March 27, 2026 Raye drops her second album, This Music May Contain Hope. The 17 tracks are divided into four "seasons" representing the emotional stages that inspired them. The lead single, "Where Is My Husband!," is a #1 hit in her native UK and helps her break through in America.
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
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
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 22, 2024 Kendrick Lamar disses Drake in the song "Like That," igniting a high-profile feud that gets ugly. Lamar wins the popular vote in this rap battle when his diss track "Not Like Us" goes to #1.More
August 23, 2023 The first Republican debate opens with a clip of Oliver Anthony singing "Rich Men North Of Richmond," his takedown of venal and incompetent politicians in Washington, with the candidates asked, "Why is this song striking such a nerve in this country right now?" "It was funny seeing my song in the presidential debate, because I wrote that song about those people," Anthony says.
February 3, 2023 After years of frustration waiting for her record company to release her debut album, My 21st Century Blues, Raye finally puts it out independently. The song "Escapism," which deals with her unhealthy coping mechanisms during this time, is a #1 hit in her native UK.
May 27, 2022 Abba's virtual reality show Voyages opens in London with digital avatars performing in place of the actual band members.More
June 23, 2021 Britney Spears asks a court to end her conservatorship, which is controlled by her father. "This conservatorship is doing me way more harm than good," she says. "I deserve to have a life." Despite her passionate plea, her request is denied, but she gets her wish five months later when her conservatorship is terminated.
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
June 22, 2020 The day after Spain lifted a 3-month coronavirus lockdown, the Liceu opera in Barcelona opens its season with an unusual performance: Each of the 2,292 seats is occupied by a houseplant.More
February 10, 2020 While performing at the Get Out The Vote rally in New Hampshire in support of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, The Strokes debut the animated video for their new single "At The Door." They also perform the forthcoming followup single "Bad Decisions" for the first time.More
January 16, 2019 At the Forum in Los Angeles, the surviving members of Soundgarden play their first show together since Chris Cornell's passing as part of the star-studded I Am the Highway: A Tribute to Chris Cornell concert.More
September 22, 2018 Paul Simon closes out his farewell tour with a show in his hometown of Queens, New York. It's not really the end: He tours again in 2025.More
April 14, 2018 Beyoncé, who had to cancel the previous year because of her pregnancy, headlines Coachella in lavish fashion, with over 70 performers and a reunion of Destiny's Child. She becomes the first black woman to headline the festival.More
February 6, 2018 Ozzy Osbourne announces his No More Tours 2 tour, billed as his "final global tour." Ozzy first retired from touring in 1992 with his original No More Tours tour.More
December 8, 2017 Johnny Mathis releases The Voice of Romance: The Columbia Original Album Collection. The 68-disc box set includes 67 remastered albums, including two that have never been released in their entirety: I Love My Lady, a 1981 album written and produced by Chic founders Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers, and The Island, a Brazilian-flavored album produced by Sérgio Mendes in 1989.
November 10, 2017 Following a publicity campaign where she purges her social media accounts and posts video of a hissing snake, Taylor Swift releases her sixth album, Reputation.More
October 16, 2017 Ed Sheeran breaks his wrist and elbow in a biking accident, forcing him to cancel dates on his tour of Asia. He calls his time off "the most depressing six weeks of my life."More
October 7, 2017 Jason Aldean pays tribute to Tom Petty and the victims of the Las Vegas shooting a week earlier with a performance of "I Won't Back Down" on Saturday Night Live.More
October 2, 2017 Tom Petty, 66, goes into cardiac arrest at his Malibu home. He is taken to UCLA medical center, but cannot be revived. Later that night, after his friends and family gather, he is taken off life support.More
July 26, 2017 A jury awards Quincy Jones $9.4 million in royalties for the use of Michael Jackson songs he produced in two Cirque du Soleil shows and the This Is It documentary. Jones filed suit in 2013, asking for $30 million.
June 9, 2017 Gene Simmons of Kiss files a trademark application for the devil horns hand gesture, which he claims he invented in 1974.More
May 22, 2017 Minutes after an Ariana Grande concert ends at the Manchester Arena in England, a suicide bomber detonates a device, killing 22 and injuring at least 60 others in an act of terrorism.More
May 14, 2017 Johnny Mathis confirms he is gay during an interview with CBS News Sunday Morning, saying, "I come from San Francisco. It's not unusual to be gay in San Francisco. I've had some girlfriends, some boyfriends, just like most people. But I never got married, for instance. I knew that I was gay." He had been reluctant to discuss the issue ever since a 1982 Us Magazine article addressing his homosexuality resulted in numerous death threats toward the singer.
April 5, 2017 At age 73, Barry Manilow comes out as gay.More
February 22, 2017 Longtime blink-182 frontman Tom DeLonge receives the UFO Researcher Of The Year Award at the International UFO Congress.More
February 10, 2017 Tom Petty is honored as Person of the Year at the MusiCares gala, held two days before the Grammy Awards. "Twenty years ago I'd have been way too cynical to do this, but I'm 66 now and I feel ya," he says in his speech.More
February 5, 2017 Lady Gaga opens the Super Bowl halftime show with a verse from "God Bless America," followed by the song Woody Guthrie wrote as a parody, "This Land Is Your Land."More
December 25, 2016 George Michael dies of heart failure aged just 53 in bed at his riverside home in Goring-on-Thames, Oxfordshire. He is found by his boyfriend, Australian hair stylist Fadi Fawaz.More
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