80s Music
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195 free 80s Music trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
95 free 80s Music trivia questions with answers. The 1980s were a golden age of pop music. MTV changed everything, synthesizers ruled the charts, and artists like Michael Jackson, Prince, and Madonna became larger than life. How well do you remember the soundtrack of the decade?
30 of 195 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Culture Club single was the UK's biggest-selling record of 1983, spending six weeks at number one?
Karma Chameleon
'Karma Chameleon' was Culture Club's only US number one, and its video cheats: the 1870 Mississippi riverboat scene was actually filmed on the River Thames in England.
Q 02Which song opened MTV's first broadcast in August 1981?
Video Killed the Radio Star by The Buggles
Video Killed the Radio Star by The Buggles was already two years old, a 1979 UK number one that had only scraped the US top 40; Pat Benatar's 'You Better Run' was played second.
Q 03Which artist released the hit song "Like a Virgin" in 1984?
Madonna
Madonna sang 'Like a Virgin' at the first MTV Video Music Awards in a wedding dress, rolling across the stage, weeks before the single came out; it became her first US number one.
Q 04Which band performed "Don't Stop Believin'"?
Journey
Journey's keyboardist Jonathan Cain took the title from his father, who told him 'don't stop believing' when he was a struggling musician in Los Angeles and ready to give up.
Q 05Which 1984 single was the first to take Prince to number one on the Billboard Hot 100?
When Doves Cry
'When Doves Cry' has no bass line: Prince pulled it from the finished track at the last minute to make the song less conventional, and it still ended 1984 as Billboard's top single.
Q 06Which British band sang "Every Breath You Take" in 1983?
The Police
The Police spent eight weeks at US number one with it, yet Sting calls the song sinister: it is about obsessive surveillance, not romance, though people have used it as a wedding song.
Q 07Which Whitney Houston song became her first #1 hit in 1985?
Saving All My Love for You
'Saving All My Love for You' was a cover: Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr. had recorded it in 1978, seven years before Whitney Houston took it to number one.
Q 08Which Dolly Parton song, written for a 1980 film comedy, topped the Hot 100 in early 1981?
9 to 5
'9 to 5' came to Dolly Parton on the film set: she worked out its clacking typewriter rhythm by rubbing her acrylic fingernails together.
Q 09Which Bon Jovi song features the lyrics "Woah, we're halfway there"?
Livin' on a Prayer
'Livin' on a Prayer' nearly missed the album: Jon Bon Jovi disliked the first recording and thought it wasn't good enough, until it was reworked around Richie Sambora's talk-box riff.
Q 10Which Cyndi Lauper song was her debut solo single in 1983?
Girls Just Want to Have Fun
'Girls Just Want to Have Fun' was written and first recorded by a man, Robert Hazard, in 1979; Cyndi Lauper rewrote the lyrics to turn his point of view into a women's anthem.
Q 11Which Guns N' Roses single is the band's only Billboard Hot 100 number one?
Sweet Child O' Mine
Sweet Child O' Mine grew out of a guitar exercise Slash was playing for a laugh; he thought the riff was silly, but Axl Rose wrote words to it and it became the band's only US number one.
Q 12Which Blondie song, from the film American Gigolo, was Billboard's number one single of 1980?
Call Me
'Call Me' was written for American Gigolo: Debbie Harry wrote the lyrics in a few hours from the viewpoint of the film's male escort, and the single spent six weeks at number one.
Q 13Which Depeche Mode song became their first UK top-ten hit in 1981?
Just Can't Get Enough
Q 21Which Run-D.M.C. and Aerosmith collaboration helped bring hip-hop into the mainstream in 1986?
Walk This Way
'Walk This Way' was Rick Rubin's idea: Run-D.M.C. dismissed the Aerosmith lyrics as 'hillbilly gibberish' and refused to record it until Jam Master Jay talked them round.
Q 22Which 1989 album by The Cure featured the hits 'Lovesong' and 'Lullaby'?
Disintegration
Disintegration includes 'Lovesong', which the band's singer wrote as a wedding present for his fiancée Mary; it reached number two in the US, the band's biggest American hit.
