January–February •
January 1 • The
Vienna New Year's Concert is conducted by
Riccardo Muti. •
Kurt Nilsen wins
World Idol. •
January 3 –
Britney Spears marries Jason Allen Alexander, a childhood friend, in
Las Vegas. The marriage is
annulled 55 hours later. •
January 15 – Rapper
Mystikal is sentenced to six years in prison for sexual battery. •
January 16–
February 1 – The
Big Day Out festival takes place in
Australia and
New Zealand, headlined by
Metallica.
A Perfect Circle is originally named in the lineup but later withdraw, with
Fear Factory appearing as a mystery artist in place of all of A Perfect Circle's scheduled slots. •
February 1 •
Janet Jackson and
Justin Timberlake perform onstage at
Super Bowl XXXVIII. The performance concludes with Jackson's right breast being exposed to the audience. The phrase "
wardrobe malfunction" is coined during the
ensuing controversy. •
Daron Hagen is appointed President of the
Lotte Lehmann Foundation in New York City. •
February 8 – The 46th Annual
Grammy Awards are held at the
Staples Center in Los Angeles, California.
Outkast's
Speakerboxxx/The Love Below becomes the first rap album to win
Album of the Year.
Beyoncé wins five awards.
Coldplay's "
Clocks" wins
Record of the Year, while
Luther Vandross' "
Dance with My Father" wins
Song of the Year.
Evanescence win
Best New Artist. •
February 9 –
Blink-182 release single "
I Miss You" from the album
Blink-182. The song will reach number one on the Billboard Modern Rock chart. •
February 10 –
Paulina Rubio releases her seventh studio "
Pau-Latina" under
Universal Music Mexico. The album charted at #1 on the
Billboard Latin Pop Albums and at #105 on the
Billboard 200. The album also got certified 2× Platinum
(Latin) by the
RIAA. •
February 13 –
Elton John begins
The Red Piano concert residency at
The Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Originally scheduled for 75 performances, it would run for 248 shows over five years, including twenty-four tour dates in Europe. •
February 17 •
BRIT Awards are held in London.
The Darkness,
Dido,
Busted,
Justin Timberlake and
KRS-One are among the winners. •
Smashing Pumpkins frontman
Billy Corgan posts a bitter message on his personal blog calling
D'arcy Wretzky a "mean spirited drug addict" and blaming
James Iha for the breakup of the band.
March–April •
March 2 –
Britney Spears embarks on
The Onyx Hotel Tour, her first tour in 2 years, to support her fourth studio album,
In The Zone. •
March 9 –
Westlife member
Brian McFadden leaves the band. •
March 10 –
George Michael announces that
Patience will be his last commercially released record. Future releases will be available from his web site in return for donations to his favourite charities. •
March 13 –
Luciano Pavarotti gives his last performance in an opera, in
Tosca at the
New York Metropolitan Opera. •
March 23 –
Usher releases his
Confessions album selling 1.1 million copies its first week, making him the first R&B artist to ever accomplish that. The album would be the top seller of the year with four number one singles. •
April 6 – A previously unreleased
Johnny Cash album called ''
My Mother's Hymn Book'' is released less than a year after his death on September 12, 2003. •
April 20 –
Fear Factory returns after their 2002 breakup with the new album
Archetype. •
April 26 •
Deborah Voigt, sacked by Covent Garden for being too fat for an opera role, makes her recital debut to a rapturous reception at
Carnegie Hall. •
Dream Theater performs at the
Nippon Budokan Hall in Tokyo, Japan.
