Events[edit][]
January[edit][]
- January 1
- The Vienna New Year's Concert is conducted by Riccardo Muti.
- Kurt Nilsen wins World Idol.
- January 3 – Britney Spears marries Jason Allen Alexander, a childhood friend, in Las Vegas. The marriage is annulled 55 hours later.
- January 15 – Rapper Mystikal is sentenced to six years in prison for sexual battery.
- February 1
- Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake perform onstage at Super Bowl XXXVIII. The performance concludes with Jackson's right breast being exposed to the audience. The phrase "wardrobe malfunction" is coined during the ensuing controversy.
- Daron Hagen is appointed President of the Lotte Lehmann Foundation in New York City.
- February 8 – The 46th Annual Grammy Awards are held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. Outkast's Speakerboxxx/The Love Below becomes the first rap album to win Album of the Year. Beyoncé won 5 awards.
- February 9 - Blink-182 release single I Miss You from the album blink-182. - Nelly Furtado - Loose - The song reached number one on the Billboard Modern Rock chart.
- February 13 - Elton John begins The Red Piano concert residency at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Originally scheduled for 75 performances, it would run for 248 shows over five years, including twenty-four tour dates in Europe.
- February 17
- BRIT Awards held in London. The Darkness, Dido, Busted, Justin Timberlake, Timbaland, and KRS-One are among the winners. SexyBack
- Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan posts a bitter message on his personal blog calling D'arcy Wretzky a "mean spirited drug addict" and blaming James Iha for the breakup of the band.
March–April[edit][]
- March 2 - Britney Spears embarked The Onyx Hotel Tour, her first tour in 2 years to support her fourth studio album, In The Zone.
- March 9 – Westlife member Brian McFadden leaves the band.
- March 10 – George Michael announces that Patience will be his last commercially released record. Future releases will be available from his web site in return for donations to his favourite charities.
- March 13 – Luciano Pavarotti gives his last performance in an opera, in Tosca at the New York Metropolitan Opera.
- March 19 – Justin Timberlake - FutureSex/LoveSounds album selling 1.1 million copies its first week, making him the first R&B artist to ever accomplish that. The album would be the top seller of the year with four number one singles.
- April 6
- A previously unreleased Johnny Cash album called My Mother's Hymn Book is released less than a year after his death on September 12, 2003.
- Modest Mouse, an American indie rock band releases Good News for People Who Love Bad News.
- April 20 – Fear Factory returns after their 2002 breakup with the new album Archetype.
- April 26
- Deborah Voigt, sacked by Covent Garden for being too fat for an opera role, makes her recital debut to a rapturous reception at Carnegie Hall.
- Dream Theater performs at the Nippon Budokan Hall in Tokyo, Japan.
May–June[edit][]
- May
- Blender magazine's May issue includes a "50 Worst Songs Ever!" list. "We Built This City," by Starship, is rated worst.
- Peter Tägtgren replaces Mikael Åkerfeldt In Bloodbath.
- May 10 – Keane release Hopes and Fears which becomes the 16th best selling album of the millennium in the UK. It went 8x platinum and was nominated for the Mercury Prize and the BRIT award for best album.
- May 18 to May 23 – The European Festival of Youth Choirs (EJCF) is held in Basel.
- May 24 – Madonna starts The Re-Invention Tour in 20 cities with a total of 56 shows and making it the most successful concert tour of the year with a gross of $124.5 million.
- Jam band Phish announces that after 21 years they will break up following the Summer 2004 Tour.
- Skinny Puppy releases their first studio album since disbanding in 1996, called The Greater Wrong of the Right.
- May 26 – Fantasia Barrino wins the third season of American Idol, defeating Diana DeGarmo.
- May 28 to June 6 - The Rock in Rio concert festival is staged in Lisbon, Portugal under the name Rock in Rio Lisboa. Paul McCartney, Peter Gabriel, Foo Fighters, Metallica, Britney Spears and Sting headline each of the six days.
- June 4
- Karl Jenkins signs a 10-year recording deal with EMI.
- Creed dissolved. Guitarist Mark Tremonti, Drummer Scott Phillips and Brian Marshall (ex Bassist of Creed) were working on side project Alter Bridge along with Myles Kennedy of The Mayfield Four Their first album is One Day Remains, which is scheduled to be released on August 10.
- June 11 - The Van Halen Summer Tour 2004 kicks off in Greensboro, North Carolina, marking the return of Sammy Hagar on vocals for the first time since his acrimonious departure from the band in 1996.
- June 12 – The Los Angeles, California radio station KROQ-FM airs the 12th Annual KROQ Weenie Roast show with Bad Religion, Beastie Boys, Cypress Hill, The Hives, Hoobastank, The Killers, Modest Mouse, New Found Glory,Story of the Year, The Strokes, The Velvet Revolver, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Yellowcard.
