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50 free British Music trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
British pop has a habit of turning the singles chart into a national event. Campaigns to block a talent-show winner, novelty acts outselling the biggest bands in the country, a football song that keeps coming back, and a chart rule rewritten because one artist filled the top 20 on his own. The stories behind the records are often better than the records. This quiz crosses eras and genres rather than dwelling on one band: the first UK singles chart and the firsts that followed, the Brit Awards at their most chaotic, the Mercury Prize and the albums it made, Two Tone, synth-pop and the Battle of Britpop, grime and UK garage, the labels and studios that shaped the sound, pirate radio and the BBC shows that broadcast it, and every kind of UK Eurovision night from triumph to nul points. It suits anyone who grew up with Top of the Pops or the Christmas number one race, pub quiz regulars looking for a music round, and anyone who wants to argue about whether the worst single ever made really deserved three weeks at number one.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which compilation series, launched in 1983, took its name from a 1930s Danish bacon poster featuring a pig?
Now That's What I Call Music!
Now That's What I Call Music! took its pig mascot from a poster Richard Branson found in an antiques shop, and the series passed 100 volumes in 2018. The first volume carried 30 hits on a double LP.
Q 02Which rap-metal band's 1992 single beat X Factor winner Joe McElderry to the 2009 Christmas number one?
Rage Against the Machine
Rage Against the Machine's 'Killing in the Name' sold more than 500,000 copies that week, the first download-only single ever to take the Christmas top spot. An online campaign drove the protest.
Q 03Whose 16 simultaneous top-20 entries in March 2017 pushed the UK chart to cap each artist at three songs?
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran's album '÷' put all 16 of its tracks in the top 20 at once, and from July 2017 the Official Charts Company limited lead artists to three entries in the top 100.
Q 04Which Welsh singer is the only artist to have performed more than one official James Bond theme?
Shirley Bassey
Shirley Bassey sang 'Goldfinger' in 1964, then returned for 'Diamonds Are Forever' and 'Moonraker', a Bond hat-trick no other artist has matched.
Q 05Which pink, yellow-spotted Noel's House Party character had a UK Christmas number one in 1993?
Mr Blobby
Mr Blobby spent three weeks at number one and is regularly voted the worst single ever made.
Q 06Whose 'Can We Fix It?' ended Westlife's run of seven straight number ones at Christmas 2000?
Bob the Builder
Bob the Builder's single shifted over a million copies to become the best-selling song of 2000, ahead of every grown-up act that year.
Q 07Which YouTube couple's sausage-roll charity covers were Christmas number one five years running from 2018?
LadBaby
LadBaby's five Christmas number ones in a row are the most by any act, running from 'We Built This City' in 2018 to 'Food Aid' in 2022, all raising money for food banks.
Q 08Whose 'Spectre' theme, 'Writing's on the Wall', was the first James Bond song to reach UK number one?
Sam Smith
Sam Smith's ballad hit number one in October 2015 and went on to win the Academy Award for Best Original Song, the second Bond theme in a row to do so.
Q 09Which Clydebank band spent 15 weeks at number one in 1994 with a cover from Four Weddings and a Funeral?
Wet Wet Wet
Wet Wet Wet's 'Love Is All Around' was a cover of a 1967 Troggs single, and Troggs writer Reg Presley spent some of the royalties on crop circle research.
Q 10Which Britpop frontman invaded the stage during Michael Jackson's 'Earth Song' at the 1996 Brit Awards?
Jarvis Cocker
Jarvis Cocker was questioned by police over the spur-of-the-moment protest and released without charge, while Jackson performed surrounded by children.
Q 11Which deputy prime minister was drenched with iced water by Chumbawamba's singer at the 1998 Brit Awards?
John Prescott
John Prescott was soaked by Danbert Nobacon in protest at Labour's refusal to back striking Liverpool dockers, a cause the band had already name-checked from the stage that night.
Q 12Which Page 3 model co-hosted the notoriously shambolic 1989 Brit Awards alongside drummer Mick Fleetwood?
Samantha Fox
Samantha Fox later blamed wrong cue cards, a broken autocue and screaming Bros fans, and claimed Fleetwood was 'out of it' on the night.
Q 13Which figure on the Brit Awards trophy has been restyled by Vivienne Westwood and Zaha Hadid?
Britannia
Q 21Which Liverpool duo gave the UK its first Eurovision nul points, with 'Cry Baby' in 2003?
