h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It's music quiz time of the month

(These are easy to look up so if you do, please don't share your search results here).

Can you name the following 9 hit song titles. There's a thematic link between them all, which will help you when you've worked it out.

Small Faces (reached #9 in the UK charts in Dec 1967)
Sweet (#9, Jan 1978)
David Essex (#4, Apr 1980)
Black Sabbath (#22, Jul 1980)
Stranglers (#2, Jan 1982)
Nirvana (#11, Jul 1992)
Radiohead (#11, Oct 1994)
3 Colours Red (#30, Jul 1997)
Paolo Nutini (#17, Oct 2009)

I can only think of 9 with this theme, so kudos to anyone who can come up with a tenth ...

Icy

[Amy P]

I remember the Stranglers had a hit called "Golden Brown", and two of the groups you list have colours in their names, so I'm guessing the link is colours. All the songs have a colour in the title? No idea what they are, though.

Not colours - metals, I'd guess, because the Small Faces must be Tin Solider, and Paolo Nutini is Pencil Full of Lead.

Well stumped.

Black Sabbath would be Iron Man - I reckon it's the metals.

Aha! David Essex was "Silver Dream Machine"

Orrrr, is it just elements? I think Sweet had a song called Love is Like Oxygen.

As for nominations for a 10th, Duran Duran had an album track called "Playing with Uranium", and T Rex had an album called (wait for it) Zinc Alloy and the Hidden Riders of Tomorrow - a Creamed Cage in August. But if the litmus test is chart singles, then these wouldn't make it.

Steve Earle's Copperhead Road?

But if Icy can't think of a tenth, it can't be metal or elements. Who could forget Spandau Ballet's "Gold"?

Maybe it's "non-precious metals".

Another non-chart song - remember the Rock Follies? I think they ahd a song called "Hot Neon".

If it is elements rather than metals, the 10th is obvious - 3 Doors Down with "Kryptonite". At least originally, it's an element, though later stories make it an alloy.

()

And now I'm singing


I asked the waiter for iodine, but I dined all alone.....
Oh, your red scarf matches your eyes....

I knew you lot would solve it quickly.

Yes, it's elements. You haven't identified all the songs I had in mind, but you've found enough in other songs to list at least ten.

There's only one element in my nine you've not mentioned so far, and that's in the Nirvana song.

I'll post the answers I had in mind later this evening or tomorrow.

Oh, and if you're really bored, you might want to list artists containing elements somewhere in their names.

I'll start with Iron Butterfly.

Are allotropes allowed? No shortage of Diamond songs (Rhianna, Shirley Bassey, Marilyn Monroe....)

You're beyond me now. I thought Allotropes were dinosaurs.

Mind you, you did list Shirley Bassey...