May 24, 2026 Drake's albums Iceman, Habibti and Maid of Honour debut at #1, #2 and #3 in the US, making him the first artist to occupy the top three spots. Over on the Hot 100, 42 of the 43 songs make the chart, a new record. Another milestone: Iceman gives Drake 15 #1 albums, surpassing Jay-Z for the most among male solo artists.
April 10, 2026 On the final day of their mission to the moon, the Artemis II crew wake up to "Free" by the Zac Brown Band. Brown relays a message to the astronauts, saying he hopes the song "helps start your day with the right kind of lift."
March 27, 2026 Robyn releases her ninth studio album, Sexistential. The single "Talk To Me" marks a reunion between Sweden's former teen-pop sensation and Max Martin, who produced her debut album in 1995 before becoming a prolific hitmaker for other teen acts of the '90s, including Britney Spears.
February 20, 2026 Mumford & Sons release their sixth studio album, Prizefighter. Produced by The National guitarist Aaron Dessner, the album boasts several collaborations with artists like Hozier on "Rubber Band Man" and Gracie Abrams on "Badlands."
February 1, 2026 A week before his Super Bowl performance, Bad Bunny becomes the first Spanish-language artist to win the Grammy for Album Of The Year when Debí Tirar Más Fotos takes the prize. Kendrick Lamar picks up five trophies (including Record Of The Year for "Luther") to become the most-awarded rapper in Grammy history with 27.
December 31, 2025 The TV series Stranger Things wraps up with a finale featuring the rarely licensed Prince songs "When Doves Cry" and "Purple Rain" as part of a plotline where Side 2 of the Purple Rain album triggers a device. Like many '80s tracks used on the show (particularly "Running Up That Hill" by Kate Bush), the songs find a new audience and get a huge boost in streaming.
October 3, 2025 Taylor Swift hypes her latest album, The Life Of A Showgirl, with an extreme marketing campaign that entices fans to unlock musical clues hidden behind orange doors in 12 cities around the world.More
September 27, 2025 Selena Gomez and super-producer Benny Blanco get married. Their relationship started professionally in 2015 when Blanco produced two songs on her Revival album. They started dating in 2023.
June 9, 2025 Sly Stone dies from COPD at 82. With his group Sly & the Family Stone he brought lively funk grooves to the charts with songs like "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)" and "I Want To Take You Higher." The band fell apart in the mid-'70s when he battled drug addiction, and Stone remained reclusive and erratic the rest of his life, sabotaging various comeback opportunities.
June 5, 2025 The Velvet Sundown release their debut album, Floating On Echoes. Their songs quickly populate algorithm-driven playlists and amass millions of streams, even though nobody has heard of the band or any of its members. They're later revealed to be an AI-generated act, the first to garner big streaming numbers.More
December 8, 2024 Taylor Swift wraps up her Eras Tour with a show in Vancouver, closing out a record-shattering journey that redefines the landscape of live music over the course of 149 concerts on five continents.More
October 25, 2024 A Spanish version of Brenda Lee's holiday classic "Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree" ("Noche Buena y Navidad") is released. The song was created using AI trained on Lee's vocals from when she recorded the original at 13. It's the second AI-generated release from a major artist, following Randy Travis' "Where That Came From" six months earlier, and the first use of AI to translate a song to another language.
October 19, 2024 Ozzy Osbourne, already in with Black Sabbath, is inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame as a solo artist along with Mary J. Blige, Cher, The Dave Matthews Band, Foreigner, Peter Frampton, Kool & the Gang and A Tribe Called Quest.
September 6, 2024 Beetlejuice Beetlejuice opens in theaters with a soundtrack that revives the '70s songs "MacArthur Park," "Tragedy" and "Margaritaville." Other songs in the film include "Right Here Waiting" by Richard Marx and "Svefn-G-Englar" by Sigur Rós.
