1. Which rapper challenged Trayvon Martin’s killer George Zimmerman to a boxing match, saying he would break every rule in boxing “to make sure I fuck him right up”.

   1. Kanye West

   2. DMX

   3. Freddie Gibbs

   4. Tyler The Creator

2. 

   Of the 81 million people force-fed a U2 album through iTunes this year, how many were estimated to have chosen not to download it?

   1. 200,000

   2. 2m

   3. 20m

   4. 55m

3. This year the funk band Vulfpeck claimed they made $19,655.56 out of Spotify, but how?

   1. By temporarily changing their group’s name to “Taylor Swift”

   2. By hacking into the Spotify homepage and promoting their music there

   3. By releasing a short album of silence and asking fans to repeatedly stream it while they slept

   4. By giving Spotify the rights to use their music in advertising

4. 

   What did Dolly Parton say following her 2014 Glastonbury performance?

   1. “My boobs are fake, my hair’s fake, but what is real is my voice and my heart”

   2. “When life gives you lemons … well, you can’t make any damn cider out of those.”

   3. “We’ve put up with a whole lot of rain, so we’d better be getting rainbows.”

   4. “They tried to get me in a raincoat … but everybody knows I’m not into anything plastic.”

5. What secret skill did critics’ favourite St Vincent reveal to the world in January?

   1. She could perform a football rainbow kick

   2. She could imitate the call of the mountain leaf warbler

   3. She could moonwalk like Michael Jackson

   4. She could repeat any sentence back to you immediately in reverse

6. 

   Lana Del Rey said this year that feminism was “just not an interesting concept” and claimed she was more interested in … what?

   1. The imminent collapse of fragile ecological infrastructures

   2. The intersection between existentialism and religion

   3. SpaceX, Tesla and what’s going to happen with our intergalactic possibilities

   4. Ice hockey

7. On what did Morrissey blame the cancellation of his US tour in June?

   1. The venues refusing to ban meat products

   2. The fact his support act had given him a cold

   3. Twitter trolls

   4. The prospect of having to play a gig with Cliff Richard

8. Pop stars chose to promote their records in peculiar ways this year. But which one of these marketing techniques is made up?

   1. Announcing the record on a Yahoo! Livestream

   2. Flying a fluorescent green blimp over East London

   3. Launching a dozen copies of the album into outer space

   4. Serving people duck sliders from a customised food truck

9. 

   Thom Yorke released his second solo album, Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes, this year. But in which unusual format?

   1. It was only available on the deep web

   2. You could only download it through BitTorrent

   3. Only Snapchat users could access it

   4. You could choose how much to pay for it

10. 

    According to the lyrics of Taylor Swift’s comeback single Shake It Off, people said a lot of mean things about her. Which thing didn’t she reference?

    1. She’s incredibly vain

    2. She has nothing in her brain

    3. She goes on too many dates

    4. She stays out too late

11. 

    During a Kasabian gig in Glasgow, a message appeared on their stage backdrop saying “London is full of cunts”. What reason did the band give for this?

    1. It was meant as criticism of the coalition government

    2. They thought it would go down well with the Scottish crowd

    3. It was a reference to the recent referendum on Scottish independence

    4. It was a production error

12. 

    What reason did Lily Allen give for being unable to release her preferred song, Sheezus, as a single?

    1. It contained 27 swear words

    2. Her record label thought it was terrible

    3. It contained the word “period” in the lyrics

    4. It didn’t have a chorus

Solutions

1:B, 2:D, 3:C, 4:A, 5:A, 6:C, 7:B, 8:C, 9:B, 10:A, 11:D, 12:C

Scores

1. 2 and above.

   Rubbish. Did you last buy "an LP" in 1986?

2. 5 and above.

   Not great. Time to get your ears syringed?

3. 8 and above.

   Pretty good. That Spotify subscription was worth the money.

4. 11 and above.

   Excellent! You've clearly been listening carefully