- June 22 – 14th annual Lollapalooza festival, scheduled for July 17, is cancelled. Organizers cite "poor ticket sales". (See: Lollapalooza 2004 lineup.)
- June 23 – UK DJ Tony Blackburn is suspended by radio station Classic Gold Digital for playing songs by Cliff Richard, against station policy.
- June 25 - Eric Clapton sells his famous guitar "Blackie" at a Christie's auction, raising $959,000 to benefit the Crossroads drug rehabilitation center that he founded in 1998.[1]
July–August[edit][]
- July 10 – Ex-S Club star Rachel Stevens sets a world record for completing the fastest promotional circuit in just 24 hours- including a run for the charity Sport Relief. American Idol winner Fantasia becomes the first artist in history to debut at number-one on the Hot 100 with a first record.
- July 11 – McFly debut at #1 on the UK album charts with Room On The 3rd Floor. They break the record set by The Beatles as the youngest group ever to debut at #1 on the album charts.
- July 20 – Van Halen releases The Best of Both Worlds, a 36-song compilation album featuring three new recordings with Sammy Hagar on vocals.
- July 24 – The Robert Smith organized Curiosa Festival kicks off with a concert in West Palm Beach, Florida. Performing along with The Cure are Interpol, The Rapture, Mogwai, Cursive, Muse, Head Automatica, Thursday, Scarling.,The Cooper Temple Clause, and Melissa Auf der Maur.
- July 25 - The Doobie Brothers record and perform Live at Wolf Trap at Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts in Vienna, Virginia. The live album was released two months later, on October 26.
- July 31
- Simon & Garfunkel perform a free concert in front of the Colosseum in Rome for an audience of 600,000 people.[2]
- Dispatch performs their last live show at the DCR Hatchshell in Boston, Massachusetts.
- August 8 – Dave Matthews Band's tour bus dumps 800 lb (360 kg) of human feces from a Chicago bridge, intending to unload it in the river, but it lands on an architecture tour boat. The bus driver and the band are sued by the state of Illinois.
- August 15 – Phish performs their final concert at a two-day festival in Coventry, Vermont.
- August 23 – The Prodigy release their much anticipated and posponed first full-length album Always Outnumbered Never Outgunned in 7 years since 1997's The Fat Of The Land.
September–October[edit][]
- September 18 – Gnarls Barkley - St Elsewhere - Britney Spears gets married to Kevin Federline.
- September 26 – Avril Lavigne begins her Bonez Tour.
- September 28 – Brian Wilson releases Brian Wilson Presents Smile, an interpretation of the Smile sessions which were shelved in 1967.
- October 2 - Billy Joel marries for the third time, to the food critic and chef Katie Lee.
- October 11
- The original lineup of Duran Duran release their new album Astronaut, which was preceded by the single "(Reach Up For The) Sunrise".
- Melissa Etheridge undergoes surgery for breast cancer.
- October 23 – Ashlee Simpson is accused of lip-synching after an abortive live performance on the television show Saturday Night Live.
- October 25 - Indian singer Hariharan is awarded the Swaralaya-Kairali-Yesudas Award for his outstanding contribution to Indian film music.
November–December[edit][]
- November 4 – Three members of the band RAM, who all lived in a neighborhood known for its support of the recently deposed former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, are detained by Haitian police during a concert performance inPort-au-Prince; no charges are ever filed or official explanation for the detentions given.
- November 9 – Britney Spears releases her first compilation album titled Greatest Hits: My Prerogative.
- November 11 - Eric Clapton receives a CBE at Buckingham Palace.[3]
- November 12 – Eminem's fourth major studio album, Encore is released four days before schedule to combat Internet bootleggers. The album sells 710,000 copies in only three days and becomes Eminem's third consecutive album to debut at #1 on the Billboard charts.
- November 16 - Destiny's Child released their fourth and final studio album Destiny Fulfilled by Columbia Records in North America.
- November 17 - Within Temptation release the single "Stand My Ground".
- November 24 – Brian & Eric Hoffman leave Deicide after a royalties dispute.
- November 30 – Jay-Z and Linkin Park's album "Collision Course" debuts at number #01 in the Billboard 200, later becoming the best-selling CD/DVD of that year.
- December 7 – Lindsay Lohan releases her début album, Speak.
- December 8 – Dimebag Darrell is murdered on stage while performing in Columbus, Ohio, by a deranged fan,[4][5] who shoots the guitarist three times in the head with a 9mm Beretta handgun.[6] The gunman kills three other people and wounds a further seven before being shot dead by police.
