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- Despite it being disproven for years, there are still people who are convinced that "Puff the Magic Dragon" is nothing but a long, badly-hidden drug reference, as is Bob Dylan's "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" (Refrain from Assuming: "Everybody Must Get Stoned"). There are similarly incorrect but persistent rumors about Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze" and The Beatles' ("Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds").
- When it comes to poor old Puff, people aren't just sure it's about drugs, but will state that the writers intended it to be, despite both Leonard Lipton and Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary, who first recorded it, strenuously denying this. Paul Stookey even went as far as to say that when they recorded the song, none of them had even tried marijuana or had any interest in promoting it (not hard to believe when one looks at PP&M's general output). For that matter, when one actually listens to the lyrics, it becomes obvious that "Puff, the Magic Dragon" can't be about marijuana. Supposedly, Jackie Paper is a reference to rolling papers and their adventures are meant to represent a drug trip. However, unlike how it's depicted sometimes, marijuana doesn't cause hallucinations, so the only "adventures" Puff and Jackie would have would be sitting blazed on the couch considering ordering a pizza. Then there's the final verse, which highlights the fact that, although they both started off young and grew up together, Puff, as a dragon, is immortal while Jackie, as a human, is not, and thus, Puff has to face life without his childhood friend. Wouldn't such an ending be guaranteed to harsh your buzz?
- According to Word of God, "Purple Haze" is actually a love song where Jimi Hendrix describes a dream he had where he was walking under the ocean.
- And "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" is what John Lennon's young son Julian titled his drawing, not a thinly veiled LSD reference (the original drawing can be found on Google Images). Bandmate Paul McCartney later suggested that it was also about the drug (in a 'two things can be true at the same time' way) but Lennon — who had no problem admitting to writing song lyrics of his that had drug connections, like "Cold Turkey" (heroin) or "Dr. Robert" (pills) — consistently denied it.
- "With a Little Help From My Friends" apparently isn't intended to be about drugs either, despite the lyric "I get high with a little help from my friends". When the song was one of many chosen for the pre-school animated series Beat Bugs, the full lyric was included.
- Aaliyah is credited to be the youngest performer to sing at the Academy Awards, as she performed her cover of "Journey to the Past" at the 1998 ceremony at age 19. In reality, that record goes to Michael Jackson who performed "Ben" at the 1973 ceremony at age 13.
- Everyone knows that "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" was written to honor Abraham Lincoln, except that it was not. The song is actually an old folk song that had new lyrics added by American writer Julia Ward Howe, inspired by an early battle of the Civil War; it was honoring the army of the Union, not the President.
- Many depictions of the Glamorous Wartime Singer will involve a Blonde, Brunette, Redhead trio that clearly homages The Andrews Sisters. A sizable majority of those depictions will often have the singers be almost identical to each other (barring the obvious different hair colors,) such as "Candyman" from Christina Aguilera, where Aguilera herself portrayed all three. This might lead many to assume the Sisters were triplets. Nope, not only was there a seven year difference between the oldest and youngest, but photos
◊ show that the three didn't even look all that much alike. - It's commonly thought that the Beastie Boys album Paul's Boutique, which is made up entirely of samples, couldn't be made today because all of the sampling done in it was unauthorized. In fact, most of the samples were cleared and above-board - they were just cheaper to clear in 1989 than by today's standards.
- The Beatles
- Bob Dylan introduced pot to them in 1964... no, he didn't. They'd already tried it during their Hamburg stint, along with many other illicit substances. It would be more accurate to say he introduced them to high-quality pot.
- Ringo Starr was the good-natured everyman who was lucky enough to be brought into the Beatles because previous drummer Pete Best was too handsome and drawing attention away from the others, right? In fact, Ringo Starr was already a bigger name than the Beatles as drummer for Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, where he was given his own solo spot "Starr Time", and the Beatles had been trying to poach him long before Pete Best was thrown out of the group — largely because Best just wasn't a good enough drummer to cope with the recording studio.
