2009 Music Trivia
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6correct to beat the crowd
50 free 2009 Music trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
2009 was the year pop went global and digital at once: download records fell week after week, a Scottish church volunteer outsold everyone on the planet, and the same handful of singles sat at number one in New York, London and Sydney. It was also a year of goodbyes, with stadium farewells, sudden deaths and a King of Pop whose passing reshaped the charts for months. These 50 questions cover the year-end chart-toppers in the US, UK and Australia, the Grammys, Brits, VMAs and ARIAs held that year, Eurovision in Moscow, the talent-show winners, and the bands that reunited, split or formed. Each answer comes with a one-line explanation that adds something the headlines left out. Play it on your phone, use it as a themed round for a pub quiz, or print it for a party. No sign-up needed.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Whose debut album opened with 701,000 US copies in November, the biggest sales week of any album in 2009?
Susan Boyle
Susan Boyle had lost the Britain's Got Talent final to dance troupe Diversity that May, yet I Dreamed a Dream also became the fastest-selling debut album in UK chart history.
Q 02Which Flo Rida single, interpolating a Dead or Alive hit, set a first-week record of 636,000 downloads in February?
Right Round
Right Round beat a download record set only a week earlier by 'Crack a Bottle', and its uncredited female hook was sung by a then-unknown Kesha.
Q 03Whose 'My Life Would Suck Without You' leapt 96 places to number one on the Hot 100 in one week, a record?
Kelly Clarkson
Kelly Clarkson won back a record she had first set in 2002 with 'A Moment Like This'; it had been broken four times since, most recently by Britney Spears's 'Womanizer' the previous October.
Q 04Whose debut single 'Whatcha Say', built on Imogen Heap's 'Hide and Seek', topped the Hot 100 in November?
Jason Derulo
Jason Derulo's hook is the bridge of 'Hide and Seek', which viewers already knew from a slow-motion shooting in The O.C. and the Saturday Night Live sketch that parodied the scene.
Q 05Who became the youngest winner of the CMA's Entertainer of the Year award in November 2009?
Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift, 19, took country's top prize two months after Kanye West interrupted her at the VMAs, and this time she finished her thanks in tears; Fearless won Album of the Year the same night.
Q 06Who played the Super Bowl XLIII halftime show in Tampa, having turned down numerous earlier invitations?
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen had long doubted the halftime show was a legitimate gig, but with Working on a Dream released that week he said yes and promised 'a 12-minute party'.
Q 07Which band's 360° Tour, staged beneath a four-legged rig nicknamed 'The Claw', was the highest-grossing tour of 2009?
U2
U2 had to build three of the rigs so crews could leapfrog them between stadiums, and when the American leg opened that September their manager said the tour had yet to break even.
Q 08Which Britpop band, reunited with guitarist Graham Coxon, headlined Glastonbury for the first time since 1998?
Blur
Blur's four members had not played together in public since 2000, and Coxon had left during the Think Tank sessions in 2002; the comeback also filled London's Hyde Park for two nights that July.
Q 09Which British singer won Best New Artist at the 2009 Grammy Awards?
Adele
Adele, then 20, also won a pop vocal Grammy that night for 'Chasing Pavements', which she wrote after a row with her boyfriend on a London night out left her alone on the street.
Q 10Which record producer was found guilty in April of shooting dead an actress at his California mansion in 2003?
Phil Spector
Phil Spector's first trial had ended with a hung jury in 2007; the retrial brought a sentence of 19 years to life, and he died in 2021 while still serving it.
Q 11Which group held the Hot 100's number one for 26 consecutive weeks in 2009 with two singles back to back?
The Black Eyed Peas
The Black Eyed Peas replaced themselves at the top: 'I Gotta Feeling' took over from 'Boom Boom Pow' and stayed 14 weeks, so the group held number one for exactly half of 2009.
Q 12Which Journey song's cover by the cast of Glee, heard in the show's May pilot, reached number four on the Hot 100?
Don't Stop Believin'
Don't Stop Believin' had peaked at only number nine for Journey in 1981, so the Glee cast outcharted the original, and their version went on to sell more than a million copies in the US.
Q 13Whose two Slumdog Millionaire Oscars in February came a day before the Pussycat Dolls released their 'Jai Ho!' remake?
Q 21Whose comeback album Reality Killed the Video Star was beaten to UK number one by JLS's debut by about 1,500 copies?
Robbie Williams
Robbie Williams lost twice to The X Factor's class of 2008 that autumn: its winner kept his single 'Bodies' off number one, then runners-up JLS made this his first studio album to miss the top.
Q 22Which 2008 X Factor winner's 'Bad Boys', featuring Flo Rida, entered the UK Singles Chart at number one in October?