May–June •
May 1-2 – The annual
Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival takes place in
California. Headlined by
Radiohead and
The Cure, the lineup also features
Pixies,
The Flaming Lips,
Belle and Sebastian,
Muse,
MF Doom,
Basement Jaxx,
Death Cab for Cutie,
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club,
Kraftwerk and
Kool Keith. •
May 10 •
Blender magazine's May issue includes a "50 Worst Songs Ever!" list. "We Built This City," by
Starship, is rated worst. •
Peter Tägtgren replaces
Mikael Åkerfeldt In
Bloodbath. •
Keane release
Hopes and Fears which becomes the 16th best selling album of the millennium in the UK. It went 8× platinum and was nominated for the Mercury Prize and the
BRIT award for best album. •
May 12–15 – The 49th
Eurovision Song Contest, held at
Abdi İpekçi Arena in
Istanbul,
Turkey, is won by
Ukrainian singer
Ruslana with the song "
Wild Dances". It is the first contest to take place as a multi-date event. •
May 18-23 – The European Festival of Youth Choirs (EJCF) is held in
Basel. •
May 24 –
Madonna starts
The Re-Invention Tour in 20 cities with a total of 56 shows and making it the most successful concert tour of the year with a gross of $124.5 million. •
May 25 •
Phish announces that after 21 years they will break up following the Summer 2004 Tour. •
Skinny Puppy releases their first studio album since disbanding in 1996, called
The Greater Wrong of the Right. •
May 26 –
Fantasia Barrino wins the third season of
American Idol, defeating
Diana DeGarmo. •
May 28 –
June 6 – The
Rock in Rio concert festival is staged in Lisbon, Portugal, under the name Rock in Rio Lisboa.
Paul McCartney,
Peter Gabriel,
Foo Fighters,
Metallica,
Britney Spears and
Sting each headline one of the six days. •
June 4 •
Karl Jenkins signs a 10-year recording deal with EMI. •
Creed dissolved. Guitarist
Mark Tremonti, Drummer
Scott Phillips and
Brian Marshall (ex Bassist of
Creed) were working on side project
Alter Bridge along with
Myles Kennedy of The Mayfield Four. Their first album is
One Day Remains, which was scheduled to be released on August 10. •
June 5-6 – The annual
Download Festival takes place at
Donington Park in
Leicestershire, England, with
Linkin Park and
Metallica headlining the main stage.
Pennywise and
HIM headline the Snickers "Game On" stage, while the Barfly stage is headlined by
Peaches and
SuicideGirls. •
June 11 – The
Van Halen Summer Tour 2004 kicks off in
Greensboro, North Carolina, marking the return of
Sammy Hagar on vocals for the first time since his acrimonious departure from the band in 1996. •
June 12 – The Los Angeles, California radio station
KROQ-FM airs the 12th Annual
KROQ Weenie Roast show with
Bad Religion,
Beastie Boys,
Cypress Hill,
The Hives,
Hoobastank,
The Killers,
Modest Mouse,
New Found Glory,
Story of the Year,
The Strokes,
Velvet Revolver,
Yeah Yeah Yeahs and
Yellowcard. •
June 22 – 14th annual
Lollapalooza festival, scheduled for July 17, is cancelled. Organizers cite "poor ticket sales". (See:
Lollapalooza 2004 lineup.) •
June 23 – UK DJ
Tony Blackburn is suspended by radio station
Classic Gold Digital for playing songs by
Cliff Richard, against station policy. •
June 25 •
Eric Clapton sells his famous guitar "
Blackie" at a
Christie's auction, raising $959,000 to benefit the
Crossroads drug rehabilitation center that he founded in 1998. • While in
Scheeßel,
Germany for his
A Reality tour,
David Bowie suffers a heart attack onstage and is subsequently rushed to the emergency room for an
angioplasty. The incident brings an abrupt end to the tour and prompts Bowie to move away from both musicianship and public life in the following years, with
his next album coming out nearly nine years later.
July–August •
July 10 • Ex-
S Club star
Rachel Stevens sets a world record for completing the fastest promotional circuit in just 24 hours- including a run for the charity
Sport Relief. • American Idol winner Fantasia becomes the first artist in history to debut at number-one on the Hot 100 with a first record. •
July 11 –
McFly debut at #1 on the UK
album charts with
Room On The 3rd Floor. They break the record set by
The Beatles as the youngest group ever to debut at #1 on the album charts. •
July 20 –
Van Halen releases
The Best of Both Worlds, a 36-song compilation album featuring three new recordings with Sammy Hagar on vocals. •
July 24 – The
Robert Smith organized Curiosa Festival kicks off with a concert in
West Palm Beach, Florida. Performing along with
The Cure are
Interpol,
The Rapture,
Mogwai,
Cursive, Muse,
Head Automatica, Thursday,
Scarling.,
The Cooper Temple Clause, and
Melissa Auf der Maur. •
July 24–25 – The
Splendour in the Grass music festival is held in
Byron Bay,
Australia, headlined by
PJ Harvey &
Jurassic 5. •
July 25 –
The Doobie Brothers record and perform
Live at Wolf Trap at
Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts in
Vienna, Virginia. The live album was released two months later, on October 26. •
July 31 •
Simon & Garfunkel perform a free concert in front of the
Colosseum in
Rome for an audience of 600,000 people. •
Dispatch performs their last live show at the DCR Hatchshell in Boston, Massachusetts. •
August 8 –
Dave Matthews Band's tour bus
dumps 800 lb (360 kg) of human
feces from a Chicago bridge, intending to unload it in the river, but it lands on an architecture tour boat. The bus driver and the band are sued by the state of
Illinois. •
August 15 –
Phish performs their final concert at a two-day festival in
Coventry, Vermont. •
August 23 –
The Prodigy release their much anticipated and postponed first full-length album
Always Outnumbered Never Outgunned, 7 years after 1997's
The Fat Of The Land.
