2018 Music
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50 free 2018 Music trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Music in 2018 moved fast. Streaming set the pace, rap ruled the American charts for most of the year, K-pop broke through in the West, and a single viral dance could turn a song into a worldwide craze overnight. This quiz covers the whole year: the chart-toppers and breakout albums, the videos everyone shared, festival and halftime headliners, film soundtracks, award-night firsts, farewell tours and the stars the world said goodbye to. A handful of tougher questions on indie, metal and music-business news are there for dedicated fans. It works as a ready-made pub quiz round, a party game or a quick test of how much of the year you remember. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you learn the story behind the song even when you miss.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Beyoncé and Jay-Z filmed the 2018 video for their joint single Apeshit inside which famous museum?
The Louvre
The Louvre drew a record of more than ten million visitors in 2018 and gave the video part of the credit. The couple pose in front of the Mona Lisa.
Q 02Which children's song from South Korean brand Pinkfong went viral across the West in summer 2018?
Baby Shark
Baby Shark had been on YouTube since June 2016 before the dance craze took off. It later broke into the Billboard Hot 100 at number 32, in January 2019.
Q 03Which Drake song inspired a 2018 craze in which fans left moving cars to dance alongside them?
In My Feelings
In My Feelings took off after comedian Shiggy posted an Instagram clip of himself dancing to it. Shiggy later made a cameo in the official video, shot in New Orleans.
Q 04Young Mason Ramsey went viral in 2018 by yodelling a Hank Williams song inside which store chain?
Walmart
Walmart shoppers in Harrisburg, Illinois, filmed the 11-year-old singing Lovesick Blues. Within weeks he had signed a record deal with Atlantic and Big Loud.
Q 05Whose 2018 Instagram post backing two Tennessee Democrats preceded a surge in voter registrations?
Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift had never publicly endorsed a candidate before. Vote.org counted more than 169,000 new registrations within two days of her post.
Q 06Ariana Grande's Thank U, Next video recreates Mean Girls, Bring It On, 13 Going on 30 and which film?
Legally Blonde
Legally Blonde even lent the video a cast member, with Jennifer Coolidge from the 2001 film appearing alongside Grande. Kris Jenner also has a cameo.
Q 07Which Queen song was named the most-streamed track of the twentieth century in December 2018?
Bohemian Rhapsody
Bohemian Rhapsody overtook Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit for the title, weeks after the Queen biopic named after the song reached cinemas.
Q 08YouTuber LadBaby claimed the 2018 UK Christmas number one with a charity parody about which snack?
Sausage rolls
Sausage rolls were the theme of LadBaby's rewrite of Starship's We Built This City. It was the first of five Christmas number ones in a row for the couple behind the name.
Q 09Drake gave away the near-million-dollar budget of his God's Plan video to people in which US city?
Miami
Miami residents received cash handouts, gifts and oversized cheques on camera, including $50,000 for one student's tuition. The video says its whole $996,631.90 budget was given away.
Q 10In 2018 Post Malone put nine songs in the Hot 100's top 20 at once, beating which band's 1964 feat?
The Beatles
The Beatles had held the mark for 54 years, with six songs in the top 20 in April 1964. Post Malone's album Beerbongs & Bentleys supplied all nine of his.
Q 11Beyoncé became the first Black woman to headline which American music festival in April 2018?
Coachella
Coachella had first booked her for 2017, but she withdrew on her doctors' advice after becoming pregnant. Her 2018 set featured a full marching band and majorette dancers.
Q 12Kendrick Lamar's Damn became the first work outside classical and jazz to win which award in 2018?
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize for Music had gone only to classical and jazz composers since it was first given in 1943. One earlier winner, Charles Wuorinen, publicly denounced the jury's choice.
Q 13Which Childish Gambino song, released as he hosted Saturday Night Live, won Record of the Year?
This Is America
Q 21Which Swedish DJ and producer died on holiday in Muscat, Oman, in April 2018 at the age of 28?
Avicii
Avicii, the producer behind Wake Me Up and Levels, had retired from touring in 2016 because of health problems. He was staying at an estate owned by the Omani royal family.