- While John Lennon's Bigger Than Jesus comments caused no shortage of trouble for them during their American tour in 1966, the scope of the controversy is often exaggerated in the retelling, making it sound like the entire country was up in arms as soon as the quote reached American shores. The March 1966 London Evening Standard interview that contained the quote had either been referenced or reprinted in several American publications that spring (including the New York Times) with zero brouhaha. Datebook, a teen magazine that was trying to broaden its audience to include music fans and politically-engaged young adults, reprinted it in their September 1966 issue. It was when they sent copies out to radio stations, and some stations in the Deep South noticed Lennon's comments, that the controversy blew up. One DJ in particular, Tommy Charles in Birmingham, Alabama (a former singer himself), whipped up a frenzy over the situation, and the backlash was mostly confined to the Bible Belt in the South (save a few stations in places like New York, Massachusetts and Nevada banning The Beatles temporarily).
- Additionally, the quote itself is frequently misprinted as "Bigger than Jesus". The exact phrase that Lennon said in the interview was "More popular than Jesus". He also didn't say it in either a positive or a negative way, it was just part of a prediction regarding Christianity dying out due to lack of interest.
- Canadian band Barenaked Ladies have been dogged for years by rumors that they fired their former frontman Steven Page because he had become addicted to cocaine. Practically none of that is true. Page was not fired; he left of his own free will despite the remaining band members wanting him to stay. The factors that led to his departure were many, including his own mental health, tensions between himself and the band's other founder and co-frontman Ed Robinson, and as he put it, "it just wasn't fun anymore." His leaving also had nothing to do with drugs; he had been considering leaving for several years before he actually did, and while he did try cocaine, and was caught with it, he did not become an addict, and in fact stated that his getting busted for possession after only recently trying it kept him from getting addicted, as it gave him time to realize that it was a terrible way to try and self-medicate his chronic depression. He had already made the decision to leave the group before the bust. It was just a case of terrible timing that news of his cocaine bust became public just before his announcement that he was leaving the band.
- Ed Robertson's song "You Run Away" is implicitly about his sorrow that Page could not have remained with the group and let them help him through his issues. As one line states, "I tried to be your brother, you cried and ran for cover...", a pretty clear statement that Ed and the other bandmates had no interest in firing Page.
- Everybody's heard of David Bowie's iconic alter-ego Ziggy Stardust. And everybody's seen pictures of David Bowie with the lightning-flash makeup across his face. A lot of people conflate the two, assuming that the character with the lightning bolt on his face is Ziggy... but it isn't. Ziggy's distinctive feature is a circle on his forehead; the character with the lightning flash is Aladdin Sane.
- Bowie's infamous persona during the Station to Station era had him supporting the rise of a new Hitler in interviews, right? Well, that's how the press spun it at the time. However, many current interpretations of those interviews suggest that he was actually expressing an 'accelerationist' viewpoint; the idea that society was getting more and more right wing whilst the liberals were being useless and that it may be best if the right-wing people temporarily got what they wanted so that they'd realise that it was a terrible idea and so that actual leftism might spring up to oppose it. And the Nazi-salute-esque hand-gesture was likely to have been a photograph taken mid-wave by unscrupulous newspaper photographers.
- With regards to the above, ask the average person what David Bowie's "nickname" is. If they don't say "Ziggy Stardust", they'll say he was the "Thin White Duke"... which is just one of his many characters (specifically, the one described above), and not a definitive "nickname" for Bowie that represents his entire career. In fact, Bowie went on to despise this character, remembering it as a period of depression, hard drug addiction and general insanity, and calling the character "nasty" and an "ogre".
- Bowie's infamous persona during the Station to Station era had him supporting the rise of a new Hitler in interviews, right? Well, that's how the press spun it at the time. However, many current interpretations of those interviews suggest that he was actually expressing an 'accelerationist' viewpoint; the idea that society was getting more and more right wing whilst the liberals were being useless and that it may be best if the right-wing people temporarily got what they wanted so that they'd realise that it was a terrible idea and so that actual leftism might spring up to oppose it. And the Nazi-salute-esque hand-gesture was likely to have been a photograph taken mid-wave by unscrupulous newspaper photographers.
