July 25, 2003 Erik Braunn (Iron Butterfly guitarist) dies of a heart attack related to a birth defect in Los Angeles, California, at age 52.
July 23, 2003 In a bizarre ad placed in Variety, James Brown announces his separation from his fourth wife, Tomi Rae, by featuring a picture of the couple and their two-year-old, James Brown II, posing with Goofy at Disney World.
July 22, 2003 Yellowcard release Ocean Avenue, their major-label debut album and a pop-punk landmark. It's named for Ocean Boulevard in their hometown of Jacksonville, with the name changed because it's a lot harder to rhyme "boulevard."
June 28, 2003 After Ruben Studdard beats Clay Aiken to win Season 2 of American Idol, their first singles debut at the top of the Hot 100. Aiken takes the top spot, becoming the first new artist to go straight to #1 on the chart.More
June 24, 2003 Beyoncé releases her first solo album, Dangerously in Love. The standout track is "Crazy In Love," which features her boyfriend Jay-Z.
June 23, 2003 Diana Ross pleads not guilty to drunk driving charges in Tucson after being discovered with a 0.2 BAC, claiming that the arresting officer threatened her with injury if she didn't take the breath test.
June 10, 2003 The Luther Vandross album Dance With My Father is released two months after the singer suffered a debilitating stroke. The album goes to #1 in America and the title track wins the Grammy Award for Song of the Year, but Vandross dies on July 1, 2005.
June 10, 2003 Following a four-year hiatus, Fountains of Wayne reunite in order to release Welcome Interstate Managers. The album spawns the hit single "Stacy's Mom."
June 7, 2003 The rain-soaked Field Day Festival takes place at Giants Stadium, with performances by Radiohead, Beastie Boys, Blur, Bright Eyes and several other acts. It was scheduled as a two-day event at a different site but hastily moved when permits didn't come through. Beck is supposed to perform but injures his ribs in a collision with a stagehand and is taken to the hospital. The festival does plant the seeds of Monsters Of Folk, as Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes and Jim James of My Morning Jacket meet backstage and later form the group with M. Ward.
June 4, 2003 A grandfather who set up his own pirate radio station in Wakefield, Yorkshire, is under investigation by local broadcasting authorities. The man known as Ricky Rock had erected a 32-foot transmitter in his garden and had been playing hits by The Beach Boys, The Beatles, and Elvis Presley. Ricky said he set the station up because "talent-less boy bands and dance music" featured on local stations did not cater to the tastes of his generation.
June 2, 2003 A painting of Kylie Minogue wearing gold hot pants causes tempers to fray among drivers in Brighton. Artist Simon Etheridge put up the almost life-size picture in his own Art Asylum gallery as part of a Festival and since then motorists have caused regular traffic hold-ups as they stopped to take a second look.
June 1, 2003 Staind's 14 Shades Of Gray hits #1 on the US albums chart. It's the meat in the sandwich of three chart-topping albums for the group, following Break The Cycle (2001) and preceding Chapter V (2005).
May 24, 2003 Paul McCartney sits down for tea with Russian premier Vladimir Putin, then heads to Red Square for his very first performance behind the Iron Curtain, for an audience of 20,000.
May 20, 2003 Lynyrd Skynyrd release Vicious Cycle, their twelfth studio album. It's the last to feature work by bassist Leon Wilkeson, who passed away during recording. Kid Rock appears on the album in a remake of "Gimme Back My Bullets."
May 17, 2003 June Carter Cash's funeral is held in her hometown of Hendersonville, Tennessee. Among the 2000 mourners are Kris Kristofferson, Emmylou Harris, The Oak Ridge Boys, Sheryl Crow - and her husband, Johnny Cash.
May 15, 2003 t.A.T.u.'s manager Ivan Shapovalov is arrested for disturbing the peace after staging a video shoot in Moscow's Red Square for the duo's song "Show Me Love." Playing up the act's image as teenage lesbian lovers, Shapovalov had arranged for about 200 young girls to dress like t.A.T.u. and kiss each other, which causes a disturbance. By the end of the year, t.A.T.u. will abandon the ruse and admit that they only acted like lovers for the sake of scandalous publicity.
May 6, 2003 Fall Out Boy release their debut album, the pop-punk effort Take This To Your Grave.
May 2, 2003 Dixie Chicks appear naked on the front cover of Entertainment Weekly, with slogans such "Traitors," "Hero," "Boycott," "Saddam's Angels" and "Proud Americans" printed across their bodies. The slogans represent the mixed reaction Dixie Chicks received following singer Natalie Maines' anti-George W. Bush comments.More
April 29, 2003 The movie Only The Strong Survive (with many R&B legends, including Jerry Butler) premieres in New York.
April 28, 2003 Apple launches the iTunes store, the first widely successful legal music download app, thanks to the emergence of the iPod, which lets people take their music with them. At first, the service is available only to Mac users, with the music files encoded in Apple's proprietary format (AAC) restricting where they can be played.More
April 24, 2003 The Fox TV network airs the 2-hour special The Michael Jackson Interview: The Footage You Were Never Meant to See. The show contains footage of Michael Jackson's home movies, and is the superstar's rebuttal to the documentary Living with Michael Jackson, which aired in February on ABC. In that one, Jackson talks about sharing his bed with children.
April 22, 2003 Songwriter Felice Bryant dies of cancer at age 77 in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Known for a string of hits with co-writer husband Boudleaux Bryant, including The Everly Brothers' "All I Have to Do Is Dream" and "Bye Bye Love."
April 17, 2003 Blues musician Earl King, composer of the standards "I Hear You Knocking" and "One Night," dies at age 69 of diabetes-related complications.
March 31, 2003 The Roots release Phrenology three years after their highly successful fourth album, Things Fall Apart. An ambitious work that pushes the boundaries of hip-hop, Phrenology also contains a hit: the Cody ChesnuTT collaboration "The Seed (2.0)."
March 25, 2003 Linkin Park release Meteora, the follow-up to their smash debut, Hybrid Theory. The nu-metal album features the hit singles "Numb" and "Breaking The Habit."
March 25, 2003 Celine Dion begins her Las Vegas residency with the show A New Day... at Caesars Palace. With elaborate sets and a full dance troupe, it ushers in a new era of highly theatrical Vegas shows headlined by huge stars. Shania Twain, Elton John and Britney Spears all follow this path.
March 20, 2003 On the day the Iraq war begins, Bruce Springsteen opens his Melbourne, Australia, show with a quiet, acoustic version of his hit "Born In The U.S.A." and follows it, pointedly, with a cover of Edwin Starr's "War."
March 17, 2003 On the very first episode of MTV's practical joke show Punk'd, host Ashton Kutcher stages a prank involving the IRS that makes Justin Timberlake cry.More
March 12, 2003 The Chinese government gives The Rolling Stones a list of songs they will not be allowed to play on their upcoming tour of the country. The list includes "Brown Sugar," "Honky Tonk Women" and "Let's Spend The Night Together."
March 8, 2003 It's like American Idol, but country: The singing competition show Nashville Star debuts on the USA network. It lasts six seasons; Miranda Lambert comes in third on Season 1.
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