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48 free Adele trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
40 free Adele trivia questions with answers. Adele went from a three-song Myspace demo to the best-selling album of the 21st century, and this quiz follows the whole arc. It covers her Tottenham childhood and Spice Girls obsession, the BRIT School class that also produced Leona Lewis and Jessie J, the SNL night that made her a US star, why every album is named after a number, the producers behind Rolling in the Deep, Someone Like You, Hello and Easy on Me, the vocal surgery, the Skyfall Oscar, the record-breaking first week of 25, the Vegas residency and the 80,000-seat pop-up in Munich. Easy questions ask what her albums are called and which Bond film she sang for; the hard ones want the label that pressed 500 copies of her first single, the surgeon who fixed her vocal cords and the streaming record Hello broke. Written for fans, pub quizzers and anyone who has cried in a car to Someone Like You. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on Adele, her albums and her singles, and each question carries the sentence that backs it up.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which part of London was Adele born in May 1988?
Tottenham
Tottenham, in north London; her mother Penny raised her alone after her Welsh father left when she was a toddler, and the family later moved to Brighton and then to south London.
Q 02What is Adele's surname?
Adkins
Adkins: her full name is Adele Laurie Blue Adkins, and Evans was her father's surname.
Q 03Which girl group did Adele say 'made me what I am today'?
The Spice Girls
The Spice Girls were such an obsession that she impersonated them at dinner parties, and by eleven her bedroom was 'essentially a Spice Girls shrine'.
Q 04Which two singers were Adele's classmates at the BRIT School in Croydon?
Leona Lewis and Jessie J
Leona Lewis and Jessie J were fellow BRIT School pupils; Adele graduated in May 2006, when she was more interested in working in A&R than in performing.
Q 05How did Adele's demo reach her record label?
A friend posted it on Myspace
A friend posted her three-song class-project demo on Myspace; when the label got in touch she suspected a hoax and took a friend along to the meeting.
Q 06Which song opens Adele's debut album 19?
Daydreamer
'Daydreamer', an acoustic ballad, opens 19, released in January 2008; the twelve-track album closes with 'Hometown Glory'.
Q 07'Hometown Glory', the first song Adele ever wrote, is about which south London district?
West Norwood
West Norwood, where she lived as a teenager; she wrote it in ten minutes at 16 after her mother tried to persuade her to leave London for university.
Q 08'Hometown Glory' was first released as a limited 7-inch single on whose label?
Jamie T's Pacemaker Recordings
Jamie T's Pacemaker Recordings pressed just 500 copies in October 2007; Adele was a Jamie T fan, one reason she signed with his manager Jonathan Dickins.
Q 09How are Adele's studio albums named?
After her age when she made them
After her age when she made them: 19, 21, 25 and 30 reflect the age at which she wrote each album; 30 was actually released when she was 33.
Q 10'Chasing Pavements' was inspired by an argument in a club with whom?
An older ex-boyfriend
An older ex-boyfriend: after a row in a club she stormed out and thought 'chasing pavements'; the single peaked at number two in the UK in 2008.
Q 11Adele was the first ever winner of which Brit Award, in 2008?
Critics' Choice
Critics' Choice, an award created for the 2008 Brits; the same year she topped the BBC's Sound of 2008 poll of music critics.
Q 12An October 2008 appearance on which US TV show made Adele an overnight sensation in America?
Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live, 18 October 2008: Sarah Palin's cameo gave the show its biggest audience in years, and 19 shot to number one on iTunes the next day.
Q 13Which Grammy did Adele win in 2009 for her debut album era?
Best New Artist
Q 21Why did Adele cancel two tours in October 2011?
A vocal cord haemorrhage
A vocal cord haemorrhage: Boston surgeon Steven Zeitels removed a benign polyp by laser microsurgery that November, and she returned to the stage at the Grammys three months later.
Q 22How many Grammys did 21 win at the 2012 ceremony, tying a record?
Six
Six, including Album of the Year, tying Beyoncé's 2010 record for a female artist in one night, just weeks after her throat surgery; 25 later won five more in 2017.
