye in the mood for an album quiz.

Test your pop knowledge:

1--Elvis Presley’s 1956 debut album was the first rock album ever to reach No. 1 on the charts. In fact, Presley had three other No. 1 albums before another rock artist reached the top spot in January, 1958. Who was the other artist?

a) Chuck Berry

b) Buddy Holly

c) Ricky Nelson

2--The Beatles and the Rolling Stones were the first two British rock groups to reach the top of the U.S. album charts. Who was the third?

a) The Dave Clark Five

b) Cream

c) Herman’s Hermits

3--What album knocked Pink Floyd’s “The Dark Side of the Moon” out of the No. 1 spot in 1973?

a) Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”

b) Jethro Tull’s “A Passion Play”

c) Elvis Presley’s “Aloha From Hawaii Via Satellite”

The answers (see Page 57) are contained in Joel Whitburn’s hot-off-the-presses “Top Pop Albums 1955-1992,” the most ambitious of Whitburn’s many books based on the Billboard magazine sales charts. It costs $95 and can be ordered through Record Research: (414) 251-5408.

The volume lists the chart performance of every album to make Billboard’s Top 200 sales list since 1955, plus the title of every song on all the albums. In addition, Whitburn employs a point system--based on number of albums on the charts and highest positions reached--to declare the most popular album artists.

And who is the king of modern pop?

“Elvis Presley . . . no question,” Whitburn says. “The thing about him is he is at or near the top in all of our rankings . . . country, R&B;, adult contemporary and pop.”

In the scoring system, Presley--with 15,422 points--topped runner-up Frank Sinatra by more than 3,000 points. The rest of the Top 10: the Beatles, Johnny Mathis, Barbra Streisand, the Rolling Stones, Mantovani, Ray Conniff, Elton John and the Temptations. As a solo artist, Michael Jackson ranks No. 87, but if you add his Jackson 5 points, he moves up to No. 13, just ahead of James Brown.