Manchester Music Trivia
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48 free Manchester Music trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Few cities have shaped British pop like Manchester. A half-empty hall gig in 1976 seeded a label that numbered its own lawsuits, a nightclub that lost money on every drink, and a run of bands whose sleeves hang in galleries. These 48 questions span six decades: the beat groups who topped the American charts, the post-punk years, The Smiths, the Madchester summer, the Britpop boom, the boy band that made the Samaritans open a hotline, and the arenas and club nights filling the city today. Every answer is cited and explained. It suits a pub quiz round, a gig-going friend group or anyone who has ever argued about which Manchester record matters most.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which band played the Lesser Free Trade Hall on 4 June 1976 to about forty people, igniting Manchester punk?
Sex Pistols
The Sex Pistols played to roughly forty people, among them Morrissey, Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook and Mick Hucknall, and the NME later called it the most important concert of all time.
Q 02Which American singer made her UK debut at the Haçienda in January 1984, broadcast live on Channel 4's The Tube?
Madonna
Madonna performed at the Haçienda on 27 January 1984 with resident DJ Greg Wilson mixing live, just as 'Holiday' was becoming her first UK hit.
Q 03Who played Factory boss Tony Wilson as an unreliable narrator in the 2002 film 24 Hour Party People?
Steve Coogan
Steve Coogan's Tony Wilson narrates Manchester's story from 1976 to 1992 straight to camera in Michael Winterbottom's film, which follows Factory from punk to the Haçienda.
Q 04Who was called 'Judas' by a heckler at Manchester's Free Trade Hall in May 1966 for playing an electric set?
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan replied 'I don't believe you, you're a liar' and told his band to play loud; the bootleg was mislabelled as a Royal Albert Hall show for nearly thirty years.
Q 05Which Oasis song did a crowd in St Ann's Square spontaneously sing after a minute's silence on 25 May 2017?
Don't Look Back in Anger
'Don't Look Back in Anger' was the first Oasis single with Noel Gallagher on lead vocals, and it became the city's anthem after the Arena attack.
Q 06The Stone Roses' 1989 debut sleeve, painted by guitarist John Squire with lemons on it, imitates which American artist?
Jackson Pollock
Squire's Jackson Pollock-style splatter, titled 'Bye Bye Badman', nods to the May 1968 Paris riots, where lemons were sucked as an antidote to tear gas.
Q 07'Voodoo Ray' by A Guy Called Gerald was named when a sampler cut short which comedian's phrase 'voodoo rage'?
Peter Cook
Gerald Simpson's sampler could only hold 'voodoo ra…' of the Peter Cook line, and the 1988 track became the best-selling independent single of 1989.
Q 08Happy Mondays' 1992 album Yes Please! was produced in Barbados by the rhythm section of which band?
Talking Heads
Talking Heads' Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth oversaw sessions at Eddy Grant's Blue Wave Studio that cost £380,000 against a promised £150,000.
Q 09Morrissey's 2013 memoir Autobiography was published under which imprint, normally reserved for esteemed dead authors?
Penguin Classics
Penguin Classics put a living pop star beside Homer, and the book set a first-week sales record for a music autobiography in the UK.
Q 10Which Happy Mondays maracas player won Celebrity Big Brother in 2005, having entered to pay off tax bills?
Bez
Bez, born Mark Berry, was the band's dancer and de facto mascot rather than a musician, and the public voted him the series winner.
Q 11Which Manchester punk band self-released the 1977 EP Spiral Scratch on their own New Hormones label?
Buzzcocks
Buzzcocks were the first English punk group to set up an independent label, proving a band could press and sell a record without any major.
Q 12What was Joy Division's original name, dropped in early 1978 to avoid confusion with a London punk band?
Warsaw
Warsaw was borrowed from David Bowie's track 'Warszawa'; the clash with London's Warsaw Pakt then pushed the group to a new name taken from the 1953 novel House of Dolls.
Q 13Unknown Pleasures was recorded over three weekends in April 1979 at which Stockport studio co-founded by Eric Stewart?
Strawberry Studios
Q 21The Smiths' final studio album, released in September 1987 after they had split, is named after which Manchester prison?
Strangeways
Strangeways, Here We Come shows East of Eden actor Richard Davalos on its cover only because Harvey Keitel, Morrissey's first choice, refused to let his image be used.
Q 22The Smiths posed outside which 1903 building, on a real Coronation Street, for The Queen Is Dead's sleeve?
