2000s Music
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7correct to beat the crowd
This 2000s music trivia quiz has 164 free questions with answers and covers the decade from NSYNC's record-breaking No Strings Attached to the Black Eyed Peas' 26 straight weeks at number one. Expect the pop giants (Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, Kelly Clarkson, Lady Gaga), the hip-hop and R&B era (Eminem, OutKast, Usher, Kanye West, Beyoncé, Rihanna), the rock and emo revival (The White Stripes, The Killers, Green Day, My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy), the British wave (Coldplay, Amy Winehouse) and the technology that changed how everyone listened: Napster, the iPod and the iTunes Store. About a third of the questions are easy for anyone who owned a burned CD, a third are medium, and the rest dig into samples, Grammy wins, chart records and the stories behind the songs. Every answer has been checked against a primary or encyclopaedic source, and each question links to the page that confirms it.
30 of 164 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which singer-songwriter's 2008 hit 'I'm Yours' spent 76 weeks on the Hot 100?
Jason Mraz
Jason Mraz first released 'I'm Yours' as a demo on a limited 2005 EP; three years later the single began what was then the longest Hot 100 run on record.
Q 02Which album finally broke NSYNC's first-week US sales record set by No Strings Attached?
Adele's 25
Adele's 25 sold 3.38 million US copies in its first week in 2015; she had kept it off streaming services, so anyone who wanted the album had to buy it.
Q 03In the 'Bye Bye Bye' video, the members of NSYNC begin under a woman's control, portrayed as what?
Puppets
Puppets on a puppet-master's strings fit the album the single launched, No Strings Attached, the first NSYNC made after suing to leave manager Lou Pearlman.
Q 04Eminem's 2000 single 'Stan' samples 'Thank You' by which British singer?
Dido
Dido's opening lines of 'Thank You' form the hook of 'Stan'; the title character's name then became slang for an obsessive fan and is now a dictionary entry.
Q 05Which Eminem song won the 2003 Best Original Song Oscar while he slept at home?
Lose Yourself
'Lose Yourself', from 8 Mile, won without him: sure he had no chance, Eminem skipped the ceremony and co-writer Luis Resto accepted. He finally performed it at the Oscars in 2020.
Q 06Which Linkin Park album is named after what the band used to be called?
Hybrid Theory
Hybrid Theory was the band's name until they became Linkin Park, spelt that way rather than 'Lincoln' so that they could register the .com web address.
Q 07Which Linkin Park single reached number two on the Hot 100 in 2002?
In the End
'In the End' is the hit Chester Bennington nearly vetoed: he disliked it at first and didn't want it on the album at all, let alone released as a single.
Q 08Which band sued Napster in April 2000 after an unreleased demo leaked onto it?
Metallica
Metallica traced a leaked demo of 'I Disappear' to Napster, then had 60,000 pages naming 335,435 users delivered to its office, demanding that every one be banned.
Q 09When Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPod in 2001, its 5 GB hard drive was pitched with what slogan?
'1,000 songs in your pocket'
'1,000 songs in your pocket' sold the first iPod; twenty years on, Apple retired the line in May 2022, saying its spirit lives on in the iPhone and its other devices.
Q 10By 2008 Apple's iTunes Store had overtaken which chain to become America's biggest music retailer?
Walmart
Walmart lost the top spot in early 2008 as young buyers gave up on the CD: a survey that year found nearly half of American teenagers had not bought a single disc in 2007.
Q 11Which Missy Elliott single, built on a Punjabi tumbi melody, won the 2002 Grammy for Best Rap Solo Performance?
Get Ur Freak On
'Get Ur Freak On' owes its six-note hook to producer Timbaland, who picked it out himself on a tumbi, a one-stringed instrument from Punjabi bhangra music.
Q 12Which production duo made Nelly's 2002 hit 'Hot in Herre'?
The Neptunes
The Neptunes, Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo, built it on Chuck Brown's go-go hit 'Bustin' Loose', which is why Brown shares the writing credit.
Q 13Kelly Clarkson won the first American Idol in 2002 with 58% of the vote against which runner-up?
Justin Guarini
Q 21Which Green Day single won Record of the Year at the 2006 Grammys?
Boulevard of Broken Dreams
'Boulevard of Broken Dreams' was written while Billie Joe Armstrong was living alone in New York; he took the title from a Gottfried Helnwein picture of James Dean.
Q 22Gwen Stefani's 'Hollaback Girl' (2005) was the first single to pass what US download milestone?
