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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.
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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's I Dreamed a Dream was also the fastest-selling debut album ever in the UK, shifting 411,820 copies in its first week there and outselling the rest of the top five combined.
Q 02Which Flo Rida single, interpolating a 1984 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 broke a record she already held: her 2002 debut 'A Moment Like This' had set the previous biggest leap to the top.
Q 04Whose debut single 'Whatcha Say', built on Imogen Heap's 'Hide and Seek', topped the Hot 100 in November?
Jason Derulo
Jason Derulo had spent 2006 to 2009 writing songs for Diddy, Danity Kane and Lil Wayne before his own record reached number one in the issue dated November 14, 2009.
Q 05Who became the youngest person ever nominated for and awarded CMA Entertainer of the Year in November 2009?
Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift also won five of her six American Music Award nominations that month, and Fearless took Album of the Year at both the CMA and ACM awards in 2009.
Q 06Who played the Super Bowl XLIII halftime show in Tampa, having turned down numerous earlier invitations?
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen called it probably the busiest month of his life: Working on a Dream became his ninth US number-one album and 'The Wrestler' won a Golden Globe.
Q 07Which band's 360° Tour, staged beneath a four-legged rig nicknamed 'The Claw', was the highest-grossing tour of 2009?
U2
U2 took more than $311 million from 44 shows in 2009 alone, and by 2011 the tour had become the highest-grossing ever at the time, with $736 million in ticket sales.
Q 08Which Britpop band, reunited with guitarist Graham Coxon, headlined Glastonbury for the first time since 1998?
Blur
Blur's comeback also filled London's Hyde Park on 3 July, and The Guardian called them 'the best Glastonbury headliners in an age'.
Q 09Which British singer won Best New Artist at the 2009 Grammys, also taking a pop vocal award for 'Chasing Pavements'?
Adele
Adele's 'Chasing Pavements' had also been nominated for Record of the Year and Song of the Year, and she collected both awards while still only 20.
Q 10Which 'Wall of Sound' producer was found guilty in April of shooting dead an actress at his California mansion in 2003?
Phil Spector
Phil Spector was sentenced to 19 years to life the following month; the victim had been shot in the mouth at his Alhambra home, the Pyrenees Castle, and he died in prison in 2021.
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' 'I Gotta Feeling' took over from 'Boom Boom Pow' at the top and stayed 14 weeks, the longest run of any number one that year.
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' reached number two in the UK for the Glee cast, in an arrangement adapted from Petra Haden's version that outperformed the original internationally.
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 sold 238,125 copies that week, making it the first of his studio albums to miss number one in the UK.
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 single shifted more than 187,000 copies in its first week, replacing Chipmunk's 'Oopsy Daisy' at the top.
Q 23Which 18-year-old's debut single 'Mama Do (Uh Oh, Uh Oh)' entered the UK Singles Chart at number one in June?
Pixie Lott
A. R. Rahman
A. R. Rahman's 'Jai Ho' became the highest-charting Oscar-winning song since 'Lose Yourself' in the Pussycat Dolls' version, fronted by Nicole Scherzinger.
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's video had already won two VMAs that night, for art direction and special effects, and the performance itself was nominated as Most Iconic at the 2024 VMAs.
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, after the entries on either side of it had both come 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's opening week beat the 213,000 that Girls Aloud's own debut 'Sound of the Underground' had managed back in 2002.
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 with the film in mind, yet it peaked at number four on the Hot 100 and was the eighth-best-selling digital single of 2009.
Q 20Which twins, called 'not very good and incredibly annoying' by Simon Cowell, became 2009's X Factor phenomenon?
Jedward
Jedward were the seventh act eliminated, mentored by Louis Walsh, and the wave of ironic popularity that kept them in was dubbed 'the Jedward paradox'.
Pixie Lott's single sold 58,840 downloads in its first week and launched her debut album, Turn It Up.
Q 24Which synth-pop act fronted by Elly Jackson entered the UK Singles Chart at number one with 'Bulletproof'?
La Roux
La Roux's Elly Jackson and producer Ben Langmaid cut 'Bulletproof' at Elfin Studios in Teddington before it was mixed in Virginia Beach.
Q 25Whose 'Number 1', featuring N-Dubz's Dappy, was the first song of that title ever to top a national chart?
Tinchy Stryder
Tinchy Stryder's single came from his album Catch 22, sold 87,000 copies in its first week and spent three weeks at the top.
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', their first UK chart-topper, features a rap by Afro-German rapper Carlprit and also went to number one in the Netherlands.
Q 27Which UK Eurovision entrant replaced Keisha Buchanan in Sugababes in September, leaving no original members?
Jade Ewen
Jade Ewen had sung for Britain in Moscow just four months earlier, while Buchanan had been the last founding Sugababe after 11 years.
Q 28Which Boyzone singer died suddenly in Mallorca on 10 October, aged 33, of a congenital heart defect?
Stephen Gately
Stephen Gately shared lead vocals with Ronan Keating, and every Boyzone studio album released in his lifetime reached number one in the UK.
Q 29Which guitar pioneer, whose name is on Gibson's most famous solid-body model, died of pneumonia in August aged 94?
Les Paul
Les Paul's 1940s prototype 'the Log' inspired the Gibson Les Paul, and he had survived a near-fatal electric shock while jamming in his basement in 1941.
Q 30Which singer became the first woman to win three Brit Awards in one night, including British Album for Rockferry?
Duffy
Duffy's Rockferry had been the UK's best-selling album of 2008, and the ceremony was hosted by Kylie Minogue, James Corden and Mathew Horne.