90s Grunge Trivia
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107 free 90s Grunge trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Grunge came out of Seattle thrift stores and basement clubs and, for about four years, was the biggest sound in the world. This quiz has 50 grunge trivia questions with answers that cover the whole arc: the mid-80s Deep Six compilation and Sub Pop's Singles Club, Green River splitting into Mudhoney and Mother Love Bone, Nevermind knocking Michael Jackson off number one, Ten, Dirt, Superunknown, Temple of the Dog and the movie Singles. You'll get the big four (Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains) in depth, but also Screaming Trees, Hole, the Melvins, Stone Temple Pilots, L7 and the post-grunge wave of Bush, Candlebox and Silverchair, plus the flannel-and-runway moment when Marc Jacobs got fired for a grunge collection. Questions run from easy to expert, with the difficulty shown on each one. Every answer is checked against Wikipedia's articles on the bands, albums and people involved, and each question carries its citation, so you can settle the argument when someone insists Pearl Jam were called something else first.
30 of 107 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Alongside Seattle, which Washington city was a hub of the early grunge scene?
Olympia
Olympia. Kurt Cobain lived there and had the logo of the town's K Records label tattooed on his forearm.
Q 02Which band, already on Geffen's DGC label, advised Nirvana to sign there and toured Europe with them in 1991?
Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth. Nirvana signed with DGC on Kim Gordon's recommendation, and the two bands' 1991 European dates became the documentary 1991: The Year Punk Broke.
Q 03Which festival, begun in 1991 as a farewell tour for Jane's Addiction, carried Soundgarden and Pearl Jam across America in 1992?
Lollapalooza
Lollapalooza. Nirvana was offered the headline slot for 1994, reportedly for nearly $10 million, and turned it down.
Q 04Which 1984 Seattle band split into Mudhoney and Mother Love Bone, making it a precursor to Pearl Jam?
Green River
Green River broke up when the two members who later founded Pearl Jam left to chase mainstream rock success, a move the singer scorned as careerist; each side then started one of the two new bands.
Q 05What was Mother Love Bone's debut album, released shortly after frontman Andrew Wood died in 1990?
Apple
Apple was days from release when Andrew Wood died of an overdose at 24, so Mother Love Bone's only full album came out months later, after the band itself had ended.
Q 06Temple of the Dog was conceived by which singer as a tribute to Andrew Wood?
Chris Cornell
Chris Cornell had shared a home with Wood, and the two songs he wrote in his grief grew into a whole album made with Wood's former bandmates.
Q 07Which Temple of the Dog song became a duet between the band's frontman and a then-unknown Eddie Vedder?
Hunger Strike
On 'Hunger Strike' Vedder, in Seattle to audition for the band that became Pearl Jam, stepped in at a rehearsal to sing the low part, and the duet became the album's hit single.
Q 08Before settling on Pearl Jam, the band briefly went by the name of which NBA player?
Mookie Blaylock
The band played its first shows as Mookie Blaylock, after the New Jersey Nets guard; his jersey number, 10, became the title of their debut album Ten.
Q 09Which rock veteran, nicknamed the Godfather of Grunge, made his 1995 album Mirror Ball with Pearl Jam as his band?
Neil Young
Neil Young. They recorded it in four days of studio time, but for record-label reasons the name Pearl Jam appears nowhere on the sleeve.
Q 10Pearl Jam's Jeremy was inspired by a newspaper article about a 15-year-old boy in which state?
Texas
Texas. Eddie Vedder read a short newspaper report about Jeremy Delle of Richardson and wrote the song because he felt the story deserved more than a small article.
Q 11Which Pearl Jam album set a record in 1993 by selling about 950,000 copies in its first week?
Vs.
Vs. set the record even though the band refused to make a music video for any of its songs.
Q 12Which company did Pearl Jam go to war with in 1994, testifying before a congressional subcommittee?
Ticketmaster
Ticketmaster. The band scrapped its 1994 summer tour in a fight over the company's service charges, then filed a Justice Department complaint accusing it of a monopoly.
Q 13Which ex-Chili Peppers drummer gave the Pearl Jam demo to his basketball buddy Eddie Vedder?
Jack Irons
Jack Irons turned down the drummer's job himself but passed the demo to his friend Vedder, then joined Pearl Jam after all in late 1994.
