Modern Pop Music Trivia
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100 free Modern Pop Music trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Pop since 2000 is a story told in numbers: a 59-week climb to No. 1, a 19-week reign, a debut album that outsold the rest of the UK top 20 combined, and a ringtone that beat Coldplay. Behind each figure is a story people still argue about, whether it was a Grammy upset, a TikTok revival or a lawsuit. These 100 questions run from the early 2000s to 2026. The 2000s bring Mariah Carey, Kelly Clarkson, Kesha and a Britain's Got Talent sensation; the 2010s add Adele, Drake, Lewis Capaldi, Meghan Trainor and Macklemore; the 2020s belong to Hozier, Benson Boone, Teddy Swims, Alex Warren, Bad Bunny, Peso Pluma and the first K-pop song to win an Oscar. Expect Grammy winners with the year attached, Eurovision upsets, viral videos and a few facts only a superfan will know. It is written for pub quiz hosts, group chats and anyone who has argued over a year-end list. Play it on your phone with an explanation after every answer, or print it for a music round.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01'Golden', a 2025 Hot 100 No. 1 that later won the Oscar for Best Original Song, comes from which animated film?
KPop Demon Hunters
KPop Demon Hunters gave a late break to Ejae, who co-wrote 'Golden' and sings its lead. She had become a K-pop trainee in 2003 and was never picked to debut, and her song became the first K-pop track to win an Oscar.
Q 02Whose 2024 hit, built on J-Kwon's 'Tipsy', tied the Hot 100 record with 19 weeks at No. 1?
Shaboozey
Shaboozey borrowed his hook from a song that never topped the chart itself: J-Kwon's 'Tipsy' stalled at No. 2 in 2004. 'A Bar Song (Tipsy)' then spent 19 weeks at No. 1, level with 'Old Town Road'.
Q 03Wiz Khalifa's 2015 hit 'See You Again' was commissioned for Furious 7 as a tribute to which actor?
Paul Walker
Paul Walker's tribute came quickly: Charlie Puth said he wrote the hook in about ten minutes, thinking of a college friend killed in a motorcycle accident, and assumed he would never hear of it again.
Q 04Which Glass Animals song reached No. 1 on the Hot 100 in March 2022 after a record 59-week climb?
Heat Waves
Heat Waves was a slow burner. Released in June 2020, it spread through the FIFA 21 soundtrack, TikTok clips and a piece of Minecraft fan fiction set to it.
Q 05Which singer swept the Grammys' four main awards in January 2020 at 18, a feat only Christopher Cross had managed?
Billie Eilish
Billie Eilish made the winning album with her brother Finneas, who produced it in his small bedroom studio in Los Angeles. He left the ceremony with even more trophies than she did.
Q 06Whose 1988 hit, covered by Luke Combs in 2023, made her the first Black winner of the CMA Song of the Year?
Tracy Chapman
Tracy Chapman joined Combs on stage at the 2024 Grammys to sing 'Fast Car'. His cover had topped country radio, making her the first Black woman to write a country No. 1 entirely on her own.
Q 07Which Disney film produced the first song from a Disney animation to top the Hot 100 since 1993?
Encanto
Encanto's 'We Don't Talk About Bruno', written by Lin-Manuel Miranda, followed Aladdin's 'A Whole New World' as only the second chart-topper from a Disney animated film; Disney had already submitted 'Dos Oruguitas' for the Oscar.
Q 08Which song's video was the first on YouTube to pass three billion views, in August 2017?
Despacito
Despacito's video went on to be the first to reach four, five and six billion views as well, and the April 2017 Justin Bieber remix carried the song to 16 weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100.
Q 09Whose 2009 album I Dreamed a Dream sold 411,820 UK copies in week one, a record for a debut at the time?
Susan Boyle
Susan Boyle had not even won Britain's Got Talent that spring: she finished runner-up. Six months later her album outsold the rest of the UK top five put together in its first week.
Q 10Which ringtone character's 2005 'Axel F' cover outsold Coldplay four to one to reach UK No. 1?
Crazy Frog
Crazy Frog began as a Swedish teenager's impression of a two-stroke engine, recorded in 1997. An animator later built the character around the noise, and a ringtone company then sold it to the world.
Q 11Which Benson Boone single topped the charts in 19 countries in 2024 yet stalled at No. 2 in the US?
Beautiful Things
Beautiful Things made a star of a singer who had walked away from American Idol in 2021. He built his audience on TikTok instead, where he teased the song for weeks before it came out.
Q 12Which Kate Bush song hit UK No. 1 in 2022 via Stranger Things, 37 years after its release?
Running Up That Hill
Running Up That Hill had a friend on set: Winona Ryder, a fan since childhood, said she had pushed for Bush's music to be used. At 63, Bush became the oldest woman to top the UK singles chart.
Q 13Which Lewis Capaldi ballad's video starred his distant cousin Peter Capaldi before it topped the Hot 100?
Q 21Which Baauer track debuted at No. 1 in the first week Billboard counted YouTube views?
Harlem Shake
Harlem Shake had barely sold until a YouTube comedian opened a video with it and thousands of fans filmed their own. Billboard's chart director said the new YouTube rule just happened to arrive that week.
