October 8, 2008 Foo Fighters make a villain out of John McCain after the GOP candidate uses "My Hero" without permission. "'My Hero' was written as a celebration of the common man and his extraordinary potential. To have it appropriated without our knowledge and used in a manner that perverts the original sentiment of the lyric just tarnishes the song," Dave Grohl writes in a statement.
September 26, 2008 Clay Aiken announces he is gay in People magazine, saying: "It was the first decision I made as a father. I cannot raise a child to lie or to hide things. I wasn't raised that way, and I'm not going to raise a child to do that."
September 5, 2008 The first Fender Stratocaster set alight on stage by Jimi Hendrix is auctioned. The guitar sells for $575,000 to collector Daniel Boucher - less than the $1 million predicted. It is one of only two guitars definitively burned by Hendrix - the other was at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967.
August 24, 2008 Leona Lewis and Jimmy Page perform during the closing ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games at the National Stadium (also known as the Bird's Nest). The duo perform the Led Zeppelin classic "Whole Lotta Love."More
August 19, 2008 After two years performing in the New York City club scene, 22-year-old Lady Gaga releases her debut album, The Fame, a look at how fame is all about attitude. Thanks to the hits "Just Dance" and "Poker Face," it makes her famous worldwide, not just in her mind.More
August 11, 2008 Noah and the Whale debut Peaceful, the World Lays Me Down is released on the Mercury/Vertigo label. Laura Marling, who was a member of the band at the time of recording but soon left to focus on her solo career, is featured as a vocalist on the album. Fellow Indie-Folk artist Emmy the Great also contributes vocals to the album.
July 5, 2008 Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl" hits #1 in the US, where it stays for seven weeks. Perry's first chart-topper, it's a startling turnabout from just seven years earlier, when she was a gospel singer recording under her real name: Katy Hudson.More
July 4, 2008 The movie Mamma Mia!, featuring the music of ABBA and based on the musical, opens in Sweden where the group attends the screening, briefly reuniting Benny Andersson, Bjorn Ulvaeus, Anni-Frid Lyngstad, and Agnetha Faltskog.More
June 17, 2008 Katy Perry's major-label debut album, One of the Boys, is released, featuring the hit single "I Kissed a Girl." It's not her first album: In 2001 she released a gospel album under her real name, Katy Hudson.More
June 14, 2008 Pearl Jam and My Morning Jacket bond, a tardy Kanye West riles the crowd and calls organizers "squid brains," and MGMT dance like hippies at Bonnaroo 2008.More
May 23, 2008 Weezer's video for "Pork and Beans," featuring a number of YouTube stars, makes its debut.More
April 4, 2008 After years of quiet courtship, Jay-Z and Beyoncé get married in a secret ceremony, becoming the most powerful couple in entertainment.More
April 4, 2008 Procol Harum's Gary Brooker wins an appeal in London to an earlier ruling, which stated that Harum organist Matthew Fisher was entitled to 40 percent of the royalties from the band's 1967 smash "A Whiter Shade Of Pale." Though the new ruling notes that Fisher wrote the organ line and should be co-credited, it also overturns the royalty award by noting that Fisher waited 38 years to sue.
April 3, 2008 Jay-Z joins Madonna and U2 in signing a huge contract with Live Nation; he scores a 360 deal that includes his own label.More
April 1, 2008 On April Fools' Day, YouTube tricks users with the popular bait-and-switch prank called Rickrolling by featuring video links that actually lead to Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" music video. Several other websites have the same idea, creating an unintentional, internet-wide April Fools' joke.More
March 26, 2008 The B-52's lose their apostrophe and become the B-52s with the release of their album Funplex. The apostrophe, which is grammatically incorrect because apostrophes show possession, was simply an error made by the friend that designed their logo.
March 21, 2008 Beach Boys founding members Mike Love and Al Jardine settle a lawsuit Love filed in 2003, claiming Jardine was touring under variations of the group name, to which Love owns the rights. The settlement leads to a reunion of the group in 2012 for their 50th anniversary.
March 17, 2008 Heather Mills is awarded 23.7 million pounds (about $47 million) in her divorce from Paul McCartney, substantially more than the $32 million Paul offered. Throughout the ordeal, Mills is vilified in the British press as being opportunistic.More
March 3, 2008 Chumbawamba break the record for longest album title with their 160-word release The Boy Bands Have Won...More
January 22, 2008 British tabloid The Sun posts video they claim is of Amy Winehouse smoking crack. The 24-year-old singer has been in and out of rehab, and is clearly in ill health. The video was apparently taken by a guest at her home.
December 10, 2007 Led Zeppelin play a one-off show at the O2 Arena in London, the biggest reunion in rock history. John Bonham's son, Jason, plays drums at the show, which is hailed by critics and fans as triumphant.More
October 24, 2007 Backstreet Boys release Unbreakable, their first album without Kevin Richardson.More
September 15, 2007 At 17 years and one month old, Soulja Boy boy becomes the youngest artist to write, produce and perform a #1 Hot 100 hit when "Crank That" goes to the top. The record was previously held by Debbie Gibson, who was 17 years and 9 months old when "Foolish Beat" went to #1 in 1988.
September 9, 2007 Britney Spears opens the MTV Video Music Awards with a listless lip-synch where she appears dazed and confused. Over the next few months, she loses custody of her kids and is involuntarily committed to a psychiatric facility.More
July 7, 2007 Live Earth, a series of concerts to initiate action against global warming, takes place around the world.More
June 10, 2007 In the last scene of the HBO series The Sopranos, "Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey plays on the jukebox while Tony Soprano sits at a diner. It cuts to black on the line, "Don't Stop."More
June 1, 2007 Contemporary musicians record their own versions of songs from The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's album to mark 40 years since it was released. Acts including Oasis, Travis, The Fray, Kaiser Chiefs, Razorlight, Bryan Adams and The Magic Numbers all work with Geoff Emerick - the engineer in charge of the original 1967 sessions - using the original analogue 4-track equipment to demonstrate the techniques employed for the recording at Abbey Road studios in 1967.
May 19, 2007 Frank Guida, a Sicilian-American songwriter and music producer whose first hit was Tommy Facenda's "High School U.S.A.," dies in Norfolk, Virginia, at age 84.
April 12, 2007 In Omaha, Nebraska, Kenny Chesney launches his Flip Flop Summer tour. 17-year-old Taylor Swift was going to be an opening act on the tour but had to bow out when Cruzan Rum came on as a sponsor. Chesney makes it up to her with a note of encouragement and a big check that helps line up her own tour in 2009.
April 7, 2007 Beyoncé's "Beautiful Liar," featuring Latin-pop star Shakira, breaks the record for the highest leap on the Billboard Hot 100 when it jumps 91 places to #3. The record was previously held by Akon, whose "Smack That," featuring Eminem, rose from #95 to #7 (ultimately peaking at #2) in 2006.
©2026 Songfacts®, LLC