38 Melodious Facts About Music Albums You Never Knew

Mrs. Miller was a middle-aged housewife with no formal music training, whose first album “Mrs. Miller’s Greatest Hits” consisted of badly sung covers of popular pop songs from bands such as The Beatles. Her album reached #15 on the Billboard’s Top Albums chart in 1966.

27. Carlos Santana revealed to Rolling Stone that he was contacted by the Archangel Metatron and told how to create his next album ‘Supernatural.’ It went on to win 12 Grammy’s including Album of the Year, went 15 times platinum, charted #1 in 10 countries, and sold 30 million copies.

28. The title of Pantera’s 1992 album “Vulgar Display of Power” was inspired by a line in “The Exorcist.” When Father Karras asks Regan why she can’t make the straps restraining her disappear if she'’s supposedly the devil, she replies, “That's much too vulgar a display of power, Karras.”

29. Paul McCartney was mugged at knifepoint in Lagos, Nigeria. The thieves made off with all the demo tapes for the album ‘Band on the Run,’ that he was down there to make. McCartney had to re-create the demos entirely from memory before the album could be remade.

30. Boston’s debut album ‘Boston’ was initially rejected because band founder Tom Scholz had recorded and produced it entirely in his basement. In order to appease/fool the label, Scholz hired someone to pretend to produce the album while he re-recorded and reproduced the same album from his basement again.

Green day’s 1990s smash hit album “Dookie” was named as such due to the band members having the sh*ts from eating take out when traveling/touring. They were originally going to name the album “liquid dookie” but they deemed the name too gross.

32. For years after CD players hit the market, they remained unpopular and were mostly limited to fans of classical music. Dire Straits then released “Brothers in Arms”, the first totally digital album. It sold 30 million copies and is credited with launching CD players into the mainstream.

33. Lynyrd Skynyrd was named after Leonard Skinner, a gym teacher who used to send the band’s members to the principal for their long hair. Later, the band used his real estate company's sign and phone number for the “Nuthin’ Fancy” album artwork, swamping Leonard Skinner Realty in prank calls.

34. Michael Jackson got $2 for every Thriller album sold, which was one of the highest royalty rates of that time.

35. Van Halen refused to make videos for their album 5150, so Warner Bros quickly cobbled together a video for the song “Dreams” by using stock footage of the U.S. Navy’s Blue Angels. The cheap video became a surprise hit on MTV and the Navy began to use it as part of their recruiting efforts.

The final song on Pink Floyd’s album “Atomic Heart Mother” –“Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast” features a dripping sink at the end on original vinyl copies. The effect was cut into the vinyl's run-off groove, causing the dripping noise to play on infinitely until the stylus was removed.

37. When the girl featured on the front cover of Vampire Weekend’s “Contra” album artwork found out about the illegal use of her 26-year-old photo, she sued the band. She found out when her daughter brought home a copy of the album one day.

38. The production of Def Leppard’s album “Hysteria” was so expensive that guitarist Phil Collen estimated they needed to sell around 5 million copies to break even. They ended up selling 25 million.