Q 22Which Hozier single gave him a first Hot 100 No. 1 in 2024, the first by an Irish act in 34 years?
Too Sweet
Too Sweet was a leftover, one of four tracks cut from his third album and issued later on an EP. It passed the No. 2 peak of 'Take Me to Church' to make him the first Irish chart-topper since Sinéad O'Connor.
Q 23Which Meghan Trainor debut single's eight weeks at No. 1 were 2014's longest run by a female artist?
Someone You Loved
Someone You Loved has a video made with an organ donation charity: the actor plays a widower visiting the family of the woman who received his late wife's heart. Capaldi wrote the song about his grandmother.
Q 14Which Tones and I song, written while busking, broke the Australian record with 24 weeks at No. 1?
Dance Monkey
Dance Monkey is about her street audiences: passers-by who would shout 'again, again!' and 'more, more!' the moment she stopped playing. It also set a UK record for a female artist, with 11 weeks at No. 1.
Q 15Whose 'Call Me Maybe' took off after Justin Bieber tweeted it was 'possibly the catchiest song I've ever heard'?
Carly Rae Jepsen
Carly Rae Jepsen was signed by Scooter Braun to Schoolboy Records after Bieber and Selena Gomez tweeted about the song, which then spent nine straight weeks at No. 1 in 2012.
Q 16Which Mariah Carey single spent 14 weeks at No. 1 in 2005 and was named Billboard's song of the 2000s?
We Belong Together
We Belong Together reversed a slump: Carey's film Glitter, its soundtrack and the album Charmbracelet had all disappointed. The single entered the Hot 100 at only No. 81 and climbed to the top.
Q 17Which Childish Gambino song, a No. 1 debut in 2018, was the first rap track to win Record of the Year?
This Is America
This Is America won all four Grammys it was up for, and its maker collected none of them in person. Gambino skipped the ceremony, the first winner of a major award to be absent since Amy Winehouse in 2008.
Q 18Whose amapiano hit 'Water' won the first-ever Grammy for Best African Music Performance, in 2024?
Tyla
Tyla's viral dance was choreographed for a different song. She insisted it would fit 'Water', added the move of pouring water down her back, and launched it as a TikTok challenge in July 2023.
Q 19Which Chainsmokers hit with Halsey, the first with Andrew Taggart on lead vocals, spent 12 weeks at No. 1?
Closer
Closer gained two extra writers in September 2016 when Isaac Slade and Joe King of The Fray were credited after comparisons with 'Over My Head (Cable Car)'.
Q 20Which Moulin Rouge! remake by Christina Aguilera, Lil' Kim, Mýa and Pink hit No. 1 in 2001 on airplay alone?
Lady Marmalade
Lady Marmalade had already been a No. 1 for Labelle in 1975, which made it only the ninth song to top the Hot 100 for two different acts. The remake got there without ever going on sale as a single.
All About That Bass
All About That Bass was written in about 40 minutes. When Trainor played it on a ukulele for the head of Epic Records, he signed her 20 minutes later and released her demo almost as it was.
Q 24Which Italian band won Eurovision 2021 with 'Zitti e buoni', then took 'Beggin'' into the US top 20?
Måneskin
Måneskin began as teenage buskers on Rome's Via del Corso and came only second on Italy's X Factor in 2017. 'Beggin'', their American hit, is a cover of a 1960s Four Seasons song.
Q 25Which Robin Thicke hit led to a $5.3 million verdict for copying Marvin Gaye's 'Got to Give It Up'?
Blurred Lines
Blurred Lines topped the Hot 100 for 12 straight weeks in 2013; the jury's original $7.4 million award was cut to $5.3 million and upheld on appeal in 2018.
Q 26Which Fun. song with Janelle Monáe won Song of the Year in 2013 after a Chevrolet Super Bowl ad?
We Are Young
We Are Young spent six straight weeks at No. 1 after the Glee cast's version charted and Chevrolet used the song in a Sonic commercial during Super Bowl XLVI.
Q 27Which Teddy Swims song hit No. 1 in its 32nd chart week and finished as Billboard's top single of 2024?
Lose Control
Lose Control is about love as an addiction, 'always chasing the highs from the lows', as Swims put it. Once it reached the top it would not leave, logging a record 112 weeks on the Hot 100.
Q 28Which Kesha debut single was the first Hot 100 No. 1 of the 2010s and spent nine weeks at the top?
Tik Tok
Tik Tok opens with a true story: Kesha once woke up surrounded by 'beautiful women' and pictured P. Diddy doing the same. The rest, she said, came from stumbling home half-drunk after a night out.
Q 29Which Alex Warren ballad's 12 straight weeks at UK No. 1 in 2025 broke a 70-year-old record?
Ordinary
Ordinary came from a singer who started out filming prank videos and co-founding the TikTok collective the Hype House. The record, for an unbroken run at No. 1 by a US solo artist, was Slim Whitman's 11 weeks in 1955.
Q 30Which Sia song, rejected by Rihanna for her album Anti, became Sia's first Hot 100 No. 1 in 2016?
Cheap Thrills
Cheap Thrills shared an album with another famous reject: its lead single, 'Alive', was written with Adele, who turned it down at the last minute. A remix with Sean Paul then carried this one to No. 1.