Do you know your White Stripes from your Black Keys?

Of course you do, it doesn’t take a Spicks And Specks diehard to answer that cursory question, but it might be a little trickier if you’re an upper-middle class, middle-aged suit.

In any case, anyone with a cursory knowledge of music would have totally blown the other mawkish-looking TV contestants out of the water and raked in the cash on popular quiz show Jeopardy! this past Tuesday, or in the category called ‘Alt’ at least, as Consequence Of Sound reports.

On the latest episode of the long-running game show, silvery host Alex Trebek quizzed the budding brains trust with a series of questions that’d have music fans scoffing at the screen.

The ‘Alt’ category devoted questions that gave 30 seconds of mainstream TV fame to the likes of the Australia-bound Nine Inch Nails, Icelandic etherealists Sigur Rós, and Jack ‘Third Man Records‘ White’s titular Detroit duo, The White Stripes.

The highlight however was Phil’s $600 bungle of a question about Falls/Southbound headliners Vampire Weekend. (No-one tell witty frontman Ezra Koenig his band hasn’t quite crossed over to the mainstream yet – he’ll be delighted).

While the Jeopardy! format has changed very little over its half-century existence (What is ‘if it ain’t broke’?) the batch of indie-centric music questions at least shows that the program’s question writers are keeping up to date with Hesitation Marks and Random Access Memories

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Watch the replay of the ‘Alt’ music moment of glory on Jeopardy! below.

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