2010s Music Trivia
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This 2010s music trivia quiz has 110 free questions with answers and covers the decade that moved from downloads to streaming, from Adele's 21 and Katy Perry's Teenage Dream at the start to Old Town Road, Bad Guy and Blinding Lights at the end. In between are Gangnam Style breaking YouTube, Get Lucky and Uptown Funk reviving disco and funk, Despacito going global, Lemonade dropping without warning, Kendrick Lamar winning a Pulitzer and Bob Dylan winning a Nobel. The easy questions ask which film Happy and Let It Go came from, who featured on Despacito and which K-pop group first topped the Billboard 200. The medium ones cover Grammy winners, chart runs and who sang on which hit. The hard ones want the sample under Hotline Bling, the Incubus guitarist on Wake Me Up, the technology behind the Tupac hologram and the album cover painted by George Condo. Every answer has been checked against a reference encyclopaedia, and each question shows its explanation and citation once you have answered.
30 of 110 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01On 21 December 2012, which song's video became the first on YouTube to reach one billion views?
Gangnam Style
Gangnam Style's horse-riding dance took Psy about a month to invent, because he wanted something original.
Q 02Billboard pulled Lil Nas X's 'Old Town Road' from which genre chart?
Hot Country Songs
Hot Country Songs dropped it as not country enough; Billy Ray Cyrus tweeted his support, joined the remix, and the song went on to top the Hot 100 for 19 weeks.
Q 03'Despacito' was the first mostly Spanish-language Hot 100 number one since which 1996 hit?
Macarena
Macarena, by Spain's Los del Río, broke through in the US after Miami's Bayside Boys remixed it with English lyrics, then held No. 1 for 14 weeks.
Q 04In 2017 'Despacito' tied which Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men ballad's record of 16 weeks at No. 1?
One Sweet Day
One Sweet Day fused two songs of grief: Carey's for her friend David Cole and Nathan Morris's for Boyz II Men's late road manager, which fit over the same chords.
Q 05Kimbra, Gotye's duet partner on 'Somebody That I Used to Know', comes from which country?
New Zealand
New Zealand's Kimbra landed the duet after a better-known singer cancelled at the last minute and the song's mixer, who had produced her debut album, recommended her.
Q 06Pharrell Williams's 'Happy' was written for the soundtrack of which animated film?
Despicable Me 2
Despicable Me 2's Happy was written for CeeLo Green, but his label passed, so Pharrell sang it himself.
Q 07Daft Punk's 'Get Lucky' featured Pharrell Williams and which veteran Chic guitarist?
Nile Rodgers
Nile Rodgers had Daft Punk mute everything on their Get Lucky demo except the drums, then played guitar until he found the groove.
Q 08With 'Royals' in 2013, Lorde became the youngest woman to top the Hot 100 since which 1980s teen star?
Tiffany
Tiffany was 16 when 'I Think We're Alone Now' hit No. 1, after producer George Tobin sent her to sing for free in shopping malls across the US.
Q 09In 2015 a jury found Robin Thicke's 'Blurred Lines' infringed which Marvin Gaye song?
Got to Give It Up
Before the Got to Give It Up verdict, Thicke admitted in a deposition he was high on Vicodin and alcohol in the studio and that Pharrell wrote almost all of it.
Q 10Which producer was credited on 'Uptown Funk', the 2015 hit featuring Bruno Mars?
Mark Ronson
Mark Ronson's hit later added the Gap Band's writers to its credits after their publisher claimed it borrowed from 'Oops Up Side Your Head'.
Q 11Which 17-year-old ended the record run of 'Old Town Road' at number one in 2019 with 'Bad Guy'?
Billie Eilish
Billie Eilish made the song with her brother Finneas, who produced her debut album in his small bedroom studio in Los Angeles.
Q 12Which 2017 album became the first work outside classical and jazz to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music?
Damn. by Kendrick Lamar
Damn. by Kendrick Lamar closes with DUCKWORTH., the true story of how his future label boss spared Lamar's father while planning to rob the KFC where he worked.
Q 13Who sang 'Let It Go' in Frozen (2013) and performed it at the Oscars, where it won Best Song?
