Literary Trivia Quiz:

Pop Music in Contemporary Literature

Pop music serves as the perfect cultural marker, evoking not only a specific time but also mood, emotion, and social context. Writers have often dropped songs and albums into their stories to show who we are, what we feel, and where we come from. Try your hand at guessing the musicians/songs in the following questions. Answer correctly and you’re in the running to win a 30-euro (or equivalent) gift certificate from Amazon. Mind you, AI does NOT do well with this one! It will hallucinate like crazy. Deadline April 1, 2026.

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1. What contemporary musician besides Frank Ocean is referenced in Caleb Azumah’s Open Water?

2. Which pop singer does Patrick Bateman analyze at length in American Psycho?

3. Which Motown singer is repeatedly invoked in High Fidelity as a touchstone for emotional sincerity?

4. In A Visit from the Goon Squad, which punk band is closely associated with Bennie Salazar’s youth?

5. In The Virgin Suicides which band’s music becomes a shared emotional language between the boys and the Lisbon sisters?

6. Which pop artist is explicitly mentioned as playing at the school dance in Sally Rooney’s Normal People?

7. In Rainbow Milk by Paul Mendez contemporary pop and R& B are deeply infused in the novel. On what album cover is cocaine snorted from?

8. In The Summer of Broken Rules, which contemporary pop star is frequently mentioned?

9. In Ben Fountain's Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, the chaotic halftime show at the Dallas Cowboys game features which iconic R&B group?

10. Pulitzer Prize finalist Dorianne Laux wrote a poem about which iconic pop star?

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