Q 23Which British producer, called the most pop-minded of the 21 team, produced 'Set Fire to the Rain'?
Fraser T Smith
Best New Artist, at the February 2009 Grammys, where she also took Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for 'Chasing Pavements'.
Q 14Which American musical styles did Adele start listening to on tour, shaping the sound of 21?
Country and Southern blues
Country and Southern blues: her tour bus driver played them during the North American leg of An Evening with Adele in 2009, and that Nashville-flavoured sound fed into 21.
Q 15How many weeks did 21 spend at number one on the US Billboard 200?
24
24 weeks, non-consecutive, over 2011 and 2012, the longest run since Prince's Purple Rain in 1984-85 and a record for a female solo artist at the time.
Q 16Which producer co-wrote 'Rolling in the Deep' with Adele, the day after her break-up?
Paul Epworth
Paul Epworth, who co-wrote and produced it with Adele the day after her break-up; she called it a 'dark bluesy gospel disco tune', and it won Record and Song of the Year at the 2012 Grammys.
Q 17How many weeks did 'Rolling in the Deep' spend at number one on the Billboard Hot 100?
Seven
Seven weeks, from May to July 2011; it was her first US number one and Billboard's top single of 2011.
Q 18Who co-wrote 'Someone Like You' and plays the piano on the record?
Dan Wilson
Dan Wilson, the Semisonic frontman of 'Closing Time' fame, co-wrote it and played the piano; the song gave her a second US number one from 21 in September 2011.
Q 19A performance at which 2011 event sent 'Someone Like You' to UK number one, up 46 places in a week?
The Brit Awards
It jumped over Lady Gaga's 'Born This Way' and became her first UK number one, staying there five weeks.
Q 20Which Columbia Records co-president produced several tracks on Adele's 21?
Rick Rubin
Rick Rubin, then co-president of Columbia, produced tracks including 'Don't You Remember' and the Cure cover 'Lovesong' at his Malibu studio; Paul Epworth, Ryan Tedder, Jim Abbiss and Dan Wilson also worked on the album.
Fraser T Smith co-wrote and produced it; the single became her third US number one in early 2012, and the Live at the Royal Albert Hall version won the 2013 Grammy for Best Pop Solo Performance.
Q 24Adele's 2012 Bond theme was written for which film?
Skyfall
'Skyfall', released at 0:07 BST on Global James Bond Day, 5 October 2012, fifty years after Dr. No opened.
Q 25At the 2012 Brits, Adele's British Album speech was cut short for which band's performance?
Blur
Blur. Host James Corden interrupted her speech for 21 so Blur could close the 2012 show; Adele answered with a middle finger aimed, she said, at 'the suits', not the fans.
Q 26Which royal presented Adele with her MBE at Buckingham Palace in December 2013?
Prince Charles
Prince Charles presented the MBE on 19 December 2013; she had been appointed in that year's Queen's Birthday Honours for services to music.
Q 27Which producer co-wrote 'Hello' and 'Easy on Me' with Adele?
Greg Kurstin
Greg Kurstin co-wrote and produced both; on 'Hello' he played bass, guitar, drums, piano and keyboards, and the single became the first to sell a million US downloads in a week.
Q 28Which Canadian filmmaker directed the 'Hello' video?
Xavier Dolan
Xavier Dolan shot it in rural Quebec with Tristan Wilds as Adele's ex; it drew 27.7 million views in its first 24 hours, a Vevo record at the time.
Q 29How many copies did 25 sell in the US in its first week, a record since sales tracking began in 1991?
3.38 million
3.38 million, the biggest week since Nielsen tracking began in 1991, beating NSYNC's 2.4 million; it topped a million again in its second and fifth weeks, and the UK first week was 800,307.
Q 30Which Swedish hitmakers wrote and produced 'Send My Love (To Your New Lover)' with Adele?
Max Martin and Shellback
Max Martin and Shellback, Sweden's hit-making duo, built the song around a guitar loop with Adele; it became 25's third single in 2016.