- John Cage's 4'33" is often described as "four minutes and thirty-three seconds of silence". While the performer doesn't touch their instrument for the duration of the performance, there is still sound involved: the ambient noise created by the crowd is considered part of the performance. It'd be more accurate to describe it as "four minutes and thirty-three seconds of the sounds of the crowd at a concert hall waiting for the pianist to start playing".
- Phil Collins' "In The Air Tonight" is about Phil seeing a man drowning due to a bystander not intervening. Except it isn't: to quote Phil, "I don't know what this song is about. When I was writing this I was going through a divorce. And the only thing I can say about it is that it's obviously in anger. It's the angry side, or the bitter side of a separation".
- The much-publicized clip of Miley Cyrus gyrating on Robin Thicke at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards may have led to "twerk" becoming a household word overnight, but anyone who actually knew the term "twerking" before that night will know full well that that's not what Cyrus was doing in the clip. The dance move that she did on stage during Thicke's performance of "Blurred Lines" would be more accurately described as "grinding".
- Deep Purple memorably blamed the Montreux Casino fire on "some stupid with a flare gun" in "Smoke on the Water", but it's actually not completely clear how the fire started. Frank Zappa's recollection was that an audience member shot a bottle rocket into the ceiling. Another witness said the audience member was actually lighting matches, tossing them in the air, and catching them, only to have one match go too high. It's also been suggested that it was caused by faulty wiring.
- "Edelweiss" is often thought of as a traditional Austrian folk and/or patriotic song. In reality, it was written by Rodgers and Hammerstein for The Sound of Music.
- In the US, A Flock of Seagulls are remembered for two things: "I Ran (So Far Away)" and Mike Scores' hairstyle. However the "I Ran" video never featured the haircut, despite being by far their best known.
- Genesis was once a cool Progressive Rock band with an inventive, creative sound under the guidance of lead singer Peter Gabriel. Then Gabriel left, and drummer Phil Collins took over as lead singer, and that was the end of that. Collins prefers wimpy adult contemporary that does its best not to offend anyone, including straight love ballads that sound like cheesy Michael Bolton ripoffs, so that's all Genesis' music became. Except that's not true at all. While Genesis definitely became more commercial and radio-friendly in the 80s, the Gabriel era did have a couple radio hits in the UK, and Collins initially wanted it to be an instrumental jazz fusion band when they initially couldn't find a replacement vocal. In fact, before Steve Hackett left the band maintained the same pastoral progressive rock sound, and even afterwards the pop transition was steady. Not to mention it wasn't all 80s synth and love ballads as found in Collins' solo career; at their most commercial, Genesis put out the hard-rock Protest Song anthem "Land of Confusion", the superbly creepy "Mama", the attack on hypocritical religious leaders "Jesus He Knows Me", the Domestic Abuse-themed "No Son of Mine" and the Blade Runner-inspired "Tonight Tonight Tonight".
- All of Green Day's songs are exactly the same, right? Not so. This stems from the fact that in their 90s discography, they had a tendency to overuse Three Chords and the Truth, particularly on Dookie. In actuality, the band works in two-album cycles with songs and sounds that sound similar to each other. The fact that they actually worked to expand their sound by 1997 on nimrod., then diversified their sound a lot on Warning: really cements this. Any actual fan of the band will tell you this. In terms of their range expanding, they have Warning, American Idiot, and 21st Century Breakdown to really show their range musically, not even counting their side projects, The Network (New Wave Music) and The Foxboro Hottubs (Garage Rock). In fact, their 2012 album trilogy really shows off their range quite nicely, with Power Pop and Pop Punk indicative of their early albums, the Punk and Garage Rock of their middle albums, then the more stadium-oriented and political music of the two albums before the trilogy.
