50 Fun Facts About 2018 Music

Beyoncé and Jay-Z filmed the 2018 video for their joint single Apeshit inside which famous museum?

The Louvre drew a record of more than ten million visitors in 2018 and gave the video part of the credit. The couple pose in front of the Mona Lisa.

Which children's song from South Korean brand Pinkfong went viral across the West in summer 2018?

Baby Shark had been on YouTube since June 2016 before the dance craze took off. It later broke into the Billboard Hot 100 at number 32, in January 2019.

Which Drake song inspired a 2018 craze in which fans left moving cars to dance alongside them?

In My Feelings took off after comedian Shiggy posted an Instagram clip of himself dancing to it. Shiggy later made a cameo in the official video, shot in New Orleans.

Young Mason Ramsey went viral in 2018 by yodelling a Hank Williams song inside which store chain?

Walmart shoppers in Harrisburg, Illinois, filmed the 11-year-old singing Lovesick Blues. Within weeks he had signed a record deal with Atlantic and Big Loud.

Whose 2018 Instagram post backing two Tennessee Democrats preceded a surge in voter registrations?

Taylor Swift had never publicly endorsed a candidate before. Vote.org counted more than 169,000 new registrations within two days of her post.

Ariana Grande's Thank U, Next video recreates Mean Girls, Bring It On, 13 Going on 30 and which film?

Legally Blonde even lent the video a cast member, with Jennifer Coolidge from the 2001 film appearing alongside Grande. Kris Jenner also has a cameo.

Which Queen song was named the most-streamed track of the twentieth century in December 2018?

Bohemian Rhapsody overtook Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit for the title, weeks after the Queen biopic named after the song reached cinemas.

YouTuber LadBaby claimed the 2018 UK Christmas number one with a charity parody about which snack?

Sausage rolls were the theme of LadBaby's rewrite of Starship's We Built This City. It was the first of five Christmas number ones in a row for the couple behind the name.

Drake gave away the near-million-dollar budget of his God's Plan video to people in which US city?

Miami residents received cash handouts, gifts and oversized cheques on camera, including $50,000 for one student's tuition. The video says its whole $996,631.90 budget was given away.

In 2018 Post Malone put nine songs in the Hot 100's top 20 at once, beating which band's 1964 feat?

The Beatles had held the mark for 54 years, with six songs in the top 20 in April 1964. Post Malone's album Beerbongs & Bentleys supplied all nine of his.

Beyoncé became the first Black woman to headline which American music festival in April 2018?

Coachella had first booked her for 2017, but she withdrew on her doctors' advice after becoming pregnant. Her 2018 set featured a full marching band and majorette dancers.

Kendrick Lamar's Damn became the first work outside classical and jazz to win which award in 2018?

The Pulitzer Prize for Music had gone only to classical and jazz composers since it was first given in 1943. One earlier winner, Charles Wuorinen, publicly denounced the jury's choice.

Which Childish Gambino song, released as he hosted Saturday Night Live, won Record of the Year?

This Is America became the first rap song to win Record of the Year and Song of the Year at the Grammys. Its video, directed by Hiro Murai, went online during the broadcast.

Which song from the 2018 remake of A Star Is Born won the Academy Award for Best Original Song?

Shallow surged to number one on the Hot 100 a week after Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper performed it at the ceremony. It was her fourth American chart-topper and his first.

Which former Fifth Harmony member reached number one on the Hot 100 in January 2018 with Havana?

Camila Cabello had left the group in late 2016. Havana spent seven weeks stuck at number two before reaching the top, and was the world's best-selling digital single of 2018.

Travis Scott's 2018 album Astroworld is named after a defunct theme park in which Texas city?

Houston's Six Flags AstroWorld closed in 2005. The album named after it debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 and returned to the top almost four months later.

Whose 2018 debut Invasion of Privacy made her the first solo woman to win the Best Rap Album Grammy?

