Mental Floss

MUSIC







Illustration of a katzenklavier from the satirical magazine 'Kladderadatsch' circa 1897.

Long before the wonders of keyboard cat, felines and music had a tense relationship. The two were tied by an infernal instrument—the katzenklavier, or cat organ.

Lucas Reilly


Ralph Orlowski, Getty Images

Guy Holmes popped the tape into the cassette player in his car and waited. The British record promoter was eager to hear new acts, but knew that the majority of them weren’t going to be good or unique enough to cut through the noise of the worldwide music

Jake Rossen








Hulton Archive/Getty Images

The sci-fi series' theme song is familiar to pretty much anyone who lived in the free world (and probably elsewhere, too) in the late 20th century. Do you know the words?

Eddie Deezen


iStock

Before the 20th century, concert musicians might tune their instruments to wildly different pitches, depending on where they were playing.

Shaunacy Ferro


Getty Images

To Louis Armstrong's millions of fans, every note the legendary musician let loose made the world feel a bit more wonderful.

Mark Mancini




Not even a lineup of the world's biggest artists could save "We Are The World" from annoying listeners.

If you don't want to spend the rest of the day humming "We Built This City," "Who Let the Dogs Out," or "We Are the World," stop reading this article right now.

Stacy Conradt