90s Grunge Trivia
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58 free 90s Grunge trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Grunge came out of Seattle thrift stores and basement clubs and, for about four years, was the biggest sound in the world. This quiz has 50 grunge trivia questions with answers that cover the whole arc: the mid-80s Deep Six compilation and Sub Pop's Singles Club, Green River splitting into Mudhoney and Mother Love Bone, Nevermind knocking Michael Jackson off number one, Ten, Dirt, Superunknown, Temple of the Dog and the movie Singles. You'll get the big four (Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains) in depth, but also Screaming Trees, Hole, the Melvins, Stone Temple Pilots, L7 and the post-grunge wave of Bush, Candlebox and Silverchair, plus the flannel-and-runway moment when Marc Jacobs got fired for a grunge collection. Questions run from easy to expert, with the difficulty shown on each one. Every answer is checked against Wikipedia's articles on the bands, albums and people involved, and each question carries its citation, so you can settle the argument when someone insists Pearl Jam were called something else first.
30 of 58 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Alongside Seattle, which Washington city was a hub of the early grunge scene?
Olympia
Olympia, home of Evergreen State College and K Records, was the scene's second hub; Kurt Cobain lived there from 1987 to 1991 and wrote much of Nevermind in his apartment.
Q 02Which Seattle indie label, founded 1986, released early Nirvana, Soundgarden and Mudhoney records?
Sub Pop
Sub Pop, founded in Seattle in 1986 by Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman, grew out of Pavitt's Subterranean Pop fanzine; Warner Bros. bought a 49% stake in the label in 1995.
Q 03The 1986 Seattle-scene compilation Deep Six was the first release on which label?
C/Z
Deep Six was C/Z Records' first release, in March 1986, pressed in a run of just 2,000 copies; it featured Green River, Soundgarden, Melvins, Malfunkshun, Skin Yard and the U-Men.
Q 04Which 1984 Seattle band split into Mudhoney and Mother Love Bone, making it a precursor to Pearl Jam?
Green River
Green River, formed in Seattle in 1984, took its name from the Green River Killer then dominating Washington headlines; its 1987 split produced Mudhoney and Mother Love Bone.
Q 05What was Mother Love Bone's debut album, released shortly after frontman Andrew Wood died in 1990?
Apple
Apple, Mother Love Bone's only full album, came out in July 1990, four months after Andrew Wood's heroin overdose at 24; his death led to Temple of the Dog and, indirectly, Pearl Jam.
Q 06Temple of the Dog was conceived by which singer as a tribute to Andrew Wood?
Chris Cornell
Cornell had been Wood's roommate; he started writing the tribute songs while touring Europe days after the funeral.
Q 07Which Temple of the Dog song became a duet between the band's frontman and a then-unknown Eddie Vedder?
Hunger Strike
On 'Hunger Strike' Vedder, in Seattle to audition for the band that became Pearl Jam, stepped in at a rehearsal to sing the low part, and the duet became the album's hit single.
Q 08Before settling on Pearl Jam, the band briefly went by the name of which NBA player?
Mookie Blaylock
The band played its first shows as Mookie Blaylock, after the New Jersey Nets guard; his jersey number, 10, became the title of their debut album Ten.
Q 09Pearl Jam's debut album Ten was released in August 1991 on which label?
Epic
Ten came out on Epic Records on August 27, 1991, a month before Nevermind, and took about a year to catch on, eventually producing the hits Alive, Even Flow and Jeremy.
Q 10Pearl Jam's Jeremy was inspired by a newspaper article about a 15-year-old boy in which state?
Texas
Jeremy Wade Delle of Richardson, Texas, shot himself in front of his English class in January 1991; the video won four MTV VMAs in 1993.
Q 11Pearl Jam's second album Vs. set a record in 1993 by selling roughly how many copies in its first week?
950,000
It outsold the rest of the Billboard top ten combined that week, a record that stood until Garth Brooks' Double Live in 1998.
Q 12Which company did Pearl Jam go to war with in 1994, testifying before a congressional subcommittee?
Ticketmaster
The band boycotted Ticketmaster venues for years afterward, even after the Justice Department dropped its case.
Q 13Which ex-Chili Peppers drummer gave the Pearl Jam demo to his basketball buddy Eddie Vedder?
Jack Irons
Irons later joined Pearl Jam himself as drummer in the mid-90s.
Q 21The baby on the cover of Nevermind is swimming toward what?