Cardi B had thirteen songs on the Hot 100 at once the week the album arrived, twelve of them from it. Two of its singles, Bodak Yellow and I Like It, reached number one.

Which band's Girls Like You video featured cameos by Gal Gadot, Ellen DeGeneres and Jennifer Lopez?

Maroon 5 perform in the centre of a room while the women appear one by one around singer Adam Levine. The single spent seven weeks at number one on the Hot 100.

Which instrument did Sheku Kanneh-Mason, 19, play at Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's 2018 wedding?

The cello had already brought him fame: he won BBC Young Musician in 2016, and his home town of Nottingham named a bus in his honour.

Which country won the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest in Lisbon with Netta's song Toy?

Israel finished ahead of Cyprus, whose second place was its best result up to then. Austria won the jury vote but ended up third overall.

Which Swedish DJ and producer died on holiday in Muscat, Oman, in April 2018 at the age of 28?

Avicii, the producer behind Wake Me Up and Levels, had retired from touring in 2016 because of health problems. He was staying at an estate owned by the Omani royal family.

Aretha Franklin's 2018 funeral, streamed live by news networks, took place in which American city?

Detroit's Greater Grace Temple hosted the service on August 31, with tributes from celebrities and politicians. Franklin had died at home two weeks earlier, aged 76.

Dolores O'Riordan, who died in London in January 2018, was the lead singer of which Irish rock band?

The Cranberries had a new album in the works: she had travelled to London partly to meet the band's record label about it. O'Riordan, from County Limerick, was 46.

Which Swedish music streaming company began trading on the New York Stock Exchange in April 2018?

Spotify chose a direct public offering rather than a conventional share sale. Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon had founded the company in Stockholm in 2006.

Which lip-sync video app, popular with teenagers, was merged into TikTok in August 2018?

Musical.ly had been bought by TikTok's owner ByteDance in November 2017. The merger moved every existing account and its data into one app that kept the TikTok name.

Which Nashville-based guitar maker filed for bankruptcy in May 2018 and emerged that November?

Gibson, maker of the Les Paul since 1952, planned its recovery around closing its loss-making consumer electronics divisions. Guitar production was never interrupted.

Which American singer-songwriter retired from touring in January 2018 after a Parkinson's diagnosis?

Neil Diamond, the voice of Sweet Caroline, received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award that same year. He went on to campaign for greater awareness of Parkinson's disease.

Which veteran rocker scored his first US number-one album since 1982 with Egypt Station in 2018?

Paul McCartney had last topped the Billboard 200 with Tug of War. Egypt Station was also the first of his albums ever to enter the chart at number one.

Which British singer's 2018 tour, the year's highest-grossing, set stadium records in Australia?

Ed Sheeran's Divide Tour grossed $429 million in 2018, then the most any tour had earned in a single year. It became the biggest stadium tour Australia and New Zealand had seen.

Which group's Love Yourself: Tear became the first Korean album to top the US Billboard 200 in 2018?

BTS entered the chart at number one with 135,000 album-equivalent units. No album sung mainly in a language other than English had topped it since Il Divo's Ancora in 2006.

Which rock band covered Toto's Africa in 2018 after a teenage fan's Twitter campaign?

Weezer released the cover in May 2018 and it climbed to number 51 on the Billboard Hot 100. A limited vinyl single followed, sold only through Urban Outfitters.

Which pop singer joined Florida Georgia Line on Meant to Be, a country chart-topper for 50 weeks?

Bebe Rexha and the duo broke the Hot Country Songs record for weeks at number one in August 2018, passing Sam Hunt's Body Like a Back Road. Kane Brown finally ended the run.

Post Malone and Swae Lee recorded the 2018 hit Sunflower for which animated film?

Into the Spider-Verse has its hero Miles sing along to Sunflower early in the film. The single reached number one on the Hot 100 in January 2019.

Juice WRLD's 2018 hit Lucid Dreams is built around Shape of My Heart, a 1993 song by which artist?