- December 11–12 – The Los Angeles, California radio station KROQ-FM airs the 15th Annual of the Acoustic Christmas with Chevelle, Franz Ferdinand, Good Charlotte, Green Day, Hoobastank, Incubus, Interpol, Jimmy Eat World,Keane, The Killers, Modest Mouse, Muse, The Music, My Chemical Romance, Papa Roach, Snow Patrol, Social Distortion, Sum 41, Taking Back Sunday, The Shins, The Used, and Velvet Revolver.
- December 14 – Clint Lowery leaves Sevendust due to fights with band about gaining control of the band and doubts of the band's future after being released from their label TVT Records.
Bands formed[edit][]
See Musical groups established in 2004
Bands disbanded[edit][]
See Musical groups disestablished in 2004
Bands re-formed[edit][]
- Megadeth
- Restless Heart
- Destiny's Child
- Vaya Con Dios
- The Shadows (till 2005)
Singles[]
Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels) Arcade Fire
The Rat The Walkmen
Take Me Out Franz Ferdinand
Staring at the Sun TV on the Radio
Banquet Bloc Party
Curls Madvillain
Albums[]
Classical music[]
Opera[]
Musical theater[edit][]
- Assassins Broadway production
- Bombay Dreams Broadway production
- Fiddler On The Roof Broadway revival
- Jerry Springer - The Opera by Richard Thomas & Stewart Lee
- The Woman in White – music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyrics by David Zippel and book by Charlotte Jones, freely adapted from the novel by Wilkie Collins. Opened on September 15 at the Palace Theatre, London.
- People Are Wrong! Off-Broadway production
Musical films[edit][]
- Alt for Egil, starring Kristoffer Joner
- Beyond the Sea, starring Kevin Spacey as Bobby Darin
- Bride and Prejudice, starring Aishwarya Rai
- De-Lovely released June 13, starring Kevin Kline as Cole Porter and Ashley Judd
- Home on the Range, a Disney animated feature
- Ray, starring Jamie Foxx as Ray Charles
- Red Riding Hood
- Pixel Perfect, a Disney Channel Original Movie that is also a musical.
- The Phantom of the Opera, starring Emmy Rossum as Christine and Gerard Butler as the Phantom
- Some Kind of Monster
- Where's Firuze?, starring Haluk Bilginer and Demet Akbağ
Births[edit][]
January 10 - Kaitlyn Maher, singer
Deaths[edit][]
January–February[edit][]
- January 3 - Ronald Smith, 82, British pianist
- January 6 – Jimmy Hassell, 62, Guitarist/co-lead singer in The First Edition from 1972–76
- January 12 - Randy VanWarmer, 48, songwriter and guitarist
- January 15 – Terje Bakken, 25, also known as Valfar, lead singer and founder of Norwegian black/folk metal band Windir (died of hypothermia in a blizzard)
- January 16 - John Siomos, 56, drummer
- January 17
- Czeslaw Niemen, 65, Polish rock singer
- Tom Rowe, 53, musician
- January 22
- Billy May, 87, US big band & pop music arranger
- Ann Miller, 80, actress, singer and dancer
- January 28 – Mel Pritchard, 56, drummer of Barclay James Harvest
- January 30 - Julius Dixson, 90, songwriter and record company executive
- February 3 – Cornelius Bumpus, 58, musician (The Doobie Brothers, Steely Dan)
- February 8 – Cem Karaca, 58, Turkish singer and composer
- February 16 – Doris Troy, 67, R&B singer
- February 21
- Les Gray, 57, English singer (Mud)
- Bart Howard, 88, composer and pianist
- February 23
- Don Cornell, 84, US singer
- Alvino Rey, 95, US bandleader and guitarist
- February 24 - A.C. Reed, 77, blues saxophonist
March–April[edit][]
- March 4 – John McGeoch, 48, British guitarist with Magazine, Siouxsie and the Banshees and PiL
- March 6 – Peggy DeCastro, 82, US singer born in the Dominican Republic, eldest of the DeCastro Sisters
- March 9 - Rust Epique, 36, guitarist (Crazy Town)
- March 10 - Dave Schulthise, 47, punk bassist (The Dead Milkmen)
- March 11 - Edmund Sylvers, 47, lead singer of The Sylvers
- March 15 - Eva Likova, 84, operatic soprano
- March 16 – Vilém Tauský, 93, Czech conductor and composer
- March 18
- Vytas Brenner, 57, musician, keyboardist and composer
- Erna Spoorenberg, 78, Dutch operatic soprano
- March 21 - Johnny Bristol, 65, singer, songwriter and record producer
- March 26 – Jan Berry, 62, US singer of Jan and Dean
- March 30 - Timi Yuro, 63, soul and R&B singer and songwriter
- April 1 - Paul Atkinson, 58, guitarist for The Zombies
- April 3 – Gabriella Ferri, 62, Italian singer
- April 6 - Niki Sullivan, 66, guitarist for The Crickets
- April 9 – Harry Babbitt, 90, US singer with Kay Kyser & his Orchestra
- April 10 – Jacek Kaczmarski, 47, Polish poet and singer, the bard of Solidarity
- April 15
May–June[edit][]
- May 1 – Felix Haug, 52, Swiss pop musician (Double)
- May 5 – Coxsone Dodd, 72, Jamaican record producer
- May 6 - Barney Kessel, 80, jazz guirist
- May 11 - John Whitehead, 55, R&B artist (shot dead)
- May 12 - John LaPorta, 84, Jazz clarinetist, composer and educator
- May 17 – Elvin Jones, 76, Jazz Drummer, notably with the John Coltrane Quartet of the 1960s.