- "Juggalo" is not just a Fan Community Nickname for fans of Insane Clown Posse. The term more accurately applies to fans of the record label Psychopathic Records, which was founded by Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope. ICP is the most well-known group on the label's roster by a pretty wide margin, but it also includes quite a few lesser-known rap acts who share ICP's love of face paint, theatrical alter egos, horror-themed subject matter, and grotesque humor (not to mention a few of ICP's frequent collaborators like Wolfpac, TechN9ne, and the Kottonmouth Kings, who are considered "honorary" family members). Having "The Great Milenko" and "The Amazing Jeckel Brothers" in one's record collection doesn't necessarily make someone a Juggalo by default, but owning albums by Twiztid, Anybody Killa, Boondox and Blaze Ya Dead Homie definitely does. note
- Everybody knows that Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake performed the halftime show at the 2004 Super Bowl. Not quite: the show was actually an ensemble act, and it also featured performances by Nelly, P. Diddy, Kid Rock, and Jessica Simpson. Most people just forgot about the other performances after they were overshadowed by Jackson's infamous wardrobe malfunction during her duet with Timberlake at the finale.
- Michael Jackson didn't invent the Concept Video with the three clips he did for Thriller; David Bowie and George Harrison were among those who did such videos with storylines in the 1970s, and the trope goes back even further if one counts proto-works like Fantasia.
- Jessie J's "Domino" (which everybody knows is called "Dancin' in the Moonlight") is rather infamous for being frequently mistaken for a Katy Perry song, mostly by people outside the UK. On YouTube, most of the top-rated comments on the song's official music video are by people who are astonished to learn that Katy Perry didn't sing it.
- "Jingle Bells" was written as a Christmas song, right? Actually, wrong. When originally written in 1857 by James Lord Pierpont, it was intended to be sung on Thanksgiving. The misconception arose because of the line "dashing through the snow": even in the mid-19th century, white Thanksgivings were incredibly rare, and the last one to date was in 1907.
- Everyone knows that The Kingsmen's version of Richard Berry's "Louie Louie" was the filthiest, most obscene song you could commonly hear on the radio (before such controversy caused people to lash out against it, including an FBI investigation that finally released an 1100-page report concluding that they couldn't tell if there were any harmful effects to "Louie, Louie" or not, because they couldn't understand the words). In fact, it's just a completely unintelligible telling of a simple story about a sailor looking forward to reuniting with his girlfriend. The creators themselves have gotten into screaming matches with fans over what the lyrics "allegedly" are.
- Everyone knows that Gene Simmons is the front-man of KISS—except he's not. That would be Paul Stanley; Gene is just the one with the most prominent public persona.
- Everyone knows that KISS is some of the hardest of Heavy Metal. But they're barely even hard rock, even for their day. They just look scary.
- Their name is an acronym. Whether it stands for Keep It Simple Stupid or Knights in Satan's Service is up for debate. The fact is it's not an acronym at all; they just stylize it by spelling it in all caps.
- The Korn song "Daddy" is addressed to lead singer Jonathan Davis's father, and is about Davis's struggles with being a victim of child molestation. Many fans assumed that this meant Davis's father committed the abuse. He didn't - Davis has maintained in interviews that it was a family friend, and that the song is actually about his anger toward his father for not believing him when he tried to speak out. Unfortunately, this has led some fans to harrass Davis's father over acts he never committed.
- The La's song "There She Goes" is widely believed to be about heroin; however both songwriter Lee Mavers and guitarist Paul Hemmings deny that interpretation.
- Everyone knows Limp Bizkit incited a riot at the trainwreck music festival Woodstock '99. In fact, the Limp Bizkit performance happened the day before the riot; this misconception was caused by news broadcasts playing the Limp Bizkit song "Break Stuff" over footage of the rioters. Fred Durst had asked the crowd to let their anger out prior to playing, leading to fans ripping plywood off the stage to crowd surf on as a result, but he soon tried to calm the crowd down, asking them to concentrate on 'positive energy'. In reality, the riot at Woodstock '99 was caused by horrible event management. The event was held on an all-concrete Air Force base in sweltering heat with no shade with the stages over two miles apart, meaning attendees had to walk between them over searing concrete. The extortionate price for bottled water ($4 - the equivalent of $6 today) and mile-long queues for the free water fountains led to desperate festivalgoers breaking the water pipes, and the inadequate toilet facilities forced people to do their business in less suitable locations. In short, while the crowds were getting violent to Korn and Kid Rock rather than to Alanis Morissette, most of the violence was caused by the crowd being deranged from dehydration, heatstroke and the stink of shit.