May 31, 2024 Charli XCX releases a remix of her popular song "360," featuring dance-pop artist Robyn and rapper Yung Lean, both of Sweden. Charli and Robyn, who is 13 years her senior, met while they were touring the same festivals in Australia and became good friends.
May 4, 2024 After 10 weeks at the top of the Country chart, Beyoncé's "Texas Hold 'Em" gives way to "A Bar Song (Tipsy)" by Shaboozey, a singer who came to the fore when Beyoncé featured him on her Cowboy Carter album.
May 4, 2024 The top 14 songs on the Hot 100 are all from Taylor Swift's The Tortured Poets Department, with "Fortnight" taking the top spot. All 31 songs from the album are on the chart in addition to an earlier song, "Cruel Summer."
May 3, 2024 Randy Travis, unable to sing as a result of a stroke he suffered in 2011, releases "Where That Came From," a song with his vocal generated by artificial intelligence. It's the first major release from a legacy artist using AI technology to create a vocal from scratch, offering the possibility of more songs from singers - living or dead - that don't have to actually sing on them.
April 19, 2024 Taylor Swift releases The Tortured Poets Department, an album filled with confessional songs written in the aftermath of breakups with Joe Alwyn and The 1975 singer Matt Healy. At 2 a.m. she surprise releases an additional 15 tracks in a second volume of the album called The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology.
March 29, 2024 Beyoncé drops Cowboy Carter, a sassy country album (mostly) with 27 tracks and appearances by Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, and an unheralded Black country singer named Linda Martell, whose only album was released in 1970. When Cowboy Carter tops the Country chart, it makes Beyoncé the first Black woman to do so.More
March 26, 2024 Donald Trump partners with Lee Greenwood, endorsing the God Bless The USA Bible, which includes the chorus lyrics to Greenwood's song. "I'm proud to be partnering with my very good friend Lee Greenwood," Trump says. "Who doesn't love his song 'God Bless the USA'?"
February 4, 2024 Noah Kahan is nominated for Best New Artist at the Grammy Awards. The "Stick Season" singer, who issued his breakthrough album of the same name in 2022, loses to R&B songstress Victoria Monét.
February 4, 2024 Taylor Swift wins the Album Of The Year Grammy for Midnights, making her the first artist to win that award four times. Miley Cyrus gets Record Of The Year for "Flowers" and Billie Eilish takes Song Of The Year for "What Was I Made For?" from the movie Barbie.
January 27, 2024 Max Martin breaks Beatles producer George Martin's record for most #1 hits as a producer when "Yes, And?," which he helmed for Ariana Grande, becomes his 24th chart-topping production. His first was "...Baby One More Time" by Britney Spears in 1999.
November 2, 2023 Using artificial intelligence to isolate John Lennon's vocals from an old demo, The Beatles release a new song: "Now And Then." It goes to #1 in the UK, their 18th chart-topper there.
September 9, 2023 "I Remember Everything," a duet where Zach Bryan and Kacey Musgraves play the parts of ex-lovers torn asunder by his drinking, hits #1 in America. It becomes one of the saddest singalong songs ever recorded.
September 3, 2022 At Wembley Stadium, a brigade of stars including Paul McCartney, Kesha, and Nile Rodgers join Foo Fighters in a tribute concert for their drummer, Taylor Hawkins, who died six months earlier.
May 19, 2022 Ciara lands on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, which is starting to feature singers in addition to athletes and models. Megan Thee Stallion made the cover the previous year.
November 5, 2021 Ten fans are killed and hundreds injured during Travis Scott's performance at his Astroworld Festival in Houston, Texas, when the crowd of 50,000 surges toward the stage, crushing the victims.More
March 5, 2021 Kings Of Leon release their album When You See Yourself in a non-fungible token (NFT) auction that also includes digital artwork and "Golden Tickets." Other acts (notably, Grimes) have sold NTF art, but KoL is the first big name to try it with an album and VIP package.More
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