4 SEPTEMBER
Featured Events
2002 Kelly Clarkson beats Justin Guarini to become the first winner of American Idol.More
1982 "Abracadabra" by the Steve Miller Band hits #1 in the US, giving the veteran rocker his third chart-topper.More
1981 Beyoncé Knowles is born in Houston, Texas. She finds fame as the lead singer of the '90s girl group Destiny's Child before becoming Queen Bey.
1976 Fleetwood Mac's self-titled album makes #1 a year after its release, knocking off Peter Frampton's Frampton Comes Alive. It's the band's first album with Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks.More
1976 "You Should Be Dancing" by the Bee Gees goes to #1 in America. The next year, it is used in the Saturday Night Fever scene where John Travolta clears the dance floor.
1968 "Street Fighting Man" by The Rolling Stones is banned in Chicago and some other cities as local officials fear it will incite riots.
4 SEPTEMBER
In Music History
2023 Diana Ross makes a surprise appearance at Beyoncé's Los Angeles show to wish her a happy 42nd B'Day. After singing her hit "Love Hangover," Ross leads the crowd in "Happy Birthday."
2023 Gary Wright, known for his 1975 hit "Dream Weaver," dies at 80 after a battle with Parkinson's disease and Lewy body dementia.
2023 Smash Mouth frontman Steve Harwell dies of liver failure at 56.
2014 All is well in Seattle as the Super Bowl champion Seahawks play the first game of the season, with local band Soundgarden performing during the pregame.
2009 The-Dream and Christina Milian elope in Las Vegas; they separate three months later, though the split is not made public until July 2010.
2007 The Bob Dylan "biographical" movie, I'm Not There: Suppositions On A Film Concerning Dylan, premieres at the Venice (Italy) Film Festival.
1997 Accepting the award for Best New Artist, 19-year-old Fiona Apple rages against the machine, saying: "This world is bulls--t. And you shouldn't model your life about what you think we think is cool, what we're wearing, and what we're saying."More
1996 At the MTV Video Music Awards, Van Halen, who recently parted ways with lead singer Sammy Hagar, appear on stage with their founding frontman David Lee Roth for the first time in 11 years to present an award. The reunion is short lived - a month later they announce Gary Cherone (formerly of Extreme) as their new lead singer. Roth releases a statement saying, "I was an unwitting participant in this deception." Van Halen release one album with Cherone before reuniting with Roth in 2007.
1991 Country singer Dottie West, 58, dies five days after getting in a car accident on her way to perform at the Grand Ole Opry.
1986 Gregg Allman is arrested in Belleview, Florida, when a police officer sees his 1985 Trans Am weaving on Route 441. He blows a .27 (legal limit: .10) and is charged with drunken driving and driving with an expired license. Allman is sentenced to five days in jail and ordered to do community service, which he serves by playing a drug-and-alcohol-free graduation party for area high schools. He does his time in January 1987, a month before his aptly titled solo album I'm No Angel is released.
1980 Pop singer Dan Miller (of O-Town) is born in Laconia, New Hampshire.
1972 John Lennon and Yoko Ono appear on Jerry Lewis' muscular dystrophy telethon.
1971 At a Bruce Springsteen show at the Student Prince in Asbury Park, New Jersey, the E Street Band comes together when sax player Clarence Clemons joins the band on stage for the first time, a story recounted in the song "Tenth Avenue Freeze-out."
1970 The Rolling Stones release Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out!
1969 The Youngbloods, a rare rock band scheduled to appear on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, are scratched. Carson says it's because they were being disrespectful; the band says they were slated to play two songs: a new one and their hit "Get Together," but when the show went long, the producers nixed the new song, so they walked.
System Of A Down Release Toxicity
2001System Of A Down release Toxicity, a classic of the Armenian folk-metal genre that sells over 3 million copies.
When the band released their first album in 1998, even they thought it would be well off the mainstream radar, but thanks to MTV, rock radio, and buzzworthy live shows, they bubbled to the surface. Their music doesn't fit any niche (we were kind of kidding about that Armenian folk-metal thing), but that was fine with Rick Rubin, the man who shepherded both Slayer and Beastie Boys. Rubin was not just System's producer, but also their label boss - he signed them to his American Recordings imprint in 1997. The day before its release, the band planned a free concert, but that went sideways when thousands more than expected showed up and police shut it down before it began. It was clear SOAD was no longer an underground band, and the album would be a very big deal. Toxicity is indeed huge. It debuts at #1 in America, but just a week after its release, September 11 happens. This impacts airplay (many stations drop the lead single, "Chop Suey," which references death), but the album proves resilient; "Toxicity" and "Aerials" are both released as singles in 2002 and do quite well, with "Aerials" topping the Alternative chart, putting them in the company of Red Hot Chili Peppers and Nirvana. SOAD recorded about 30 songs for Toxicity; many that didn't make the tracklist leak on the internet in 2002, prompting the band to release them that year on what becomes their third album: Steal This Album! In 2005, they release their next two albums: Mezmerize and Hypnotize. Both go to #1, but the band splits up the following year. They return to tour in 2010, but don't release any music that decade. In 2020, they put their differences aside to release two songs in support of Armenians fighting in their homeland.
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