- Everyone knows that one of the great mysteries of rock is what exactly Meat Loaf "won't do" in "I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)". Except it's not; he says it right in the lyrics (just not in the chorus). He makes a different promise to his lover in each verse: first "I'll never forget the way you feel right now", then "I'll never forgive myself if we don't go all the way tonight", then "I'll never do it better than I do it with you", and finally "I'll never stop dreaming of you every night of my life". Then at the conclusion, his lover predicts "You'll see that it's time to move on" and "You'll be screwing around", and he emphatically responds "I won't do that!" to both.
- My Chemical Romance:
- The band is often cited as the Emo band, even though the members have pretty consistently said that they consider their music Pop Punk and Alternative Rock, and they generally spurned the "emo" label. Only their first album You Brought Me Your Bullets, I Brought You My Love could really be classified as a straight example of the genre, and that one was made when the band was (by their own admission) still trying to figure out their sound; by the time they had become widely-known with Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, they had almost entirely abandoned it in favor of a more fast-paced, upbeat pop rock sound with occasional Gothic Horror-inspired lyrics. Even if you still consider them part of the emo genre, they were far from the Trope Codifiers and most certainly not the Trope Makers, and weren't even the ones responsible for bringing it into the mainstream (that honor would go to Jimmy Eat World with their 2001 platinum selling album Bleed American). Folks have noticed that in addition to their punk sound, they often lean close to true metal with how Gerard loves screaming his head off, especially during their many, many guitar solos. Most of their emo reputation comes from their breakout hit "Helena", often called an emo song because of its depressing lyrics, and because its music video featured a funeral procession; but that was because it was originally written as a tribute to Gerard and Mikey's deceased grandmother, whose name was "Elena".
- Despite numerous claims by fans, there's very little evidence that Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge is a concept album continuing the story of the Demolition Lovers from the titular song in You Brought Me Your Bullets, I Brought You My Love. While Gerard Way has claimed that he began the album with a vague idea for a storyline (involving a deceased man attempting to free himself from Hell and reunite with his lover by killing 1,000 evil men), he has admitted that he had largely abandoned the idea by the time the album was finished. The claim that the album is really about the Demolition Lovers appears to stem from the fact that "Demolition Lovers II" is the official title of the painting in the album's famous cover art—but there's no other indication that the characters were supposed to figure into the album's story (such as it is).
- The Norwegian band Nightcore is the Trope Namer for Nightcore, a type of Speedy Techno Remake involving speeding up slow dance/techno/trance songs to turn them into much faster and upbeat "nightcore versions". The group Nightcore never actually did this; the name is simply a reference to their prominence as one of the Trope Codifiers of the Happy Hardcore variety of EDM- which is what the typical "Nightcore version" of a song ends up sounding like.
- Nirvana:
- They did not originate in Seattle; they actually came from the small town of Aberdeen, about two hours away from the Emerald City. The confusion is understandable since they did play Grunge (also known as the "Seattle Sound"), they were based in Seattle after making it big, and they were responsible for Seattle becoming well-known in mainstream popular culture.
- They're often called "The Beatles of the '90s", due to the common belief that they did for alternative music what the Fab Four did for The British Invasion. While no one can dispute Nirvana's commercial success or artistic influence, their rivals Pearl Jam consistently outsold them when they were together, and they never really outstripped them in popularity until after Kurt Cobain's death. And during the same period, Metallica were also at the height of their popularity, and R&B and hip-hop were breaking into the mainstream. Nirvana was big, but to say that their success reached the heights of Beatlemania is pushing it.
