1981 Music Trivia
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
6correct to beat the crowd
49 free 1981 Music trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
1981 was the year synth-pop took over the UK charts, a cable channel began playing videos around the clock, and punk's children formed the bands that would define the decade. It was also a year of farewells: solo careers launched, long partnerships dissolved, and a murdered Beatle's songs climbed the charts one more time. These 49 questions cover the number ones on both sides of the Atlantic, the albums that broke new acts, the Grammys and the Brits, Eurovision, the big tours and the novelty records everyone pretended not to buy. Every answer comes with an explanation and a source. Play it on your own, run it at a pub quiz, or print it for a 1981-themed evening.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which newly signed solo singer bit the head off a dove during a CBS Records meeting in Los Angeles?
Ozzy Osbourne
Ozzy Osbourne had planned to release doves as a peace gesture, but grabbed one and bit its head off instead. The notorious bat incident came a year later, on stage in Des Moines.
Q 02Which Dolly Parton song, with a typewriter rhythm tapped out on acrylic fingernails, topped the Hot 100 in February 1981?
9 to 5
9 to 5 loomed so large that Sheena Easton's own hit of the same name was retitled 'Morning Train' in America to avoid confusion, and both songs went to number one that year.
Q 03Which Blondie single, the first US number one to feature hip-hop verses, name-checks pioneer Fab 5 Freddy?
Rapture
Rapture has Debbie Harry herself delivering the rhymes, and Jean-Michel Basquiat appears in its video only because Grandmaster Flash failed to turn up for the shoot.
Q 04Which estranged duo reunited in September 1981 for a free Central Park concert before some 500,000 people?
Simon & Garfunkel
Simon & Garfunkel had split after Bridge over Troubled Water in 1970, and their Great Lawn reunion, staged as a benefit for the run-down park, became a live album and a TV special.
Q 05Which band's ballad 'Waiting for a Girl Like You' sat a record ten weeks at number two without reaching the top?
Foreigner
Foreigner were held off the top for nine weeks by Olivia Newton-John's 'Physical', and when that finally slipped, Hall & Oates leapfrogged them to number one instead.
Q 06Which metal band formed in Los Angeles in 1981 after a Danish drummer advertised for bandmates in The Recycler?
Metallica
Metallica began when James Hetfield answered Lars Ulrich's Recycler ad, which asked for players into Tygers of Pan Tang, Diamond Head and Iron Maiden. Their debut Kill 'Em All followed in 1983.
Q 07Which John Lennon single, a two-week UK number one, knocked his own re-released 'Imagine' off the top?
Woman
Woman came out weeks after Lennon's murder, which had already sent the reissued 'Imagine' to number one; he had called the song a grown-up version of the Beatles' 'Girl'.
Q 08Which Specials single was UK number one for three weeks in 1981 as riots broke out across English cities?
Ghost Town
Ghost Town could not hold the band together: at the Top of the Pops recording for their number one, several members announced they were leaving.
Q 09Which Adam and the Ants single, its video a 'dandy highwayman' romp, debuted at UK number one and stayed five weeks?
Stand and Deliver
Stand and Deliver debuted at the top of the UK chart on 3 May and became the year's third best-selling single, passing a million copies. Its video nods to Monty Python's 'Dennis Moore' sketch.
Q 10Which album, ABBA's last studio release for four decades, was recorded soon after both couples in the quartet split?
The Visitors
The Visitors was begun in March 1981, weeks after Benny and Frida announced their divorce, and Björn wrote 'When All Is Said and Done' about it; no ABBA album followed until Voyage in 2021.
Q 11Which hit 1970s band effectively ended in April 1981 when long-serving guitarist Denny Laine walked out?
Wings
Wings, Paul and Linda McCartney's band since 1971, had been on hold since Paul's 1980 cannabis arrest in Japan scrapped their tour, and a disgruntled Laine, seeing no tour plans, quit.
Q 12Which George Harrison single, a tribute to John Lennon, had Ringo Starr on drums and Paul McCartney on backing vocals?
All Those Years Ago
All Those Years Ago began as a song Harrison wrote for Ringo Starr to sing; after Lennon's murder he took it back and rewrote the lyrics as a tribute to his old bandmate.
Q 13Which AC/DC album, the follow-up to Back in Black, gave the band a first US number one?
For Those About to Rock
Q 21Which Genesis album was the first recorded at the Farm, the Surrey studio the trio bought in 1980?
Abacab
Abacab takes its name from the title track's early running order, sections A-B-A-C-A-B, a sequence the song had left behind by the time it was finished.
