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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
The Tuesday-night 'Club for Heroes' moved there in 1979 when the crowd outgrew its previous home.
Q 02Steve Strange and Rusty Egan ran their 1978 Bowie and Roxy Music nights at which Soho club?
Billy's
Billy's was on Dean Street, and the crowd outgrew it within a year.
Q 03What job at the Blitz club let Steve Strange decide who was dressed well enough to get in?
Doorman
He turned people away for not looking creative or subversive enough to fit in with the crowd inside.
Q 04Which rock star was famously refused entry to the Blitz because Steve Strange judged him unsuitable?
Mick Jagger
The drunken Rolling Stone was sent away in one of the club's most repeated stories.
Q 05Steve Strange and other Blitz Kids appeared in the video for which 1980 David Bowie UK number one?
Ashes to Ashes
At the time it was the most expensive music video ever made.
Q 06Before finding fame, Boy George and Marilyn both worked at the Blitz doing which job?
Cloakroom staff
Boy George later dramatised the whole scene in his stage musical Taboo.
Q 07Which musician and producer is credited with coining the term 'New Romantic'?
Richard James Burgess
He said the label fitted the Blitz scene and Spandau Ballet, though most bands tried to distance themselves from it.
Q 08Which Birmingham boutique, opened in 1975, largely defined the New Romantic look?
Kahn and Bell
Jane Kahn and Patti Bell mixed futuristic elements with Egyptian, African and Far Eastern influences.
Q 09Which Vivienne Westwood collection launched as New Romantics like Adam and the Ants hit the mainstream?
Pirate
Both bands were managed by Westwood's then-partner Malcolm McLaren.
Q 10With i-D, which style title spread the New Romantic look by reviewing club-goers' outfits?
The Face
The reviews reached readers outside London with a delay, then began influencing major fashion collections.
Q 11Writer Robert Elms suggested the name Spandau Ballet after seeing it as graffiti in which city?
West Berlin
The scrawl referred to Rudolf Hess, the last Nuremberg war criminal held alone in Spandau Prison.
Q 12Which Spandau Ballet debut single reached No. 5 in the UK in 1980?
To Cut a Long Story Short
It was the first of ten UK top-10 singles for the band.
Q 13Which instrument did Steve Norman play in Spandau Ballet's classic line-up?
Saxophone
He began on guitar and switched to sax around the time of the True album.
Q 21The 'Hungry Like the Wolf' video was filmed in which country?
Sri Lanka
EMI spent $200,000 to send the band there on a stopover en route to an Australian tour.
Q 22Which artist painted the woman on the cover of Duran Duran's Rio album?
Patrick Nagel
Malcolm Garrett designed the sleeve to resemble 1950s cigar packaging.
Q 23The uncensored 'Girls on Film' video, with topless mud wrestling, aired on which US cable network?
Playboy
MTV got a heavily edited version; the management had asked Godley & Creme for something sensational.
Which 1983 single gave Duran Duran their first UK number one?
Q 14Spandau Ballet's 'True' was recorded at Compass Point Studios in which country?
The Bahamas
Gary Kemp was listening to Marvin Gaye and Al Green while writing the album, and name-checked Gaye in the song.
Q 15Gary and Martin Kemp played which pair of London gangster twins in a 1990 film?
The Krays
Gary played Ronnie and Martin played Reggie; it premiered in London in April 1990.
Q 16Duran Duran took their name from Dr. Durand Durand, a character in which 1968 science-fiction film?
Barbarella
They picked the name the day after the film aired on the BBC in October 1978.
Q 17Duran Duran were the resident band at which Birmingham nightclub, whose owners became their managers?
Rum Runner
The Berrow brothers paid them to work as doormen, DJs and barmen between rehearsals.
Q 18Simon Le Bon was studying what when an ex-girlfriend recommended him to Duran Duran in 1980?
Drama
His first gig with the classic line-up was at the Rum Runner on 16 July 1980.
Q 19Nick Rhodes made Duran Duran's first recordings above what kind of business run by his parents?
A toy shop
He left school at 16 in 1978 to start the band with John Taylor.
Q 20Which Australian director shot Duran Duran's 'Hungry Like the Wolf' and 'Rio' videos?
Russell Mulcahy
He also directed the video for Ultravox's 'Vienna' and later the film Highlander.
Is There Something I Should Know?
'The Reflex' followed as a US and UK number one the next year.
Q 25Duran Duran topped the US charts in 1985 with the theme to which James Bond film?
A View to a Kill
Their third album, Seven and the Ragged Tiger, remains their only UK number one album.
Q 26Visage's 'Fade to Grey' is sung in English but also features spoken passages in which language?
French
The spoken part was recorded by Brigitte Arendt, Rusty Egan's girlfriend, a student from Luxembourg.
Q 27'Fade to Grey' peaked at No. 8 in the UK but reached number one in Switzerland and which other country?
West Germany
It was originally written as an instrumental by Billy Currie and Chris Payne.
Q 28Three-fifths of which post-punk band, including John McGeoch, completed Visage's line-up?
Magazine
Keyboardist Dave Formula was the third; McGeoch later joined 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
Egan was the drummer; the band lasted from March 1977 to December 1978.
Q 30Steve Strange, born Stephen Harrington, came from which country?
Wales
He grew up in Newbridge and later lived in the seaside town of Porthcawl.