- Nevermind isn't their only full-length album, or their last one, despite what many younger casual fans seem to think. While Nirvana's discography is a lot smaller than many other bands of comparable influence (due to the band abruptly splitting up after Kurt's death), they did release a full-length album (Bleach) on the then-independent label Sub Pop before signing to major label DGC Records, hitting it big with Nevermind, and they stuck together long enough to release a follow-up to Nevermind (In Utero) that became a major hit in its own right—though not quite on the level of its predecessor.
- Mike Oldfield is widely believed to be the composer of the iconic 1973 horror film The Exorcist. Although the opening section of his composition "Tubular Bells" was indeed used as the film's main theme, the remainder of the soundtrack was composed by Jack Nitzsche.
- Everybody knows that Pink Floyd is the Psychedelic Rock band. Which is true...if you're talking about their first two albums, released in the late 1960s. But by the time they had become internationally known in the early 1970s with The Dark Side of the Moon, they had pretty firmly transitioned to Progressive Rock. And despite the generally stereotype that their fans tend to be stoners, their songs seldom (if ever) mention drugs, and essentially never portray drug use positively—which is rather understandable, considering their first leader was forced to leave the band due to a tragic mental breakdown brought about (in part) by LSD use. On the whole, their music catalogue tends to explore political and literary themes far more often than anything related to drugs.
- Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" still regularly gets mentioned as the first music video. It wasn't, by quite a way, though it may have been the moment at which the medium Grew The Beard.
- Ragtime music is sometimes associated with The Great Depression era, but its popularity actually mostly died out around World War I and by the '30s was as far from its heyday of mainstream popularity as Disco music was in The '90s or Grunge is today. The misconception was largely fueled by the 1973 film The Sting, which featured a prominent ragtime soundtrack and was set in 1936.
- A common misconception is that "Ring Around the Rosie" is about the Black Death— that "ring around the rosie" refers to the round rash on people's hands, "a pocketful of posies" is either the flowers at people's funerals, a weird euphemism for lesions, or the flowers that plague doctors gave, "atishoo!" is because sneezing was one symptom of the plague (and sometimes, this is replaced with "ashes", which they think refers to people's ashy skin or the burning of bedclothes or bodies) and "we all fall down" refers to death. This is highly unlikely— the rhyme was first recorded five centuries after the plague, and there are many variations on the rhyme quite different from the one we have now. It was first mentioned in print in 1846, and first recorded in 1855, as follows:A ring — a ring of roses,
Laps full of posies;
Awake — awake!
Now come and make
A ring — a ring of roses.- The first versions beginning to resemble the modern "Ashes, ashes, we all fall down" verses appear c. 1900, and the various folk interpretations involving the Black Plague date to—at the very earliest—the 1930s. For these reasons, folklorists reject the popular association of the rhyme with the plague, a position agreed upon by Snopes.
- Everyone "knows" The Rolling Stones were playing "Sympathy for the Devil" during the infamous stabbing of Meredith Hunter at the Altamont Free Concert. But this isn't true. While there was fighting in the crowd as they played that song, Meredith was killed while they were playing "Under My Thumb".
- Sabaton's song "The Last Stand" is not about The Crusades, as commonly assumed by non-fans, but the last stand of the Swiss Guard during the sack of Rome by mutinous Habsburg troops in 1527; in fact, the lyrics reference this multiple times. This mainly comes from the chorus, which prominently features the line "thy will be done," which could be interpreted as a translation of the Crusader slogan "Deus Vult," and as such is often used out of context in Crusade-themed memes.
- Frank Sinatra's first wife and daughter were both named Nancy. It was his daughter Nancy who became a famous '60s pop singer (well known for her hit single "These Boots Are Made For Walkin'"), not his wife, as some believe.
