New Romantics Trivia
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60 free New Romantics trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
The New Romantics were a club scene before they were a chart movement: a Tuesday night in a Covent Garden wine bar where the door policy was stricter than the dress code at a royal wedding, and Mick Jagger got turned away. This quiz starts there, with Steve Strange, Rusty Egan, Billy's, the Blitz and the cloakroom kids who became Boy George and Marilyn, then follows the bands that carried the look into the charts. You will get Spandau Ballet's graffiti-inspired name, Duran Duran's Barbarella villain and Sri Lankan videos, Visage's French-speaking hit, Ultravox being kept off number one by a novelty record, Culture Club's Top of the Pops break and Adam Ant's dandy highwayman. Later questions reach the fringes the press lumped in: Japan, Soft Cell, the Human League, Gary Numan, A Flock of Seagulls and Classix Nouveaux, plus the Second British Invasion, Live Aid and the 1990s Romo revival. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the movement, its clubs, bands and singles, so the dates, chart positions and stage names will hold up against anyone who was actually there.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Blitz wine bar, birthplace of the New Romantic scene, was in which part of London?
Covent Garden
Covent Garden: the Tuesday crowd at this shabby wine bar dressed so outrageously that the national newspapers named them the Blitz Kids.
Q 02Steve Strange and Rusty Egan ran their 1978 Bowie and Roxy Music nights at which Soho club?
Billy's
Billy's was a Soho dive that sat empty on Tuesdays, so Egan offered to fill it: the owner kept the bar takings and the two hosts kept the entry money.
Q 03What was Steve Strange's own job at the Blitz on its Tuesday club nights?
Doorman
Doorman: Strange judged every outfit himself and turned away anyone who had not made an effort; a wetsuit and black-and-white make-up, he said, would not get you in.
Q 04Which rock star was famously refused entry to the Blitz at the height of the New Romantic scene?
Mick Jagger
Mick Jagger arrived on a night when, co-host Rusty Egan says, the manager had ruled the club full; the snub still won the Blitz a huge splash of publicity.
Q 05Steve Strange and other Blitz Kids appeared in the video for which 1980 David Bowie UK number one?
Ashes to Ashes
Ashes to Ashes: Bowie came to the Blitz in person and picked four regulars, who walked a Sussex beach in black robes behind his Pierrot.
Q 06Before finding fame with Culture Club, Boy George worked at the Blitz doing which job?
Cloakroom staff
Cloakroom staff: Boy George checked the coats at the Blitz, yet when Bowie came to pick regulars for a video he was passed over.
Q 07Which 1981 Duran Duran debut single name-checks the 'New Romantic' movement in its opening verse?
Planet Earth
Planet Earth: John Taylor read a headline hailing Spandau Ballet as the New Romantics, thought his own band was doing the same thing, and decided to put the phrase in a song.
Q 08Which Birmingham boutique styled the young Duran Duran and helped shape the New Romantic look?
Kahn and Bell
Kahn and Bell, opened on Hurst Street by Jane Kahn and Patti Bell, were described as Birmingham's answer to Vivienne Westwood, and Simon Le Bon wrote Duran Duran's 'Khanada' about Kahn.
Q 09Which Vivienne Westwood collection launched as New Romantics like Adam and the Ants hit the mainstream?
Pirate
Pirate, shown in 1981, was the first collection Westwood and Malcolm McLaren took to the catwalk, and McLaren's band Bow Wow Wow wore its buccaneer look.
Q 10With i-D, which publication launched by Nick Logan in 1980 chronicled the New Romantic club scene?
The Face
The Face: Nick Logan went it alone, paying for the launch with about £3,500 of his own savings, and it was soon running reports from New Romantic clubs across Britain.
Q 11Writer Robert Elms said he took the name Spandau Ballet from graffiti he saw in which city?
West Berlin
West Berlin: Elms said he saw the phrase scrawled on a wall there; the city's Spandau Prison then held one last inmate, Hitler's former deputy Rudolf Hess.
Q 12Which Spandau Ballet debut single reached No. 5 in the UK in 1980?
To Cut a Long Story Short
To Cut a Long Story Short followed a deliberate tease: the band sent out no demo tapes, and after a TV documentary in July 1980 the major labels came to them.
Q 13Which instrument does Steve Norman play in the famous solo on Spandau Ballet's 'True'?
Saxophone
Q 21Duran Duran's 'Hungry Like the Wolf' video was filmed in which country?