Q 22Aretha Franklin's 2018 funeral, streamed live by news networks, took place in which American city?
Detroit
Detroit's Greater Grace Temple hosted the service on August 31, with tributes from celebrities and politicians. Franklin had died at home two weeks earlier, aged 76.
Q 23Dolores O'Riordan, who died in London in January 2018, was the lead singer of which Irish rock band?
The Cranberries
This Is America became the first rap song to win Record of the Year and Song of the Year at the Grammys. Its video, directed by Hiro Murai, went online during the broadcast.
Q 14Which song from the 2018 remake of A Star Is Born won the Academy Award for Best Original Song?
Shallow
Shallow surged to number one on the Hot 100 a week after Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper performed it at the ceremony. It was her fourth American chart-topper and his first.
Q 15Which former Fifth Harmony member reached number one on the Hot 100 in January 2018 with Havana?
Camila Cabello
Camila Cabello had left the group in late 2016. Havana spent seven weeks stuck at number two before reaching the top, and was the world's best-selling digital single of 2018.
Q 16Travis Scott's 2018 album Astroworld is named after a defunct theme park in which Texas city?
Houston
Houston's Six Flags AstroWorld closed in 2005. The album named after it debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 and returned to the top almost four months later.
Q 17Whose 2018 debut Invasion of Privacy made her the first solo woman to win the Best Rap Album Grammy?
Cardi B
Cardi B had thirteen songs on the Hot 100 at once the week the album arrived, twelve of them from it. Two of its singles, Bodak Yellow and I Like It, reached number one.
Q 18Which band's Girls Like You video featured cameos by Gal Gadot, Ellen DeGeneres and Jennifer Lopez?
Maroon 5
Maroon 5 perform in the centre of a room while the women appear one by one around singer Adam Levine. The single spent seven weeks at number one on the Hot 100.
Q 19Which instrument did Sheku Kanneh-Mason, 19, play at Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's 2018 wedding?
Cello
The cello had already brought him fame: he won BBC Young Musician in 2016, and his home town of Nottingham named a bus in his honour.
Q 20Which country won the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest in Lisbon with Netta's song Toy?
Israel
Israel finished ahead of Cyprus, whose second place was its best result up to then. Austria won the jury vote but ended up third overall.
The Cranberries had a new album in the works: she had travelled to London partly to meet the band's record label about it. O'Riordan, from County Limerick, was 46.
Q 24Which Swedish music streaming company began trading on the New York Stock Exchange in April 2018?
Spotify
Spotify chose a direct public offering rather than a conventional share sale. Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon had founded the company in Stockholm in 2006.
Q 25Which lip-sync video app, popular with teenagers, was merged into TikTok in August 2018?
Musical.ly
Musical.ly had been bought by TikTok's owner ByteDance in November 2017. The merger moved every existing account and its data into one app that kept the TikTok name.
Q 26Which Nashville-based guitar maker filed for bankruptcy in May 2018 and emerged that November?
Gibson
Gibson, maker of the Les Paul since 1952, planned its recovery around closing its loss-making consumer electronics divisions. Guitar production was never interrupted.
Q 27Which American singer-songwriter retired from touring in January 2018 after a Parkinson's diagnosis?
Neil Diamond
Neil Diamond, the voice of Sweet Caroline, received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award that same year. He went on to campaign for greater awareness of Parkinson's disease.
Q 28Which veteran rocker scored his first US number-one album since 1982 with Egypt Station in 2018?
Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney had last topped the Billboard 200 with Tug of War. Egypt Station was also the first of his albums ever to enter the chart at number one.
Q 29Which British singer's 2018 tour, the year's highest-grossing, set stadium records in Australia?
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran's Divide Tour grossed $429 million in 2018, then the most any tour had earned in a single year. It became the biggest stadium tour Australia and New Zealand had seen.
Q 30Which group's Love Yourself: Tear became the first Korean album to top the US Billboard 200 in 2018?
BTS
BTS entered the chart at number one with 135,000 album-equivalent units. No album sung mainly in a language other than English had topped it since Il Divo's Ancora in 2006.