- Skrillex did not invent Dubstep despite what people seem to think. While he did popularize it, the genre existed a good decade or so in the UK before Skrillex got big. Also, people seem to be under the impression that Skrillex is a dubstep producer because it made him famous, and that's all he's made as far as they're concerned. In reality, his repertoire is as diverse as trap, electro house, deep house, dance-pop, acid techno, future bass, and hip-hop. That's not without getting into the fact that he broke into the music industry as a rock singer for the band From First to Last, which he has since rejoined.
- People who are fans of neither Death Metal nor Slayer will often say that Slayer plays death metal. Their actual genre is Thrash Metal: they're even known as one of the "Big Four" of thrash. The key distinction is that Slayer's music lacks the Harsh Vocals that define the death metal genre. This mistake was notably made in an episode of South Park, where Cartman plays "Raining Blood" to scare off hippies because they "can't stand death metal".
- Smash Mouth's "All Star" was not written for the Shrek soundtrack, as Memetic Mutation would suggest. The song actually debuted in 1999 (Shrek came out in 2001), and it was featured in the soundtracks of multiple films before Shrek, including Inspector Gadget (1999), Mystery Men, and Digimon: The Movie. Ironically: despite being most commonly associated with Shrek, its official music video is a direct tie-in with Mystery Men. However, their cover of "I'm a Believer" was recorded for the Shrek soundtrack, which may have contributed to the misconception.
- Many sources erroneously state that the cover art to Steely Dan's Aja was done by Phil Hartman. It was actually done by Japanese photographer Hideki Fujii. Phil did have a background in graphic design though, and designed multiple sleeves for Poco and America, as well as The Firesign Theatre's Fighting Clowns.
- There's a widespread myth that, in the Middle Ages in Europe, the Catholic Church banned the use of tritones in music—and would excommunicate or otherwise punish anyone who performed music featuring them—because they believed that interval was inherently demonic. In reality, there's no historical evidence of such a ban, and on the contrary there are several examples of tritones in music commissioned by the church. There were prohibitions against tritones, but they didn't come from the church: it was the music theory writers who taught that tritones should be avoided purely because they sounded dissonant and were hard to sing. The probable source of the myth is Joanne Fux's treatise Gradus Ad Parnassum (from 1725, well after the Middle Ages) where he describes tritones as "diabolus in musica" ("the devil unto music")—which was, of course, a metaphor about how hard they are to sing. Then 19th century composers applied the metaphor literally, using tritones in music to signify death or evil, for example in Camille Saint-Saëns's Danse macabre and Gustav Holst's "Mars, the Bringer of War" from The Planets. From there, people started thinking that folks from the Middle Ages must have thought tritones literally demonic, because it fit into the narrative that everyone back then were superstitious idiots. Heavy Metal musicians were particularly influential in pushing this myth into the mainstream. Metal borrowed the usage of tritones to symbolize the demonic from 18th century classical music: one of the foundational songs of the genre, Black Sabbath's song of the same name, was directly inspired by the aforementioned "Mars, the Bringer of War". And since metal musicians are in a constant arms race to seem more evil than the last band, they repeated the myth of the Medieval tritone ban to make their music seem more transgressive.
- The opening lines of Ritchie Valens' "La Bamba" are not just catchy nonsense sung to a beat. The opening lyrics are "Para bailar la Bamba", which means "To dance the Bamba...". Of course, to listeners who don't speak Spanish, the line sounds uncannily like "La-la-la-la-la Bamba".
- Vocaloid:
- Vocaloid did not start in Japan; development of the product started in Spain, with English speaking vocals. The misconception comes from Miku Hatsune's Breakout Character status, as she happens to be a Japanese Vocaloid. Additionally, Vocaloids were not initially intended to be virtual celebrities; they were intended to be backing vocals for "real" singers, and professional musicians, as well as casual computer users with the mascots featured on the box art not being intended to represent the vocal itself, as it was solely there for marketability.
- When the above became common knowledge, Miku was then labeled the first Vocaloid made for the VOCALOID2 engine. This is also not true; the first V2 Vocaloid was an English voicebank named Sweet Ann. Miku's the second, but she was the first Japanese bank made for the engine. Ann herself is either thought of as an American or British bank, but she actually was made in Sweden (hence the Punny Name).
