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.
February 25, 2003 Having recently signed with Columbia Records, Switchfoot release The Beautiful Letdown, their major-label debut album.
February 23, 2003 60 Minutes runs a segment on Bering Strait, a Russian bluegrass band that have relocated to Nashville. Their guitarist/banjo player, Ilya Toshinskiy, becomes a top studio musician there, backing artists like Tim McGraw, Taylor Swift and Carrie Underwood. He becomes known as "the Russian hillbilly."
February 23, 2003 Norah Jones wins all five Grammy Awards she is nominated for, including Record Of The Year and Song Of The Year for "Don't Know Why." Also at the ceremony, Simon & Garfunkel get a Lifetime Achievement Award and sing together for the first time in 10 years.
February 20, 2003 A fire breaks out at a Great White concert in Rhode Island, killing 100 people, including the band's guitarist, Ty Longley.More
February 20, 2003 Olivia Rodrigo is born in Murrieta, California. She stars on the Disney shows Bizaardvark and High School Musical: The Musical: The Series before releasing her debut single, "Drivers License," in 2021.
February 18, 2003 The Rolling Stones bring some local flavor to the Australian leg of their Licks world tour, bringing Jet as the opening act. The first show in the country takes place at the Enmore Theater in Sydney. Jet had to fly back from Los Angeles, where they were recording their debut album, Get Born, to take advantage of the opportunity.
February 15, 2003 Good Charlotte's "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" peaks at #20 on the Billboard Hot 100, the highest they would get on the chart.
February 6, 2003 50 Cent drops his major-label debut album, Get Rich or Die Tryin', a joint release on Eminem's Shady Records and Dr. Dre's Aftermath label. It includes two #1 hits: "In Da Club" and "21 Questions."
February 3, 2003 Phil Spector is charged with murder after police are called to his 33-room mansion in Alhambra, California, and discover the actress Lana Clarkson dead from a gunshot wound.More
January 25, 2003 Billy Joel crashes his Mercedes while driving in Long Island, New York. The singer later says that he was in a "mental fog" around this time, caused by relationship issues and a lingering depression after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
January 25, 2003 Thanks to a raft of Grammy nominations, Norah Jones' debut album Come Away With Me goes to #1 in America 11 months after it was released. It stays on top for three weeks, then returns the week of March 15 after winning the Grammy for Album of the Year.
January 13, 2003 British police arrest The Who guitarist Pete Townshend as part of their "Operation Ore" sting operation to crack down on child pornography. Townshend admits to having indecent images of children, but insists that he was doing research for an upcoming book dealing with his own experience with sexual abuse. He is placed on the sex offenders' register for five years.
January 12, 2003 While awaiting emergency surgery for a strangulated intestine, Maurice Gibb of the Bee Gees dies unexpectedly of a heart attack at age 53.More
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