September–October •
September 18 –
Britney Spears marries
Kevin Federline. •
September 20 –
Green Day release their seventh studio album
American Idiot, making a comeback for the band, following disappointing sales of their 2000 album
Warning.
American Idiot eventually receives the award for
Best Rock Album at the
47th Grammy Awards on February 13, 2005. •
September 21 –
Gloria Trevi is acquitted and released from jail after being cleared of the charges related to Sergio Andrade's sex-crimes. •
September 26 –
Avril Lavigne begins her
Bonez Tour. •
September 28 •
Brian Wilson releases
Brian Wilson Presents Smile, the first official interpretation of the
Smile sessions since their shelving in 1967. • On the same day, young
Filipino singer
Christian Bautista unveiled his first
self-titled debut album. • October –
Jazz at Lincoln Center performance venue opens in
New York City. •
October 2 –
Billy Joel marries for the third time, to the food critic and chef
Katie Lee. •
October 11 –
Melissa Etheridge undergoes surgery for breast cancer. •
October 23 –
Ashlee Simpson is accused of
lip synching after an abortive live performance on the television show
Saturday Night Live. •
October 25 – Indian singer
Hariharan is awarded the
Swaralaya Kairali Yesudas Award for his outstanding contribution to Indian film music.
November–December •
November 4 – Three members of the band
RAM, who all lived in a neighborhood known for its support of the recently deposed former President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, are detained by Haitian police during a concert performance in
Port-au-Prince; no charges are ever filed or official explanation for the detentions given. •
November 9 –
Britney Spears releases her first compilation album titled
Greatest Hits: My Prerogative. •
November 11 –
Eric Clapton receives a
CBE at Buckingham Palace. •
November 12 –
Eminem's fourth major studio album,
Encore is released four days before schedule to combat Internet bootleggers. The album sells 710,000 copies in only three days and becomes
Eminem's third consecutive album to debut at #1 on the
Billboard charts. •
November 17 –
Within Temptation release the single "
Stand My Ground". •
November 21 –
Casey Donovan is crowned winner of the
second season of
Australian Idol.
Anthony Callea was named runner-up. •
November 24 – Brian & Eric Hoffman leave
Deicide after a royalties dispute. •
November 30 –
Jay-Z and
Linkin Park's album "
Collision Course" debuts at number #01 in
the Billboard 200, later becoming the best-selling CD/DVD of that year. •
December 8 –
Dimebag Darrell is
murdered on stage while performing in Columbus, Ohio, by a deranged fan, who shoots the guitarist three times in the head with a 9mm Beretta handgun. The gunman kills three other people and wounds a further three before being shot dead by police. •
December 11 –
Steve Brookstein is crowned winner of the
first series of
The X Factor.
G4 are named the runner-ups, while
Tabby Callaghan and
Rowetta Satchell finish in third and fourth place respectively. •
December 11–12 – The Los Angeles, California radio station
KROQ-FM airs the 15th Annual of the
Acoustic Christmas with
Chevelle,
Franz Ferdinand,
Good Charlotte,
Green Day,
Hoobastank,
Incubus,
Interpol,
Jimmy Eat World,
Keane,
The Killers,
Modest Mouse,
Muse,
The Music,
My Chemical Romance,
Papa Roach,
Snow Patrol,
Social Distortion,
Sum 41,
Taking Back Sunday,
The Shins,
The Used, and
Velvet Revolver. •
December 14 –
Clint Lowery leaves
Sevendust due to fights with band about gaining control of the band and doubts of the band's future after being released from their label
TVT Records. ==Bands formed==