Sting ended up owning 85% of the rights to Lucid Dreams, as the track's producer Nick Mira revealed in November 2018.

Which singer joined Calvin Harris on One Kiss, the United Kingdom's best-selling song of 2018?

Dua Lipa performed at the opening ceremony of the 2018 Champions League final, after which Liverpool supporters adopted One Kiss as a club anthem. Earlier that year she had won two BRIT Awards.

George Ezra named his 2018 album Staying at Tamara's after the host he lodged with in which city?

Barcelona was his base for a month, in the home of a stranger named Tamara whom he found online. The album includes Shotgun, his first UK number-one single.

Which singer headlined the 2018 Super Bowl halftime show in Minneapolis with a tribute to Prince?

Justin Timberlake sang I Would Die 4 U beside footage of the late star, while an aerial shot showed downtown Minneapolis lit in purple. He had last played the halftime show in 2004.

Which singer won Album, Record and Song of the Year at the Grammys held in New York in January 2018?

Bruno Mars won all six of his nominations, taking the three top prizes for the album 24K Magic and its singles. Only six acts before him had swept all three in one night.

Which country singer's 2018 album Golden Hour won the Grammy for Album of the Year?

Kacey Musgraves grew up in the small town of Golden, Texas. Parts of the album were recorded in a studio above a horse stable owned by Sheryl Crow.

Ariana Grande's 2018 album Sweetener includes a track named after which comedian, then her fiancé?

Pete Davidson's namesake track sits on an album that debuted at number one in the US. Sweetener later won Best Pop Vocal Album, giving Grande her first Grammy Award.

Where is the luxury resort imagined on Arctic Monkeys' 2018 album Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino?

The album pictures its hotel on the Moon at Tranquility Base, the site of the 1969 Apollo 11 landing. One song even describes an acclaimed lunar taqueria.

Kanye West produced Ye and four other 2018 albums at sessions named after which US state?

Wyoming's Jackson Hole hosted the sessions and a two-hour listening party for Ye, which West livestreamed. The album cover shows a view of the nearby Teton Range.

Which Puerto Rican rapper released his debut album X 100pre at midnight on Christmas Eve 2018?

Bad Bunny announced the album on social media only a day ahead. Its title is shorthand for the Spanish for forever, and it went straight to number one on Top Latin Albums.

Which singer completed an EGOT in 2018 with an Emmy for producing NBC's Jesus Christ Superstar?

John Legend became the first Black man to win all four awards, and also played the title role in the live broadcast. His Tony had come for co-producing the play Jitney.

Which London band won the 2018 Mercury Prize for the album Visions of a Life?

Wolf Alice began in 2010 as an acoustic duo of singer Ellie Rowsell and guitarist Joff Oddie. The winning record was the band's second studio album.

Pete Shelley, who died in December 2018, fronted which punk band behind Ever Fallen in Love?

Buzzcocks grew out of his meeting with Howard Devoto at the Bolton Institute of Technology. Shelley died in Tallinn, Estonia, where he had moved in 2012.

Which gospel singer-guitarist entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2018 as an Early Influence?

Rosetta Tharpe, billed as Sister Rosetta, was gospel's first great recording star and has been called the Godmother of Rock and Roll. Johnny Cash named her his favourite childhood singer.

Which British music magazine ended its weekly print edition in March 2018 after 66 years?

NME carried on as an online-only title after its publisher ended the paper edition. Print returned in July 2023, this time as an issue every two months.

Which of thrash metal's Big Four began a farewell world tour in May 2018 and disbanded in 2019?

Slayer announced the tour with a video montage of press clippings and posters from across the band's career. Its first leg crossed North America in May and June 2018.

Which Swedish pop singer returned in 2018 with Honey, her first album since Body Talk in 2010?

Robyn first played the title track in full at a Robyn-themed dance night at the Brooklyn Bowl, where she turned up in person. Honey was her eighth studio album.