Q 21The baby on the cover of Nevermind is swimming toward what?
A dollar bill on a fishhook
A dollar bill on a fishhook: Kirk Weddle photographed four-month-old Spencer Elden in a pool after the stock picture of a swimming baby that the label wanted proved too expensive.
Q 22Kathleen Hanna, who wrote the phrase 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' on Cobain's wall, sang for which riot grrrl band?
Bikini Kill
Bikini Kill. Hanna meant the deodorant Teen Spirit, used by Cobain's girlfriend Tobi Vail, but he took the line for a slogan and learned of the product only months after the single came out.
Q 23Nirvana feared Come as You Are's riff resembled Eighties, a 1984 song by which English band?
Killing Joke
Q 14Nirvana formed in 1987 in which small Washington town?
Aberdeen
Aberdeen. Kurt Cobain and his future bassist became friends at the Melvins' practice space, and Cobain handed him a demo tape to talk him into starting a band.
Q 15Nirvana's debut single, the first Sub Pop Singles Club release in 1988, was a cover of which song?
Love Buzz
Love Buzz came from Shocking Blue, the Dutch band behind 'Venus'; only 1,000 numbered copies of the single were pressed, so few fans could actually buy it.
Q 16The sleeve of which Nirvana album lists its recording cost as $606.17?
Bleach
Bleach. Jason Everman paid the bill and was credited as a guitarist and pictured on the cover, though he never played on the album.
Q 17Which drummer played on most of Nirvana's debut album before Dave Grohl joined the band in 1990?
Chad Channing
Chad Channing played on all but three tracks: the band tried re-recording Dale Crover's drum parts from an earlier demo with him, then kept the originals.
Q 18Dave Grohl was drumming for which Washington, D.C. punk band before it broke up and he joined Nirvana?
Scream
Scream took Grohl on at 17 after he lied about his age, and when the band broke up in 1990 the Melvins' Buzz Osborne put him in touch with Nirvana.
Q 19Who produced Nevermind?
Butch Vig
Butch Vig got the job because Nirvana liked the records he had made with the band Killdozer, and they first worked with him at his Smart Studios in Wisconsin in 1990.
Q 20Nevermind reached number one on the Billboard 200 in January 1992 by displacing which album?
Michael Jackson's Dangerous
Michael Jackson's Dangerous gave way in January 1992 to an album whose label had hoped it might sell 250,000 copies in all.
Killing Joke complained about the likeness, yet in 2003 Dave Grohl, a long-time fan, played the drums on the band's self-titled album.
Q 24Which engineer recorded Nirvana's In Utero in two weeks at Pachyderm Studio in Minnesota?
Steve Albini
Steve Albini took a flat fee and refused on principle to accept royalties, as he did on every record he made.
Q 25Nirvana's MTV Unplugged set was taped in November 1993 at which studio?
Sony Music Studios
Sony Music Studios. Cobain himself ordered the stage dressed like a funeral, with stargazer lilies and black candles.
Q 26Which band's Cris and Curt Kirkwood joined Nirvana on stage during the MTV Unplugged taping?
Meat Puppets
Meat Puppets. Cobain had been touring with the band and sang three of its songs with the Kirkwood brothers, though MTV had hoped for bigger-name guests.
Q 27Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love were married in February 1992 on a beach where?
Waikiki, Hawaii
Waikiki, Hawaii. Cobain got married in pajamas, and Love wore a satin and lace dress that had once belonged to the actress Frances Farmer.
Q 28Nirvana's MTV Unplugged set included 'The Man Who Sold the World', a 1970 song by which artist?
David Bowie
David Bowie. The song first reached the charts in 1974 through a cover by Lulu, which Bowie produced, before Nirvana's version carried it to a new generation.
Q 29Dave Grohl named Foo Fighters after a Second World War term for what?
UFOs
UFOs. Grohl recorded the first album almost alone in about a week, and hoped the plural name would make listeners think a whole band had made it.
Q 30Soundgarden took its name from what?
A Seattle pipe sculpture
A Seattle pipe sculpture: A Sound Garden's steel towers hold organ pipes that sound in the wind beside Lake Washington, and fans made it a memorial when the band's singer died in 2017.