This 2000s music trivia quiz has 130 free questions with answers and covers the decade from NSYNC's record-breaking No Strings Attached to the Black Eyed Peas' 26 straight weeks at number one. Expect the pop giants (Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, Kelly Clarkson, Lady Gaga), the hip-hop and R&B era (Eminem, OutKast, Usher, Kanye West, Beyoncé, Rihanna), the rock and emo revival (The White Stripes, The Killers, Green Day, My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy), the British wave (Coldplay, Amy Winehouse) and the technology that changed how everyone listened: Napster, the iPod and the iTunes Store. About a third of the questions are easy for anyone who owned a burned CD, a third are medium, and the rest dig into samples, Grammy wins, chart records and the stories behind the songs. Every answer has been checked against a primary or encyclopaedic source, and each question links to the page that confirms it.
30 of 130 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which rapper was the top-selling artist of the 2000s across all genres?
Eminem
Britney Spears was the decade's best-selling female artist.
Q 02Which album broke NSYNC's No Strings Attached first-week US sales record of 2.4 million after 15 years?
Adele's 25
Adele's 25 sold 3.38 million in its opening week in 2015.
Q 03In the 'Bye Bye Bye' video, NSYNC are portrayed as what, a nod to their legal fight with manager Lou Pearlman?
Puppets
The album title No Strings Attached made the same point about escaping Pearlman's control.
Q 04In the 2000 video for 'Oops!... I Did It Again', the singer dances in a red bodysuit on which planet?
Mars
An astronaut hands her the Heart of the Ocean, the blue diamond from Titanic.
Q 05'Toxic' (2004) remains the only Grammy-winning single for which pop star?
Britney Spears
Its high-pitched strings are sampled from the 1981 Bollywood song 'Tere Mere Beech Mein'.
Q 06Eminem's 2000 single 'Stan' samples 'Thank You' by which British singer?
Dido
The character's name became a slang word for an obsessive fan and is now in the Oxford English Dictionary.
Q 07'Lose Yourself' from 8 Mile was the first hip-hop track to win an Oscar. In which category?
Best Original Song
Eminem later opened a Detroit restaurant called Mom's Spaghetti in honour of the song's most quoted lyric.
Q 08Under what name did Linkin Park originally form in 1996?
Xero
They briefly went by Hybrid Theory itself before settling on Linkin Park; the album has sold around 32 million copies.
Q 09Which Linkin Park song won the Grammy for Best Hard Rock Performance in 2002?
Crawling
'In the End' was the album's highest-charting single but went home empty-handed.
Q 10Which band sued Napster in April 2000 after an unreleased demo leaked onto it?
Metallica
Napster shut its network down in July 2001 to comply with a court injunction.
Q 11When Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPod in 2001, its 5 GB hard drive was pitched with what slogan?
'1,000 songs in your pocket'
Apple sold about 450 million iPods before discontinuing the line in May 2022.
Q 12In what year did Apple open the iTunes Store, selling songs for download?
2003
It opened on 28 April 2003, two years after the first iPod.
Q 13Which Missy Elliott single, built on a Punjabi tumbi melody, won the 2002 Grammy for Best Rap Solo Performance?
Get Ur Freak On
Rolling Stone named it the greatest song of the 21st century in 2025.
Q 21Usher's 'Yeah!' (2004) featured Ludacris and which crunk producer-rapper?
Lil Jon
Lil Jon dubbed the style 'crunk&B'; the single was knocked off number one by Usher's own 'Burn'.
Q 22Green Day's 2004 concept album American Idiot follows an anti-hero with what name?
Jesus of Suburbia
The band called it a 'punk rock opera'; it became a Broadway musical in 2010.
Q 23Which Green Day single won the top Grammy single prize in 2006?
Boulevard of Broken Dreams
The album itself had won Best Rock Album the year before.
Q 14Nelly's 'Hot in Herre' (2002) was the first Billboard number one for which production duo?
The Neptunes
It also won the very first Grammy for Best Male Rap Solo Performance.
Q 15Kelly Clarkson won the first American Idol in 2002 with 58% of the vote against which runner-up?
Justin Guarini
Her 2004 hit 'Since U Been Gone' was written and produced by Max Martin and Dr. Luke.
Q 16The bass-like riff of 'Seven Nation Army' (2003) was played on a guitar through what?
A Whammy pedal
Club Brugge fans started singing it at a match in Italy that October, and Italy's national team carried it to the 2006 World Cup.
Q 17'Crazy in Love' built its horn hook on a sample of 'Are You My Woman' by which 1970s soul group?
The Chi-Lites
It won two Grammys and is widely credited as the song that made her a solo superstar.
Q 18How many members of a fictional band does André 3000 play in the 'Hey Ya!' video?
Eight
The song topped the Hot 100 for nine weeks, and Polaroid hired an ad agency to cash in on 'shake it like a Polaroid picture'.
Q 19Which Coldplay song, from A Rush of Blood to the Head, won the Grammy for Record of the Year in 2004?
Clocks
Chris Martin came up with the piano riff late one night in a Liverpool studio.
Q 20Brandon Flowers wrote 'Mr. Brightside' after seeing his girlfriend with another man where?
Las Vegas
By May 2024 it had become the UK's most successful song ever not to reach number one, passing Oasis's 'Wonderwall'.
Q 24Gwen Stefani's 'Hollaback Girl' (2005) was the first single to pass what US download milestone?
A million downloads
In the video the Harajuku Girls spell out B-A-N-A-N-A-S with cue cards.
Q 25On 'Gold Digger' (2005), Jamie Foxx interpolated 'I Got a Woman' by which artist he had just played on film?
Ray Charles
West got the idea after watching Ray with his friend John Mayer; the single spent 10 weeks at number one.
Q 26Fall Out Boy formed in 2001 in Wilmette, a suburb of which city?
Chicago
Their 2005 breakthrough 'Sugar, We're Goin Down' reached number eight on the Hot 100.
Q 27The Crazy Frog's 2005 hit was a cover of 'Axel F', the theme from which film series?
Beverly Hills Cop
The character was originally called The Annoying Thing and was built around Daniel Malmedahl's impression of a two-stroke engine.
Q 28Shakira's 'Hips Don't Lie' (2006), her first US number one, featured which former Fugee?
Wyclef Jean
They performed it before the 2006 World Cup final in Berlin to a TV audience of over 700 million.
Q 29Which single is regarded as the best-selling single of the entire 2000s decade?
Hips Don't Lie
It hit number one in 18 countries and was the fastest-selling digital download in the US at the time.
Q 30Which single piano note famously opens 'Welcome to the Black Parade'?
G
Andrew Lloyd Webber remarked that making one note iconic is harder than making a set of chords iconic.