Q 23Which single spent 10 weeks atop the Hot 100, the longest run of the 1980s?
Physical by Olivia Newton-John
'Just Can't Get Enough' was the last single Vince Clarke wrote for Depeche Mode: he quit within months of its release.
Q 14Which U2 album, released in 1987, features "With or Without You" and "Where the Streets Have No Name"?
The Joshua Tree
The Joshua Tree was U2's first US number one album; for 'Where the Streets Have No Name' the band filmed the video as an impromptu rooftop concert in downtown Los Angeles.
Q 15What was the name of the charity supergroup single organized by Bob Geldof in 1984?
Do They Know It's Christmas?
'Do They Know It's Christmas?' began when Bob Geldof saw Michael Buerk's BBC report on the Ethiopian famine; Band Aid recorded it in a single day that November.
Q 16Which 1986 movie featured the Kenny Loggins hit "Danger Zone"?
Top Gun
Top Gun's 'Danger Zone' was offered to Toto and REO Speedwagon, among others, before it landed with Kenny Loggins.
Q 17Michael Jackson first moonwalked in public on which 1983 television broadcast?
Motown 25
Motown 25 was taped in March 1983 and aired that May; the step itself was not new, since street dancers knew it as the backslide and Shalamar's Jeffrey Daniel had done it on television before Jackson.
Q 18Which Duran Duran music video was famously filmed in Sri Lanka?
Hungry Like the Wolf
'Hungry Like the Wolf' was shot in Sri Lanka's jungles and markets in the style of Raiders of the Lost Ark; heavy rotation on the young MTV then broke Duran Duran in America.
Q 19Which 1986 Berlin ballad from a fighter-pilot blockbuster won the Academy Award for Best Original Song?
Take My Breath Away
'Take My Breath Away' also won the Golden Globe; its lyricist Tom Whitlock got the job after fixing the brakes on the composer's Ferrari.
Q 20What was Def Leppard's best-selling album, released in 1987?
Hysteria
Hysteria took over three years to make: with Mutt Lange unavailable, the band first tried Meat Loaf's writer Jim Steinman, scrapped those sessions and waited for Lange to return.
Physical by Olivia Newton-John ruled from November 1981 to January 1982 even though some radio stations refused to play it for its suggestive lyrics; 'Endless Love' managed nine weeks.
Q 24Which hair metal band released the power ballad "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" in 1988?
Poison
Poison's only US number one was born in a Dallas laundromat, where Bret Michaels got the idea while phoning his girlfriend from a pay phone; it topped the Hot 100 for three weeks.
Q 25Which New Order song, released in 1983, became one of the best-selling 12-inch singles of all time?
Blue Monday
Blue Monday is the best-selling 12-inch single ever, yet legend has it that Peter Saville's die-cut sleeve cost so much to make that Factory Records lost money on each copy sold.
Q 26What instrument did Phil Collins famously play in addition to singing for Genesis?
Drums
Phil Collins was Genesis's drummer before becoming their lead singer after Peter Gabriel's departure. He continued to play drums throughout the 80s, both with Genesis and in his hugely successful solo career.
Q 27Which 1983 David Bowie single topped both the UK and US charts?
Let's Dance
'Let's Dance' was Bowie's only single to top both charts; its blues guitar came from Stevie Ray Vaughan, a then-unknown Texan Bowie had seen at the Montreux Jazz Festival.
Q 28Which 1985 Dire Straits song had one of the first computer-animated music videos?
Money for Nothing
'Money for Nothing' was written in an appliance store, where Mark Knopfler borrowed paper to note down a worker's grumbles about the rock stars on the showroom TVs.
Q 29What was the name of the American charity single recorded by USA for Africa in 1985?
We Are the World
We Are the World was recorded overnight on January 28, 1985, straight after the American Music Awards, because that was the one night so many stars were already in Los Angeles.
Q 30Which Tears for Fears single topped the Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks from August 1985?
Shout
'Shout' is often heard as a primal-scream anthem, but writer Roland Orzabal has said it is really about political protest; it was the band's second US number one of 1985.