Salford Lads' Club
Stephen Wright's 1985 photo of the band outside Salford Lads' Club entered the National Portrait Gallery in 2008, and the once-furious club now welcomes pilgrims.
Q 23Which Smiths member won a 1996 High Court case for an equal share of royalties, worth around £1 million?
Mike Joyce
Strawberry Studios took its name from co-owner Eric Stewart's favourite Beatles song, 'Strawberry Fields Forever', and was home to his band 10cc before Joy Division arrived.
Q 14Which Factory partner produced Unknown Pleasures with a new AMS digital delay, treating the studio as an instrument?
Martin Hannett
Martin Hannett said there was 'a lot of space' in the band's sound and filled it with filters and echoes; he later produced Happy Mondays' Bummed in 1988.
Q 15Which designer's die-cut sleeve, styled as a floppy disk, housed New Order's 1983 single 'Blue Monday'?
Peter Saville
Peter Saville and Brett Wickens spelt the title in coloured blocks instead of words, and Tony Wilson claimed Factory lost 5p on every copy of the best-selling 12-inch ever.
Q 16New Order took their name from a Guardian headline about a new regime of rebels in which country?
Cambodia
Manager Rob Gretton spotted 'The New Order of Kampuchean Rebels', a story about Cambodia, and the surviving trio adopted it when they regrouped in 1980.
Q 17New Order's only UK No. 1, recorded for England's Italia 90 campaign with a John Barnes rap, was titled what?
World in Motion
'World in Motion' was co-written by comedian Keith Allen and credited to EnglandNewOrder, and it remains the band's sole chart-topper.
Q 18Which label's 1992 bid to buy Factory Records collapsed on learning that New Order owned their own recordings?
London Records
London Records walked away because Factory's early deals had left the band, not the label, owning the catalogue; Factory went under that November and New Order signed to London anyway.
Q 19Which Manchester comedian compered the Haçienda's opening night in May 1982, bombed, and handed back his fee?
Bernard Manning
Bernard Manning's act was so poorly received on 21 May 1982 that he returned his fee, an omen for a club that ran at a loss for most of its fifteen years.
Q 20Which record was the only Smiths studio album to reach No. 1 on the UK albums chart?
Meat Is Murder
Meat Is Murder topped the chart in February 1985, something the more celebrated The Queen Is Dead never managed the following year.
Mike Joyce convinced Judge Weeks he was an equal partner rather than a hired hand, winning about £1 million in back royalties; Andy Rourke had earlier settled the same claim for £83,000.
Q 24Who coined the word 'Madchester', before Tony Wilson told Happy Mondays to retitle a 1989 EP with it?
Factory's video directors
Philip Shotton and Keith Jobling, Factory's video directors known as the Bailey Brothers, dreamed it up in a script meeting, and Shaun Ryder has always credited them.
Q 25Which Velvet Underground founder produced Happy Mondays' 1987 debut album for Factory Records?
John Cale
John Cale got the job because Tony Wilson thought Shaun Ryder's lyrics recalled Patti Smith, whom Cale had produced; the album sold just 3,500 copies in its first six months.
Q 26Happy Mondays' 1990 hit 'Step On' retitled a 1971 song by which South African singer?
John Kongos
John Kongos's 'He's Gonna Step on You Again' was covered for a compilation marking Elektra's 40th anniversary, but the band kept it back as a single instead and it reached No. 5.
Q 27Which band did Shaun Ryder form in 1993 after Happy Mondays, debuting at No. 1 on the UK album chart in 1995?
Black Grape
Black Grape's It's Great When You're Straight…Yeah went straight in at the top, a feat Happy Mondays themselves never managed.
Q 28Which drum machine named the Manchester group behind 1989's 'Pacific State', along with a shared 'state of mind'?
Roland TR-808
808 State, formed in 1987, took the Roland TR-808's number, and Radio 1's Gary Davies pushed 'Pacific State' to No. 10.
Q 29Stone Roses guitarist John Squire's 2024 duo album, a UK No. 1, paired him with which singer?
Liam Gallagher
Liam Gallagher John Squire, released on 1 March 2024, was Squire's first album of new material in twenty years, and he sang on none of it.
Q 30Alan McGee signed Oasis to Creation after seeing them in May 1993 at which Glasgow venue?
King Tut's Wah Wah Hut
King Tut's Wah Wah Hut had drawn Alan McGee to watch another band, 18 Wheeler; Oasis played the opening slot and he offered a deal on the spot, though they did not sign for months.