2023 Music Trivia
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This 2023 music trivia quiz has 78 free questions with answers, and it covers the whole year rather than one corner of it: Miley Cyrus opening the year with "Flowers", Morgan Wallen parking "Last Night" at No. 1 for 16 weeks, the Eras Tour and the Renaissance World Tour rewriting box-office records, Barbie taking over the radio, a Beatles single arriving in November, and Brenda Lee finally reaching No. 1 in December at age 78. You will find questions on the Billboard chart-toppers and the stories behind them, the 2023 and 2024 Grammy ceremonies that bookended the year, Eurovision in Liverpool, Coachella and Glastonbury, the big comebacks (blink-182, the Rolling Stones, Foo Fighters, Kiss's last show) and the losses (Tina Turner, Sinéad O'Connor, Jimmy Buffett). Difficulty runs from easy warm-ups to a few that only a chart obsessive will get. Every question was checked against Wikipedia and its cited sources before publishing, so the answers hold up in a pub quiz or a group chat argument. Play through the set, share your score, and see who really paid attention in 2023.
30 of 78 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Miley Cyrus single spent eight weeks at US No. 1 and was 2023's best-selling global single?
Flowers
Flowers came out on January 13, 2023, the birthday of Miley Cyrus's ex-husband Liam Hemsworth, and fans read its lyrics about buying her own flowers as a reply to him.
Q 02Which country singer's "Last Night" spent 16 weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100 in 2023?
Morgan Wallen
Morgan Wallen's Last Night was knocked off No. 1 five times in 2023 and climbed back after four of them; its 16 weeks were then the most for a song by one act with no guest.
Q 03Which BTS member's "Seven" (featuring Latto) debuted at No. 1 on the Hot 100 in July 2023?
Jung Kook
Jung Kook spends the Seven video trying to win back an unimpressed girlfriend, played by Korean actress Han So-hee, one day of the week at a time, as the lyrics count them off.
Q 04SZA's "Kill Bill" broke which song's record for longest No. 1 run on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop chart?
Old Town Road
Old Town Road held that record after Billboard pulled it from the country chart in 2019 for not fitting the genre; Kill Bill passed it in 2023 with 21 weeks at No. 1.
Q 05Doja Cat's "Paint the Town Red" is built on a sample of which 1964 Dionne Warwick song?
Walk on By
Walk on By, Dionne Warwick's 1964 hit, loops under lyrics hitting back at fans Doja Cat had argued with online; Paint the Town Red then ended a year in which no rap song had topped the Hot 100.
Q 06Which 2019 Taylor Swift album track went viral on the Eras Tour and hit No. 1 as a single in 2023?
Cruel Summer
Cruel Summer was meant to be a single in 2020 until the pandemic scrapped the plan, Swift told a Pittsburgh crowd in June 2023; three days later her label finally released it.
Q 07Which 2023 song made its singer the first act to debut at Hot 100 No. 1 with no chart history?
Rich Men North of Richmond
Rich Men North of Richmond was just Oliver Anthony's voice and a guitar, posted that August on a YouTube channel for unsigned country acts; within two weeks it was No. 1.
Q 08Which country singer's 'Try That in a Small Town' hit No. 1 in 2023 after CMT pulled its video?
Jason Aldean
Jason Aldean's song surged to No. 1 on the publicity after CMT dropped its video, filmed at a Tennessee courthouse where a man was lynched in 1927, then fell to No. 21 a week later.
Q 09In which US city did Taylor Swift's Eras Tour open on March 17, 2023?
Glendale, Arizona
The Eras Tour opened at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, on March 17, 2023; the city temporarily renamed itself 'Swift City' for the opening weekend.
Q 10In December 2023 the Eras Tour became the highest-grossing tour ever, overtaking whose farewell tour?
Elton John
Elton John's Farewell Yellow Brick Road needed five years and 330 shows to gross $939 million; Swift's tour passed it within nine months and became the first to top $1 billion.
Q 11Beyoncé's Renaissance World Tour opened on May 10, 2023, in which city?
Stockholm
Stockholm filled with so many visiting fans for the two opening nights that Danske Bank economists blamed the jump in hotel prices for the country's higher-than-expected inflation that May.
Q 12"Now and Then", the 2023 "last Beatles song", grew out of which Beatle's home demo from around 1977?
John Lennon
John Lennon taped it at home in New York; the other Beatles tried to finish it in 1995 and gave up, until software built for Peter Jackson's Get Back film lifted his voice cleanly off the tape.
Q 13Billie Eilish's Grammy- and Oscar-winning 'What Was I Made For?' was written for which 2023 film?
Barbie
Q 21Boygenius is Julien Baker, Lucy Dacus and which singer?