- May 19 – Arnold Moore, 90, blues artist
- May 23 – Gundars Mauševics, 29, Latvian guitarist of Brainstorm
- May 31 - Robert Quine, 61, guitarist
- June 2 – Billboard, 25, rapper, The Game's best friend
- June 4 – Irene Manning, 91, US actress, singer and dancer
- June 6 – Iona Brown, 63, conductor and violinist
- June 10 – Ray Charles, 73, US singer and pianist
- June 15 – James F. Arnold, 72, first tenor with the Four Lads
- June 17 – Jackie Paris, 77, US jazz singer
- June 27 - Sis Cunningham, 95, folk musician
July–August[edit][]
- July 6 – Syreeta Wright, 57, singer (congestive heart failure, a side effect of cancer treatment)
- July 13
- Arthur Kane, 55, bassist (New York Dolls)
- Carlos Kleiber, 74, conductor
- July 21 – Jerry Goldsmith, 75, US composer, Academy Award winner
- July 22
- Illinois Jacquet, 81, US jazz saxophonist
- Sacha Distel, 71, French singer
- August 6
- Rick James, 56, US funk singer
- Argentino Ledesma, 75, Argentinian singer
- Tony Mottola, 86, US Guitarist
- August 9 – David Raksin, 92, US composer
- August 15 - William Herbert York, 85, bassist for Drifting Cowboys
- August 17 - Bernard Odum, 72, bass player for James Brown
- August 18 – Elmer Bernstein, 82, US composer
- August 20 – María Antonieta Pons, 82, Cuban Rumbera
- August 26 – Laura Branigan, 52, US singer (brain aneurysm)
- August 31 – Carl Wayne, 61, vocalist (The Move)
September–October[edit][]
- September 2 – Billy Davis
- September 11 – Juraj Beneš, 64, Slovak composer
- September 12
- John Buller, 77, British composer
- Kenny Buttrey, 59, Nashville session drummer
- Fred Ebb, 72, US lyricist
- September 15 – Johnny Ramone, 55, US guitarist and founding member of The Ramones (prostate cancer)
- September 16 – Izora Armstead, 62, member of The Weather Girls
- September 30 - Jacques Levy, 69, songwriter and theatre director
- October 1 - Bruce Palmer, 58, bassist of Buffalo Springfield
- October 19 - Greg Shaw, 55, music historian and record label owner
- October 25 – John Peel, 65, British DJ and broadcaster (heart attack)
- October 28 – Gil Melle, 72, film and television music composer
November–December[edit][]
- November 1
- Mac Dre, 34, Bay Area rapper (highway shooting)
- Terry Knight, 61, lead singer of Terry Knight and the Pack and manager-producer of Grand Funk Railroad(stabbed in domestic dispute)
- November 12 – Usko Meriläinen, 74, Finnish composer
- November 13
- John Balance, 42, British musician from Coil
- Ol' Dirty Bastard, 35, African American rapper (drug overdose)
- Carlo Rustichelli, 87, Italian film composer
- November 14 – Michel Colombier, 65, composer
- November 18 – Cy Coleman, 75, US composer
- November 19 - Terry Melcher, 62, musician and producer
- December 2 - Kevin Coyne, 60, singer, composer and guitarist
- December 8 – Dimebag Darrell, 38, former Pantera guitarist (shot to death in Ohio)
- December 13 – Alex Soria, 39, guitarist for The Nils (suicide)
- December 14 – Sidonie Goossens, 105, harpist
- December 16 -Freddie Perren, 61, songwriter, producer, arranger and conductor
- December 19 – Renata Tebaldi, 82, operatic soprano
- December 20 – Son Seals, 62, blues musician
- December 26 – Sigurd Køhn, 45, Norwegian jazz saxophonist (tsunami)
- December 27 - Hank Garland, 74, Nashville session guitarist
- December 30 – Artie Shaw, 94, Swing Era Clarinetist and Bandleader
Awards[edit][]
The following artists were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: Jackson Browne, The Dells, George Harrison, Prince, Bob Seger, Traffic, Z Z Top