Q 22Which hit-making duo split in June 1981, one half moving to Maui to become a self-described 'avocado rancher'?
Steely Dan
Steely Dan went quiet for more than a decade after Gaucho, with Walter Becker farming in Hawaii and Donald Fagen going solo with The Nightfly, until the pair reunited to tour in 1993.
Q 23Which synth-pop star announced his retirement from touring with farewell concerts at Wembley Arena in April 1981?
Gary Numan
For Those About to Rock borrows the salute of Roman gladiators, an idea Angus Young took from a book about the arena, and it gave the band their first US chart-topping album.
Q 14Which Kool & the Gang single, the band's only Hot 100 number one, held the top for two weeks in February 1981?
Celebration
Celebration was climbing the chart when the 52 American hostages came home from Iran in January 1981, and radio stations played it to mark their release.
Q 15Which Stevie Wonder single was issued to push for a US national holiday honouring Martin Luther King Jr?
Happy Birthday
Happy Birthday became the anthem of Wonder's campaign, which brought a rally to Washington on King's birthday in January 1981, and Ronald Reagan signed the holiday into law in 1983.
Q 16Which Bette Midler ballad won her the Grammy for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance in February 1981?
The Rose
The Rose was not written for the film: Amanda McBroom had dashed it off at her piano a year or two earlier, and Midler fought to get it onto the soundtrack.
Q 17Which Welsh singer, the UK's top singles seller of the 1980s, took 'This Ole House' and 'Green Door' to number one?
Shakin' Stevens
Shakin' Stevens had been performing since the 1960s when he was cast as Elvis in the 1977 West End musical Elvis!, three years before the hits began.
Q 18Which novelty dance hit, later voted the most annoying record of all time, reached UK number two in 1981?
The Birdie Song
The Birdie Song, a hit for the Tweets, began as 'Der Ententanz', a duck dance that Swiss accordionist Werner Thomas wrote in the 1950s and played in restaurants for years before it swept the world.
Q 19Which Adam and the Ants album, the UK's best seller of the year, won Best British Album at the 1982 Brits?
Kings of the Wild Frontier
Kings of the Wild Frontier was made by a rebuilt band: Malcolm McLaren had lured the original Ants away to form Bow Wow Wow, so Adam returned with two drummers and a Burundi beat.
Q 20Which band, formed by Martyn Ware and Ian Marsh on quitting the Human League, released Penthouse and Pavement?
Heaven 17
Heaven 17 took its name from a fictional band in A Clockwork Orange, and singer Glenn Gregory had been Ware and Marsh's first choice to front the Human League. Philip Oakey got that job instead.
Gary Numan played three sold-out farewell nights at Wembley at the height of his fame, but the retirement proved short-lived and he was soon back on stage.
Q 24The Human League's 1981 album Dare was designed to look like an issue of which fashion magazine?
Vogue
Vogue supplied the name as well as the look: Philip Oakey admitted lifting the title from a one-word Vogue cover line, and the album's fourth single became that year's Christmas number one.
Q 25Which Depeche Mode debut album, released on Mute, was the only one to feature founding member Vince Clarke?
Speak & Spell
Speak & Spell was released by Mute in the UK and Sire in the US, and Vince Clarke quit soon after, going on to form Yazoo with Alison Moyet. Martin Gore then took over the songwriting.
Q 26Which group did singer Terry Hall form on quitting the Specials at their 1981 peak?
Fun Boy Three
Fun Boy Three took Hall, Neville Staple and Lynval Golding from ska to a sparse sound built on percussion, and they launched Bananarama by sharing a hit with them.
Q 27Which U2 album was written in a rush after a briefcase holding Bono's lyrics went missing at a Portland show?
October
October was hurried out with improvised lyrics after the loss in Portland, and the briefcase finally found its way back to Bono in 2004, 23 years after it went missing.
Q 28Which New Order debut single was among the last songs written by Joy Division, with lyrics by Ian Curtis?
Ceremony
Ceremony carried Joy Division into New Order: the survivors re-recorded it without Ian Curtis to launch the new band, then released a second version later in 1981.
Q 29Which performance artist's 'O Superman', championed by DJ John Peel, reached number two on the UK singles chart?
Laurie Anderson
Laurie Anderson first pressed only 1,000 copies and posted them out from her own apartment; after John Peel's airplay a British distributor asked for 80,000 and Warner Bros. stepped in.
Q 30Madness's UK number four hit 'It Must Be Love' was a cover of a 1971 single by which singer-songwriter?
Labi Siffre
Labi Siffre makes a cameo in the Madness video as a violinist in a white tuxedo; his own version had reached number 14 a decade earlier.