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka: on a stopover on the way to an Australian tour the band filmed three videos there, 'Save a Prayer' among them.
Q 22Which artist painted the woman on the cover of Duran Duran's Rio album?
Patrick Nagel
Patrick Nagel had never made an album cover before: the band's co-manager Paul Berrow found his illustrations while leafing through Playboy.
Q 23Which singer fronted Roxy Music, the band honoured alongside David Bowie at the first New Romantic club nights?
Bryan Ferry
Bryan Ferry: his band and Bowie were the soundtrack of the 1978 Soho nights where the scene began, a refuge for dressed-up fans whom punk had left with nowhere to go.
Saxophone: Norman started as a drummer, moved to guitar, and had been playing sax for only about a year when he recorded the solo.
Q 14Spandau Ballet's 'True' was recorded at Compass Point Studios in which country?
The Bahamas
The Bahamas: the band chose Compass Point in Nassau because so many soul records had been made there, and found Talking Heads working across the pool.
Q 15Gary and Martin Kemp played which London gangster brothers in a 1990 film?
The Krays
The Krays: Gary played Ronnie and Martin played Reggie in a box-office hit, though in 2024 its producer said he regretted glamourising the twins.
Q 16Duran Duran took their name from Dr. Durand Durand, a character in which 1968 science-fiction film?
Barbarella
Barbarella: John Taylor came up with the band's name after watching the Jane Fonda film on BBC television, borrowing it from the villain played by Milo O'Shea.
Q 17Duran Duran were the resident band at which Birmingham nightclub, whose owners became their managers?
Rum Runner
Rum Runner: owners Paul and Michael Berrow gave the band jobs and a rehearsal room before managing them, and a blue plaque now marks the site of the demolished club.
Q 18Simon Le Bon was studying what when an ex-girlfriend recommended him to Duran Duran in 1980?
Drama
Drama: the first-year Birmingham University student is said to have turned up to audition in pink leopard-print trousers with a notebook of his own poems.
Q 19Duran Duran co-founder Nick Rhodes plays which instrument in the band?
Keyboards
Keyboards: Rhodes has manned the synthesizers since the first line-up in 1978, when co-founder John Taylor was still the band's guitarist rather than its bassist.
Q 20Which Australian director shot Duran Duran's 'Hungry Like the Wolf' and 'Rio' videos?
Russell Mulcahy
Russell Mulcahy had made the Buggles' 'Video Killed the Radio Star', the first clip MTV ever aired, and the channel's heavy rotation of his Duran Duran videos broke the band in America.
Q 24Which 1983 single gave Duran Duran their first UK number one?
Is There Something I Should Know?
Is There Something I Should Know? went through one failed mix after another until Alex Sadkin and Phil Thornalley got it right, and Sadkin was then brought in to co-produce the band's next album.
Q 25Duran Duran topped the US charts in 1985 with the theme to which James Bond film?
A View to a Kill
A View to a Kill came about after John Taylor, a lifelong Bond fan, approached producer Cubby Broccoli at a party, the worse for drink, and asked to write a theme.
Q 26Visage's 'Fade to Grey' is sung in English but also features spoken passages in which language?
French
French: the lines were spoken by Rusty Egan's girlfriend at the time, and Midge Ure and Steve Strange each later claimed the idea as his own.
Q 27Blitz Kid Stephen Jones made his name designing what for customers from Boy George to Princess Diana?
Hats
Hats: Jones wore his own designs to the Blitz, fellow regulars became his first customers, and he went on to make the headwear for Christian Dior's catwalk shows.
Q 28Three-fifths of which post-punk band, including John McGeoch, completed Visage's line-up?
Magazine
Magazine supplied guitarist John McGeoch, keyboardist Dave Formula and bassist Barry Adamson to the studio 'supergroup', and McGeoch soon left both bands for Siouxsie and the Banshees.
Q 29Before Visage, Rusty Egan and Midge Ure played in which short-lived band with ex-Sex Pistol Glen Matlock?
Rich Kids
Rich Kids split over a synthesiser: Ure and drummer Egan wanted the new instrument in the band's sound, while Matlock preferred to stay with guitars and drums.
Q 30Steve Strange, the singer of Visage and host of the Blitz, came from which country?
Wales
Wales: born in Newbridge, he left for London after seeing the Sex Pistols play in 1976 and was soon working for their manager, Malcolm McLaren.