Test your knowledge of David Bowie's biggest hits, deep cuts and iconic moments.
Scores are valid for 15 days.
The acoustic drift of 'Space Oddity' and the Chic-funk of 'Let's Dance' are the easy calls that most players place on the first listen. The harder question is which Bowie is singing, and which mask is on.
Bowie's back-story is a quiz in itself: a stage name borrowed to dodge a Monkee, an astronaut who resurfaces a decade later, a glam alien retired in front of a live crowd.
A David Bowie quiz climbs in difficulty: the radio hits everyone knows, the harder game of matching each song to Ziggy, the Duke or Major Tom, and the cold Berlin cuts that separate the true obsessives.
Most players catch these from the opening bars: 'Space Oddity', 'Heroes', 'Let's Dance', 'Changes' and 'Rebel Rebel'. They are the free points early in a David Bowie quiz. The harder follow-up is which era each one belongs to, since they span more than a decade of very different Bowies.
This is the angle that sets a David Bowie quiz apart. Ziggy Stardust owns 'Starman' and 'Suffragette City', Aladdin Sane brings 'The Jean Genie', the Thin White Duke fronts 'Station to Station', and Major Tom runs through 'Space Oddity' and 'Ashes to Ashes'. One artist, a new character each time, so the miss is naming who is actually singing.
Past the hits, the field thins on the cold electronic run he cut abroad with Brian Eno: 'Sound and Vision', 'Warszawa' and the title track 'Heroes'. Place these from a short clip and you have reached the top tier of a David Bowie guess-the-song round.
The trickiest questions sit at the edges: the drum-and-bass of 'Earthling', the art-jazz of 'Blackstar' released two days before his death in 2016, and the Queen collaboration 'Under Pressure'. A thorough David Bowie quiz keeps one wildcard from these corners in hand.
Play the free David Bowie quiz to find out. Guess each song from a short clip, then place the era and the character behind it, from Ziggy Stardust to the Thin White Duke. Eight out of ten is a strong fan; a perfect run across the personas is rare.
The signatures lead: 'Space Oddity', 'Heroes', 'Let's Dance', 'Changes' and 'Life on Mars?', with deeper cuts from the Berlin trilogy and 'Blackstar' in the harder rounds.
He remade himself so fully that clips from 'Ziggy Stardust', 'Young Americans' and 'Let's Dance' hardly sound like one artist. The catch is tying each song to the right era and character.
Only if you know the album eras, not just the hits. Placing 'Sound and Vision' or 'The Jean Genie' from a short clip, and naming the persona singing it, is what turns a good score into a perfect one.
David Bowie was born David Robert Jones in Brixton, London, in 1947. He adopted the name Bowie early on to avoid confusion with Davy Jones of the Monkees.
Yes. Every David Bowie quiz is free to play, with no signup and no Spotify account needed. Pick one and start. You can also guess the song with friends in a multiplayer music quiz.
Wikipedia · AllMusic · Pitchfork · Billboard · Songtrivia editorial team.
Each topic is curated by a Quiz Master with category expertise. Selection crosses cultural impact, chart performance, recognition potential and era variety.