2010s

Question 1

This mandolinist became the host of radio variety show A Prairie Home Companion after the retirement of Garrison Keillor. He is also known for his work with Nickel Creek and the Punch Brothers.

Answer 1

Chris Tile

Question 2

This British musician, active since the ’60s, is one of fourteen contributing vocalists on Kanye West’s “All Of The Lights.”

Answer 2

Elton John

Question 3

What country star’s 2016 album Gunslinger has sold a little over 100,000 copies so far, which is respectable but about 1/230th the total of his 1990 album and 1/180th that of his 1991 release?

Answer 3

Garth Brooks

Question 4

“Look What You Made Me Do,” released on August 24, 2017, is the first single from what Taylor Swift album, which is set for release on November 10?

Answer 4

Reputation

Question 5

What 19-year-old Ontarian pop star, whose recent hit singles include “Stitches,” “Treat You Better,” and “There’s Nothing Holdin’ Me Back,” first gained popularity in the summer of 2013 via cover videos uploaded to the now-defunct sharing service Vine?

Answer 5

Shawn Mendes

Question 6

This photo appeared on the cover of a 2010 album by what musical artist?

Answer 6

Eminem

Question 7

Help me out: This actress seems to show up everywhere. Her 2017 films include The Shack, Gifted, and The Shape of Water. Perhaps a quiet year for her, but she was coming off a busy awards season where she was nominated for an Academy Award, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award for a 2016 film; her performance helped that movie earn a nomination for Best Picture. Name her.

Answer 7

Octavia Spencer

Question 8

Dunkirk takes place across three different timelines, identified to the viewer as “The Sea”, “The Air” and the what? Many viewers thought this term referred to the French man disguised as a British solider, but instead it’s where some of the approximately 300,000 troops waited to be rescued from Dunkirk by watercraft.

Answer 8

The Mole

Question 9

After over a dozen men accused Kevin Spacey of sexual misconduct in late 2017 it was announced that the studio would be saying so long and farewell to Spacey and replacing him with what actor who would instead portray J. Paul Getty in All the Money in the World?

Answer 9

Christopher Plummer

Question 10

Titled after the main character’s 4th studio album released in 1996, what 2017 movie shows viewers the life and death of prolific and visionary West Coast rapper, Tupac Shakur, who died from complications due to multiple gunshot wounds? To this day, his murder has not been solved. Dry your tears, exact spelling is not required.

Answer 10

All Eyez On Me

Question 11

Name the pop group pictured here, reportedly the most tweeted-about celebrity in 2017?

Answer 11

BTS

Question 12

According to the lyrics of a hit country music song from 2018 by the duo Dan + Shay, the narrator is reminded of his ex-love when he tastes what liquor, which provides the song’s title?

Answer 12

Dan + Shay

Question 13

In 2014 Alison Janney won two Emmys: one for this sitcom and one for this drama about Masters and Johnson.

Answer 13

Mom, Master of Sex

Question 14

For most of their existence, Rush never recorded a full-length concept album. That is, until 2012 (not 2112), when they released their 19th and final studio album, which tells the story of a dystopia ruled by a mysterious repressive force known as The Watchmaker. What is the name of this album that almost shares a title with an Anthony Burgess classic, which has since spawned two novelizations and a series of comics?

Answer 14

Clockwork Angels

Question 15

In 2017, experimental rap trio clipping. were nominated for a Hugo for their Splendor and Misery album, a 2016 Afrofuturist hip-hopera that details the events following the malfunction of a cryogenic chamber inside an intergalactic slave ship. The album’s story and lyrics were conceived by the group’s MC, who is perhaps best known to Broadway fans as the actor and very fast rapper that originated the roles of Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton.

Answer 15

Daveed Diggs

Question 16

Despite the fact that this band is primarily known for religious music, what rock band’s album “Until We Have Faces” reached #2 on the Billboard 200 album sales chart in early 2011 in addition to their 21 number-one singles on the Christian Rock chart?

Answer 16

Red

Question 17

What stage name has Queens rapper Nora Lum used since she was twelve, a decade before recording her debut album, 2014’s Yellow Ranger?

Answer 17

Lum is better known, in her musical career and in screen credits like Ocean’s 8 and Crazy Rich Asians, as Awkwafina.

Question 18

Dialogue from what film is sampled on Watch The Throne’s “N*ggas In Paris?”

Answer 18

Blades Of Glory

Question 19

In January 2019, she became the first female hip-hop artist to be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Answer 19

Missy Elliot

Question 20

What movie’s soundtrack was the only million-selling album of 2018?

Answer 20

The Greatest Showman

Question 21

In his much-discussed 2018 music video, who is seen gunning down a church choir with a Kalashnikov rifle?

Answer 21

That’s Childish Gambino (Donald Glover) in his much-discussed and Grammy-winning “This Is America” video.

Question 22

The term for the lowest level of hell in Buddhism was the stage name used by what Swedish electronic musician and DJ who died in April 2018 at age 28?

Answer 22

Avicii / Tim Bergling

Question 23

Which artist gave up her more hopeful, playful alter ego of Cindi Mayweather, the ArchAndroid, to take on the darker role of the angry, rebellious Jane 57821 – who is “Django, never Sambo” – in a 2018 work?

Answer 23

Janelle Monae

Question 24

Even though they hail from New York City, what band led by A. Savage has a name that is reminiscent of a surface on which Boston hoops heroes Bill Russell, Larry Bird, and Kevin Garnett have dominated?

Answer 24

Parquet Courts

Question 25

What 11-letter word is both the name of a post-punk band from Detroit and a term for the first person to die for a particular cause?

Answer 25

Protomartyr

Question 26

What band, named for the state tree of their native Maryland, released the album Civilian in 2011, which was subsequently named the best album of the year by the A.V. Club?

Answer 26

Wye Oak

Question 27

Thanks to the massive crossover success of his best-known song, what indie singer-songwriter became the first Belgian-born artist to top the Billboard Hot 100 since the Singing Nun did so in 1963?

Answer 27

Gotye

Question 28

Pop stars Rita Ora, Dua Lipa, Bebe Rexha, and Ava Max, all of whom are citizens of either Great Britain (the former two) or the United States (the latter two), each have parents who claim what ethnicity?

Answer 28

Albanian

Question 29

In Oct. 2019 this movie song, a duet, was still in the Top 10 on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart after spending a year on the chart.

Answer 29

Shallow (A Star Is Born)

Question 30

The title of what #1 hit by Jamaican singer Omi fills in the blank in the following lyric: “Oh, I think that I found myself a _____. She is always right there when I need her”?

Answer 30

Cheerleader

Question 31

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said that all New Jersey state flags would be flown at half-staff on Tuesday February 21, 2012, to honor what recently-deceased, Newark-born singer?

Answer 31

Whitney Houston

Question 32

During the 2011 MTV Music Video Awards, what gender-bending, chain-smoking alter ego of a famous pop star would we have seen unleash a four minute monologue about themselves, perform with Queen’s Brian May, then present Britney Spears with an award and a kiss?

Answer 32

Jo Calderone (Lady Gaga)

Question 33

What megahit of 2013 is the only Billboard Top 10 hit AND the only Best Song Oscar winner ever to use the word “fractals” in its lyrics?

Answer 33

If you had or were a Frozen-obsessed child in 2013, you know that, in the “Let It Go,” Queen Elsa feels her soul “spiraling in frozen fractals all around.” “Fractals,” wow. 19th-century Arendelle sure had some advanced mathematicians!