A dollar bill on a fishhook
The baby, four-month-old Spencer Elden, swims toward a dollar bill on a fishhook; Kirk Weddle shot him at a Pasadena pool after a stock underwater-baby photo proved too expensive.
Q 22Kathleen Hanna, who wrote the phrase 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' on Cobain's wall, sang for which riot grrrl band?
Bikini Kill
Hanna fronted Bikini Kill, the band at the heart of riot grrrl; she meant the Teen Spirit deodorant, and Cobain learned of the product only months after the single came out.
Q 23Nirvana feared Come as You Are's riff resembled Eighties, a 1984 song by which English band?
Killing Joke
Q 14Nirvana formed in 1987 in which small Washington town?
Aberdeen
Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic met at Aberdeen High School; the Melvins rehearsed nearby.
Q 15Nirvana's debut single, the first Sub Pop Singles Club release in 1988, was a cover of which song?
Love Buzz
'Love Buzz', a cover of a 1969 song by Dutch band Shocking Blue, was Nirvana's first single, issued in November 1988 as the first Sub Pop Singles Club release mailed to subscribers.
Q 16The recording budget printed on the sleeve of Nirvana's debut album Bleach was how much?
$606.17
The sleeve lists a recording cost of $606.17; Jason Everman paid the bill and got a guitar credit on the album even though he never played on it.
Q 17Which drummer played on most of Bleach before Dave Grohl joined Nirvana in 1990?
Chad Channing
Chad Channing drummed on most of Bleach, with Dale Crover on the three tracks from the January 1988 demo; Channing left in 1990 and Dave Grohl arrived that autumn.
Q 18Dave Grohl was drumming for which Washington, D.C. punk band before it broke up and he joined Nirvana?
Scream
He joined Scream at 17, replacing Kent Stax.
Q 19Who produced Nevermind?
Butch Vig
Butch Vig produced Nevermind at Sound City in Van Nuys in spring 1991 for about $65,000; Nirvana had first worked with him at his Smart Studios in Wisconsin, having liked his Killdozer records.
Q 20Nevermind reached number one on the Billboard 200 in January 1992 by displacing which album?
Michael Jackson's Dangerous
Nevermind knocked Michael Jackson's Dangerous off the top of the Billboard 200 on January 11, 1992; the album has since sold more than 30 million copies worldwide.
Killing Joke's 'Eighties' (1984) has a near-identical riff; Cobain wanted In Bloom as the second single instead, and Killing Joke's rumoured lawsuit never went anywhere.
Q 24Which famously blunt engineer recorded Nirvana's In Utero in two weeks at Pachyderm Studio in Minnesota?
Steve Albini
Steve Albini recorded In Utero in about two weeks in February 1993; studio time cost around $24,000 plus Albini's $100,000 fee, and Scott Litt later remixed Heart-Shaped Box and All Apologies.
Q 25Nirvana's MTV Unplugged set was taped in November 1993 at which studio?
Sony Music Studios in New York
The set was taped on November 18, 1993 at Sony Music Studios in New York; Cobain asked for stargazer lilies, black candles and a chandelier, agreeing when producer Alex Coletti said it looked like a funeral.
Q 26Which band's Cris and Curt Kirkwood joined Nirvana on stage during the MTV Unplugged taping?
Meat Puppets
MTV had wanted bigger names like Eddie Vedder or Tori Amos as guests.
Q 27Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love were married in February 1992 on a beach where?
Waikiki, Hawaii
Their daughter Frances Bean was born that August, with Michael Stipe as her godfather.
Q 28Kurt Cobain was found dead at his home on April 8, 1994, in which Seattle neighbourhood?
Denny-Blaine
Cobain's house at 171 Lake Washington Boulevard East stood in Denny-Blaine, on the lake's western shore; weeks earlier Love had found him unconscious in a Rome hotel after an overdose.
Q 29Who played the one guitar part Dave Grohl didn't on the first Foo Fighters album?
Greg Dulli of the Afghan Whigs
Greg Dulli of the Afghan Whigs played guitar on 'X-Static'; Grohl cut the rest himself in about six days in October 1994, then recruited Sunny Day Real Estate's rhythm section and Pat Smear to tour it.
Q 30Soundgarden took its name from what?
A pipe sculpture in a Seattle park
The name comes from A Sound Garden, a wind-activated pipe sculpture on the NOAA campus beside Seattle's Magnuson Park; Cornell originally drummed and sang at the same time.