21 APRIL
Featured Events
2016 Prince dies at age 57 after overdosing on fentanyl, a highly addictive opioid.More
2014 Big Sean becomes the first rapper to perform at the White House when he duets with Ariana Grande on "Right There" at the annual Easter Egg Roll.
2004 Michael Jackson is officially charged with child molestation after a California grand jury determines there is enough evidence to proceed with allegations made against him for time spent at his Neverland Ranch.
1984 "Against All Odds (Take A Look At Me Now)" goes to #1 on the Hot 100, giving Phil Collins his first solo chart-topper on the tally. He will have six more.
1960 For about 20 years, it was common practice for record companies to pay DJs to play songs, but now the US government is cracking down on what they call "Payola." Dick Clark testifies before congress and admits that he took money and gifts to play records - estimating 27% of his playlist to be paid. Clark emerges more powerful than ever, selling off conflicting interests and expanding his music empire. On the other hand, another prominent DJ and TV host, Alan Freed, refuses to admit that he took payola, insisting that he was a consultant to the industry. His career never recovers despite his massive influence and success.
21 APRIL
In Music History
2013 Christina Amphlett (frontwoman of The Divinyls) dies after a long battle with breast cancer at age 53.
2012 Nicki Minaj goes to #1 in America with Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded, becoming the first female rapper with a #1 album since Eve in 1999.
2008 Soul singer Al Wilson dies at age 68 of kidney failure.
2007 Rock guitarist Lobby Loyde (of Billy Thorpe and The Aztecs, The Coloured Balls) dies at age 65 of lung cancer.
2006 Faith Hill and Tim McGraw kick off their Soul2Soul II tour in Columbus, Ohio, which becomes the highest-grossing country tour of all time. On some dates, their opening act is a young singer named Taylor Swift.
2003 Nina Simone dies at age 70 after a long battle with breast cancer.
2003 EMI and Universal Music sue the file-sharing service Napster for copyright violations.
2003 British pop group S Club 7 announces it is splitting up after five years.
2001 Peter Buck of R.E.M. gets unruly on a British Airways flight and is arrested. He is accused of drinking 15 glasses of wine, overturning a service cart and engaging in other bad behavior, but charges are eventually dropped. Buck claimed that ingesting both a sleeping pill and wine caused him to lose it.
2000 Neal Matthews Jr. (of Elvis Presley's backing group, The Jordanaires) dies of a heart attack at age 70.
1998 Faith Hill releases her third album, Faith, which delivers her first pop hit, "This Kiss."
1993 Bill Wyman, formerly of The Rolling Stones, marries his third wife, 33-year-old fashion designer Suzanne Accosta, in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France.
1992 The Cure release their ninth studio album, Wish, which features their hit single "Friday I'm In Love." Their highest-charting album, it debuts at #1 in the UK and #2 in the US.
1990 Paul McCartney sets a new world record for attendance at a concert by a single artist when his tour-ending show at the Maracana Stadium in Rio draws 184,000 people.
1990 The International Ska Festival & Earth Day Celebration goes down at the Greek Theatre in San Francisco, with performances by The International Beat, The Uptones, and Bad Manners. With 10,000 attending, it's an early indicator that ska is finding an audience in America.
American Idol Voters Eliminate Jennifer Hudson
2004Future Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson gets voted off season three of American Idol, where she finishes in seventh place.
After performing Barry Manilow's "Weekend In New England," Chicago-born Jennifer Hudson is voted off American Idol. The 22-year-old singer, who had been performing on Disney Cruise Lines in a production of Hercules before auditioning for the show, seemed to win favor with the Idol voters two weeks earlier with a performance of Elton John's "Circle of Life." After she's eliminated from the Top 7, theories arise to explain the shocking loss: Was she the target of racism (the bottom three of the week are all African-American females)? Did a power outage in her native city block crucial votes? Elton John comes to Hudson's defense, calling the voters who snubbed her "incredibly racist." Hudson also refuses to take the loss in stride. She tells MTV: "I don't think it was based on talent, but if it was, I was robbed." Fantasia Barrino eventually wins the title, but Hudson will earn a few titles of her own off the Idol stage. Her breakthrough comes two years later in the form of an Academy Award-winning role in the movie Dreamgirls. Her self-titled debut album in 2008 lands at #2 on the Billboard 200 albums chart and earns four Grammy nominations, with a win for Best R&B Album.
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