Jemini
Jemini's performance was criticised as badly off-key, finishing last of the field, and the duo had started out under the name Tricity.
Q 22Which singer lost Eurovision 1968 by a single point to Spain's 'La, la, la' with 'Congratulations'?
Cliff Richard
Cliff Richard's 'Congratulations' still went to number one across Europe, and it was Germany's penultimate vote, six points to Spain, that swung the contest.
Q 23Which Specials single spent three weeks at number one in 1981 as riots broke out across English cities?
Ghost Town
Britannia, the female personification of Britain, is the figure on the statuette, and since 2011 a different British artist or designer has restyled her most years.
Q 14Which Wolverhampton glam band beat Wizzard to the 1973 Christmas number one?
Slade
Slade's 'Merry Xmas Everybody' is credited with starting the annual race for the Christmas number one, and since downloads began counting in 2007 it has re-entered the chart every December.
Q 15Which Sheffield band's 2006 debut remains the fastest-selling debut album by a band in UK chart history?
Arctic Monkeys
Arctic Monkeys' 'Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not' shifted 363,735 copies in its first week, more than the rest of the top 20 combined.
Q 16Which boy band's 1996 split announcement led the Samaritans to set up hotlines for distraught fans?
Take That
Take That's split came a year after Robbie Williams had walked out, and teenage fans were reported lining streets in tears when the news broke.
Q 17Which group assembled on ITV's Popstars: The Rivals went on to 20 consecutive top-ten singles?
Girls Aloud
Girls Aloud were formed on 30 November 2002, and Guinness World Records listed them for the most consecutive top-ten entries by a female group in the UK.
Q 18Which group's skirt-ripping routine won Eurovision 1981 for the UK with 'Making Your Mind Up'?
Bucks Fizz
Bucks Fizz went on to three UK number ones, and Cheryl Baker, Jay Aston and the group's creator Nichola Martin have all since laid claim to the skirt-rip idea.
Q 19Which Cambridge band won Eurovision 1997 for the UK with 'Love Shine a Light'?
Katrina and the Waves
Katrina and the Waves had been famous for 1985's 'Walking on Sunshine' for over a decade before the Eurovision win on 3 May 1997, the UK's fifth victory in the contest.
Q 20Whose 'Space Man' took the UK to second place at Eurovision 2022 with 466 points?
Sam Ryder
Sam Ryder's 466 points were the most a UK entrant had ever scored, losing only to Ukraine in the year of the Russian invasion, and 'Space Man' reached number two at home.
Ghost Town was written about urban decay and unemployment, and its arrival at number one during the 1981 riots made it an 'instant musical editorial' on the summer's events.
Q 24Which Camden Town ska band spent a record 214 weeks on the singles chart between 1980 and 1986?
Madness
Madness jointly hold the 1980s record for the most weeks spent on the UK singles chart by a group, having formed in north-west London in 1976.
Q 25Who wrote and sang 'Are "Friends" Electric?', the 1979 synth-pop single that spent four weeks at number one?
Gary Numan
Gary Numan's 'Are "Friends" Electric?' was taken from the album Replicas, and its synth line was later reworked into the Sugababes' 2002 number one 'Freak like Me'.
Q 26Which label, co-founded by TV presenter Tony Wilson in 1978, released Joy Division and ran the Haçienda?
Factory Records
Factory Records gave even the Haçienda a catalogue number, FAC 51, and ran the club in partnership with New Order.
Q 27Which band's 27,000-strong 1990 show at Spike Island in Widnes is remembered as the peak of Madchester?
The Stone Roses
The Stone Roses played Spike Island on 27 May 1990 with DJs Paul Oakenfold and Dave Haslam and a Zimbabwean drum orchestra in support.
Q 28Which MC's self-produced debut 'Boy in da Corner' won the 2003 Mercury Prize a year after he signed to XL?
Dizzee Rascal
Dizzee Rascal's album went on to be certified platinum, and he was nominated again in 2007 before losing to Klaxons.
Q 29Which Tottenham MC's 'Konnichiwa' won the 2016 Mercury Prize?
Skepta
Skepta started out as a DJ in the Tottenham-based Meridian Crew, and 'Konnichiwa' peaked at number two, then the highest position a grime album had reached.
Q 30Which Battersea garage collective topped the chart in August 2001 with '21 Seconds'?
So Solid Crew
So Solid Crew also hit the charts with 'Oh No (Sentimental Things)', and their success made UK garage a chart force in the early 2000s.