Alexandra Burke
Alexandra Burke's 187,100 first-week sales made it the fastest-selling single of 2009, a title it kept for exactly one week before another new release outsold it.
Q 23Which 18-year-old's debut single 'Mama Do (Uh Oh, Uh Oh)' entered the UK Singles Chart at number one in June?
A. R. Rahman
A. R. Rahman's label had the remake ready whether or not he won; billing Nicole Scherzinger as its featured artist drew an on-stage jibe from a bandmate weeks later, and the Dolls split the following year.
Q 14Which Lady Gaga song did she perform at the 2009 VMAs in a piece that ended with her collapsing in stage blood?
Paparazzi
Paparazzi was staged as fame killing its star: bleeding from the ribs, Gaga was hoisted above her dancers by one hand, staring lifelessly, and in 2024 the VMAs nominated it as their most iconic performance.
Q 15Which composer co-wrote the UK's 2009 Eurovision entry with Diane Warren and played piano on stage in Moscow?
Andrew Lloyd Webber
Andrew Lloyd Webber's song finished fifth, the UK's best Eurovision result since 2002; the British entries the year before and the year after both came last.
Q 16Which country quit the Moscow Eurovision after the EBU rejected its entry 'We Don't Wanna Put In' as rule-breaking?
Georgia
Georgia's song by Stephane & 3G was heard as a dig at Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin, and the broadcaster pulled out rather than change it.
Q 17Which Girls Aloud member's debut solo single 'Fight for This Love' sold 292,000 copies in its first week in October?
Cheryl Cole
Cheryl Cole first sang it on The X Factor, where she was a judge, the night it went on sale; 134,000 copies went in 24 hours, and the week's total beat Girls Aloud's own debut single.
Q 18Who won the sixth series of The X Factor on 13 December, with Olly Murs finishing as runner-up?
Joe McElderry
Joe McElderry's winner's single went straight to number one in Ireland, but a Facebook campaign for Rage Against the Machine denied it the UK Christmas number one; it topped the UK chart a week later.
Q 19Which Miley Cyrus ballad from the 2009 Hannah Montana film became the X Factor winner's single in a cover version?
The Climb
The Climb was not written for the film, which cost it a Grammy nomination: Disney had it withdrawn from the category for movie songs, and a track from Where the Wild Things Are took its place.
Q 20Which twins, mentored by Louis Walsh, became the talking point of The X Factor in 2009?
Jedward
Jedward were the seventh act voted out, but the ironic support that kept them in so long was dubbed 'the Jedward paradox', and Prime Minister Gordon Brown landed in trouble for calling them 'not very good'.
Pixie Lott
Pixie Lott took the call in bed at her parents' house in Essex: her A&R man teased, 'I'm really, really sorry but... you're No 1!', and she spent the day running about the house screaming.
Q 24Which synth-pop act fronted by Elly Jackson entered the UK Singles Chart at number one with 'Bulletproof'?
La Roux
La Roux were a duo, Jackson and producer Ben Langmaid, and their previous single 'In for the Kill' had been stuck at number two for four weeks before this one went straight in at the top.
Q 25Whose 'Number 1', featuring N-Dubz, was the first single of that title to reach the top of the UK chart?
Tinchy Stryder
Tinchy Stryder was a final-year university student with a 6,000-word essay to finish while the single spent three weeks at the top; Goldfrapp and Pharrell had tried the same title and failed.
Q 26Which German dance act kept 'Man in the Mirror' off UK number one the week after Michael Jackson died?
Cascada
Cascada's 'Evacuate the Dancefloor' went straight in at the top of a chart in which 13 of the top 40 singles were Michael Jackson's, ten days after his death; it was the act's first UK number one.
Q 27Which UK Eurovision entrant replaced Keisha Buchanan in Sugababes in September, leaving no original members?
Jade Ewen
Jade Ewen's arrival left a Sugababes with none of its founders, so when the original three regrouped they had to perform as Mutya Keisha Siobhan; they won the name back in 2019.
Q 28Which Boyzone singer died suddenly in Mallorca on 10 October, aged 33, of an undiagnosed heart condition?
Stephen Gately
Stephen Gately shared lead vocals with Ronan Keating, and in 1999, at the height of Boyzone's fame, he came out as gay after learning that an acquaintance was about to sell the story to the press.
Q 29Which guitarist and inventor, a pioneer of both the solid-body electric guitar and multitrack recording, died in August aged 94?
Les Paul
Les Paul's prototype, 'the Log', led to the Gibson model that carries his name; after a car crash shattered his elbow, he had the arm set at an angle so that he could still play.
Q 30Which singer left the 2009 Brit Awards with three trophies, including the one for British Album?
Duffy
Duffy had lost the final of the Welsh TV talent show Wawffactor in 2003; her debut, Rockferry, went on to be the world's fourth-best-selling album of 2008.