- To further add, despite popular belief that they came after Miku due to their more successful V3 releases, the first Japanese Vocaloids were MEIKO and KAITO, with MEIKO predating Miku by around 3 years and KAITO predating her by a little over a year.
- The Crypton Future Media Vocaloids aren't the "main characters" of Vocaloid, nor are the other corporations' Vocaloids "support" characters for this group. While heavily promoted, the Crypton Vocaloids are merely a few out of many voicebanks. Gumi and Gackpo aren't Crypton creations either; they're from Internet Co, Ltd.
- Kagamine Rin and Len are not officially Half-Identical Twins. While it's a common Fanon interpretation, Crypton has stated that they have no official relationship and how they're depicted is entirely up to individual fan interpretations.
- Many fans thought Kaito's full name was Kaito Shion, but this was never official and solely a fan name. Kaito's name is just Kaito.
- Many people still think that Warrant hated the song "Cherry Pie". This isn't actually true. It is true that frontman Jani Lane wrote the song quickly, but Lane did not hate it and said as much. The misconception comes from an interview Lane did for VH1; Lane had been going through a divorce, his mother had passed away, and Lane vented his frustrations against the song when asked about it.
- Contrary to popular belief, "Weird Al" Yankovic writes more than just parodies of specific songs. In fact, his albums have almost as many (if not more) original songs (as well as, usually, a polka medley) as they do direct parodies. Most of these songs parody the style of an artist, but not any song specifically. Also, "Weird Al" Yankovic is not the only artist to do parodies, but many (unofficial) music downloading sites incorrectly list Yankovic (many times spelled as Yankovich) as the performer of nearly every parody available for download, even if it's obviously sung by a woman. There's even a "Not by Al" website listing the parodies he's been incorrectly associated with. Fewer people might think this now due to the rising popularity of song parodies on YouTube.
- Al brought this up in his Behind the Music episode, explaining that people sometimes come up to him and ask, "You're so talented. Do you ever consider doing your own songs?" Which he followed up by saying, "And then I have to kill those people."
- The Who's song "Who Are You" is well-known for featuring the F-bomb ("Who the fuck are you?"). However, the F-bomb is only dropped twice in the song, not all the way through despite what many listeners remember. The first F-bomb doesn't appear until the second chorus and the second occurs shortly before the song wraps up, but a lot of people immediately sing "Who the fuck are you, who who, who who, who the fuck are you, who who, who who..." etc. when singing it.
- The East Coast vs. West Coast Beef was an all encompassing regional rivalry that touched all artists from both coasts, and was the cause of the deaths of Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G.? Actually, it was mainly a disagreement between Bad Boy Records and Death Row Records, involving artists from their roster. Wu-Tang Clan toured California without issue. And while the deaths of Tupac and Biggie are still unsolved, Tupac's murder in particular seems to be unrelated to any music industry intrigue. And as far as regional rivalry goes, Tupac was born in New York and grew up in Baltimore. He did start his rap carreer in San Fransisco, but originally calling himself MC New York.
- In September 2023 Duane Keith "Keefe D" Davis was indicted for Tupac's murder, police believe he provided the gun and that his nephew Orlando Anderson (who was himself shot and killed two years after Shakur) was the shooter. His trial is set to begin in June 2024.
- In September 2023 Duane Keith "Keefe D" Davis
- Because Eurobeat is so prominently featured in the anime adaptation of Initial D, which is a Japanese work, a lot of fans assume that Eurobeat musicians, or at least the ones featured in Initial D, are Japanese, not helped by the English pronunciation and grammar being spotty in some songs. Nope, they are indeed European, more specifically Italian (with a few exceptions, such as Annalise, who is British), with the obvious exception of the songs that are sung in Japanese instead of English (most prominently "Wings of Fire", which is sung by the seiyuu of Mako and Sayuki, and the m.o.v.e. songs).