A million downloads
A million downloads was the landmark; Stefani had written the song as a comeback after Courtney Love dismissed her as a cheerleader in a magazine interview.
Q 23Kanye West's 2005 hit 'Gold Digger' samples 'I Got a Woman' by which artist?
Ray Charles
Justin Guarini was the season-one runner-up to Kelly Clarkson; the pair then co-starred in the 2003 box-office flop From Justin to Kelly.
Q 14Which guitarist played the 'bass' riff of 'Seven Nation Army' on a pitch-shifted guitar because his band had no bassist?
Jack White
Jack White ran his guitar through an octave pedal to fake the bass; he had been saving the riff in case he was ever asked to write a James Bond theme.
Q 15Which Beyoncé hit takes its blaring horn hook from the Chi-Lites' 1970 song 'Are You My Woman'?
Crazy in Love
'Crazy in Love' began with producer Rich Harrison, who had been sitting on the Chi-Lites horn sample long before he met Beyoncé, holding it back for the right song.
Q 16In which OutKast video does André 3000 play all eight members of a fictional band?
Hey Ya!
'Hey Ya!' is modelled on the Beatles' 1964 Ed Sullivan Show debut. Its famous line about shaking a Polaroid picture is bad advice, though: shaking modern instant film does nothing, and can even spoil the image.
Q 17Which Coldplay song, from A Rush of Blood to the Head, won the Grammy for Record of the Year in 2004?
Clocks
'Clocks' nearly missed the album: Chris Martin found its piano riff late one night in Liverpool, and the band shelved the demo for a later record until manager Phil Harvey pushed them to finish it.
Q 18Brandon Flowers wrote the words of 'Mr. Brightside' after finding his partner with another man in which city?
Las Vegas
Las Vegas's Crown and Anchor pub is where Flowers, woken by a feeling that something was wrong, found her with another man; it became one of the first songs the Killers wrote.
Q 19Usher's 2004 hit 'Yeah!' featured Ludacris and which other guest artist?
Lil Jon
Lil Jon produced 'Yeah!' and shouts its title hook; after 12 weeks at number one it was knocked off the top by Usher's own next single, 'Burn'.
Q 20Green Day's 2004 concept album American Idiot follows an anti-hero with what name?
Jesus of Suburbia
The album follows Jesus of Suburbia, a disaffected suburban youth who leaves for the city and meets St. Jimmy and Whatsername; it became a Broadway musical in 2010.
Ray Charles's 1954 song is sampled on 'Gold Digger', and its hook is re-sung at the start by Jamie Foxx, fresh from winning an Oscar for playing Charles in the film Ray.
Q 24Fall Out Boy formed in 2001 in Wilmette, a suburb of which city?
Chicago
Chicago's suburbs gave the band its start and a voice in the crowd gave it a name: at its second show an audience member shouted 'Fallout Boy', the Simpsons sidekick, and it stuck.
Q 25The Crazy Frog's 2005 hit was a cover of 'Axel F', the theme from which film series?
Beverly Hills Cop
Harold Faltermeyer's 'Axel F' was the theme to 1984's Beverly Hills Cop; the Crazy Frog began as The Annoying Thing, built on Daniel Malmedahl's two-stroke engine impression.
Q 26Shakira's 'Hips Don't Lie' (2006), her first US number one, featured which guest artist?
Wyclef Jean
Wyclef Jean rebuilt it from 'Dance Like This', a song of his own that had gone unnoticed on a 2004 film soundtrack; with Shakira it went to number one.
Q 27Which Nelly Furtado single, produced by Timbaland, became her first US number one in 2006?
Promiscuous
'Promiscuous' spent six weeks at number one from July 2006; Furtado nicknamed it 'The BlackBerry Song', because every flirty line could be sent as a text message.
Q 28Which band released 'Welcome to the Black Parade'?
My Chemical Romance
My Chemical Romance built the song around a dying man, the Patient: death comes for him in the shape of a childhood memory, a trip to see a marching band.
Q 29Amy Winehouse's Back to Black (2006) was produced entirely by Salaam Remi and which British DJ-producer?
Mark Ronson
Mark Ronson hired the Dap-Kings, Sharon Jones's Brooklyn soul band, to play on his half of Back to Black, giving it a vintage sixties sound; Salaam Remi produced the rest.
Q 30Which Amy Winehouse song swept the two biggest single categories at the 2008 Grammys?
Rehab
'Rehab' won Record and Song of the Year, but Winehouse wasn't in the room: unable to get a US visa in time, she performed and accepted by satellite from London.