Phoebe Bridgers
Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus had only booked a joint tour in 2018 and meant to record one song to play together; the sessions went so well they came out as a band.
Q 22"Ella Baila Sola", the first regional Mexican song in the Hot 100's top 10, paired Peso Pluma with which group?
Eslabon Armado
Eslabon Armado, a band formed in Patterson, California, wrote the song and released it on their own album with Peso Pluma as the guest; it peaked at No. 4 in 2023.
Q 23Whose Mañana Será Bonito was the first all-Spanish album by a woman to top the Billboard 200?
Karol G
Barbie was still a rough cut when Greta Gerwig screened it for Billie Eilish and Finneas; the ballad they wrote afterwards was their first song after a long spell of writer's block.
Q 14Which 2023 album sent all 12 of its songs into the Hot 100's top 40 in its first week?
Guts
Guts put all 12 of its tracks in the top 40 the week it came out, and the album's arrival pushed its lead single back to No. 1.
Q 15Speak Now (Taylor's Version) gave Swift her 12th Billboard 200 No. 1, breaking whose record for most chart-topping albums by a woman?
Barbra Streisand
Barbra Streisand lost the record to a remake: Swift re-recorded her 2010 album Speak Now so she would own the masters, after the originals were sold in 2019.
Q 16Which 1989 (Taylor's Version) vault track debuted at No. 1 on the Hot 100 in 2023?
Is It Over Now?
Is It Over Now? was written for her 2014 album 1989 and left off it; nine years on it led an all-vault top three, ahead of Now That We Don't Talk and "Slut!".
Q 17Which film did Travis Scott release the day before his 2023 album Utopia?
Circus Maximus
Circus Maximus reached cinemas the day before Utopia; when the album's launch show at the pyramids of Giza was cancelled, Scott staged it at Rome's real Circus Maximus instead.
Q 18Songs from the 36-track country album One Thing at a Time were re-recorded live in December 2023 at which famous studio?
Abbey Road Studios
Abbey Road Studios lent its Studio Two for the seven-song session, taped while the singer was in London for his first show there and released to mark the album's first anniversary.
Q 19Which SZA song was the only track to stay on the Billboard Hot 100 for the entire year of 2023?
Snooze
Snooze was a slow burner: it charted for months as an album track from SOS before it was sent to radio as a single, which kept it on the Hot 100 for every week of 2023.
Q 20Lana Del Rey's 2023 album title begins "Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under..." — under what?
Ocean Blvd
The full title is Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd, after a sealed pedestrian tunnel in Long Beach, California; the album debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 in March 2023.
Karol G named the album for a phrase she kept repeating to herself when nothing felt great, that tomorrow will be beautiful; it went on to win her first Grammy.
Q 24PinkPantheress's "Boy's a Liar Pt. 2" hit No. 3 on the Hot 100 in 2023 with which Bronx rapper?
Ice Spice
Ice Spice was added to a song PinkPantheress had already released on her own in late 2022; the remix arrived in February 2023 and gave both of them their first Hot 100 top 10.
Q 25Who headlined the Super Bowl LVII halftime show in February 2023?
Rihanna
Rihanna had earlier turned the show down in support of Colin Kaepernick; in 2023 she played it visibly pregnant, her first live performance in five years, and her team confirmed a second child afterwards.
Q 26Which country did Loreen represent when she won Eurovision 2023 with 'Tattoo'?
Sweden
Sweden's Loreen won on the juries' votes while the public preferred Finland's Käärijä; it was her second victory, after Euphoria in 2012, and her country's seventh.
Q 27Liverpool staged Eurovision 2023 on behalf of which country, the 2022 winner?
Ukraine
Ukraine won in 2022 with Kalush Orchestra's Stefania, but organisers ruled it could not guarantee security during the Russian invasion, so the United Kingdom, the runner-up, hosted instead.
Q 28Which group was the first Asian act to headline Coachella, in 2023?
Blackpink
Blackpink first played Coachella in 2019, the first K-pop girl group on its bill; four years later they came back as headliners, and that July they topped London's BST Hyde Park too.
Q 29Who played the Sunday "Legends" slot at Glastonbury 2023?
Yusuf / Cat Stevens
Yusuf / Cat Stevens auctioned his guitars in 1979 and left pop after converting to Islam, returning to secular music only in 2006; the Pyramid Stage teatime slot came 17 years later.
Q 30Hackney Diamonds (2023) was the Rolling Stones' first album of original material since which 2005 record?
A Bigger Bang
A Bigger Bang was 18 years old by then; Hackney Diamonds was also the Stones' first album since drummer Charlie Watts died in 2021, yet he plays on two of its songs, recorded earlier.