Idina Menzel
Q 21Cardi B's 2017 hit 'Bodak Yellow' made her the first female rapper with a solo Hot 100 number one since whom?
Lauryn Hill
Lauryn Hill did it with 'Doo Wop (That Thing)', and the title 'Bodak Yellow' nods to Kodak Black because Cardi B's flow echoed his song No Flockin'.
Q 22Which Ed Sheeran single became the first song to pass three billion streams on Spotify, in 2021?
Shape of You
Ed Sheeran wrote Shape of You with Rihanna in mind, but his label boss asked why he wanted to give it away, so he kept it.
Q 23Which Adele single became the first song to sell a million US downloads in a single week?
Hello
Hello took six months to finish: Adele wrote half of it with producer Greg Kurstin, who then wasn't sure she would ever come back to complete it.
Idina Menzel voiced Elsa, who was first written as a villain until Let It Go, a song about embracing her powers, turned her into a heroine.
Q 14Which country is 'Call Me Maybe' singer Carly Rae Jepsen from?
Canada
Canada's Carly Rae Jepsen got a huge boost when Justin Bieber tweeted that Call Me Maybe was possibly the catchiest song he'd ever heard.
Q 15Which singer topped the Hot 100 in 1994 while still unsigned, a feat Macklemore's 'Thrift Shop' matched in 2013?
Lisa Loeb
Lisa Loeb's friend Ethan Hawke passed 'Stay (I Missed You)' to director Ben Stiller, who put it in Reality Bites.
Q 16Which Imagine Dragons song spent a then-record 87 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100?
Radioactive
Radioactive grew slowly through ads and trailers rather than a radio push, taking 42 weeks to climb into the top five.
Q 17Which soul singer provided the uncredited vocals on Avicii's 2013 hit 'Wake Me Up'?
Aloe Blacc
Aloe Blacc sang it live when Avicii debuted the song at Ultra with a full band, and its folk sound confused many dance fans.
Q 18One Direction were formed in 2010 on which television show?
The X Factor
The X Factor judges put five boys who had failed as solo contestants into a group, and even then they finished only third.
Q 19'See You Again' by Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth was a Paul Walker tribute for which 2015 film?
Furious 7
Charlie Puth wrote the Furious 7 tribute in minutes, drawing on grief for a friend killed in a motorcycle accident in 2012.
Q 20'This Is America', the first rap song to win Record and Song of the Year, was released under which stage name?
Childish Gambino
Childish Gambino is Donald Glover, who released the song while he was hosting Saturday Night Live and appearing as its musical guest.
Q 24Which song from Adele's 21 won Record of the Year and Song of the Year at the 2012 Grammys?
Rolling in the Deep
Adele wrote Rolling in the Deep the day after her breakup, channelling her anger at being told her life would be boring and lonely without the relationship.
Q 25Taylor Swift's 2014 album 1989 is named after what?
Her birth year
Swift named 1989 after her birth year to signal a symbolic rebirth from country to pop, steeped in the Eighties synth-pop she admired.
Q 26Which album first sent five singles to Hot 100 number one, a feat Katy Perry's Teenage Dream matched?
Bad
Bad's title track was planned as a duet with Prince, who declined because he balked at trading its opening line with Michael Jackson.
Q 27Lady Gaga performed the Oscar-winning 'Shallow' with which actor-director?
Bradley Cooper
Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga sang their scenes live on set instead of lip-syncing, so the production sound became the film's vocal track.
Q 28Fun.'s 'We Are Young', Song of the Year at the 2013 Grammys, featured which guest singer?
Janelle Monáe
Janelle Monáe guested on the song, and a Chevrolet ad during the 2012 Super Bowl helped it explode at radio and retail on the way to No. 1.
Q 29Beyoncé's Lemonade was surprise-released in April 2016 exclusively on which streaming service?
Tidal
Tidal belonged to Beyoncé's husband Jay-Z, who bought its parent company, Aspiro, in 2015 and relaunched it as an artist-owned service.
Q 30Which songwriter won the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature for 'new poetic expressions' in the American song tradition?
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan skipped the Nobel ceremony, so Patti Smith sang his 'A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall' there instead.