The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please improve this article and discuss the issue on the talk page. (December 2010)

See also:

• 2004 in music (UK)
• Record labels established in 2004

Events[link]

January[link]

• 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.
• January 5 – Britney Spears' marriage to Jason Allen Alexander is annulled.
• January 20 – The Chicago Underground Trio releases Slon.
• February 1
  • Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake performed onstage at Super Bowl XXXVIII and the performance ended with her left breast being exposed to the audience. The phrase "wardrobe malfunction" was coined due to the 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 17
  • BRIT Awards held in London. The Darkness, Dido, Busted, Justin Timberlake, and KRS-One are among the winners.
  • 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[link]

• 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 23 – Usher releases his " Confessions " 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[link]

• 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.
• 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 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.

July–August[link]

• 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 – 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[link]

• September 18 – Britney Spears gets married to Kevin Federline.
• September 26 – Avril Lavigne begins her Bonez Tour.
• September 28 – Brian Wilson completes Smile, 37 years after its original planned release.
• October 11 – The original lineup of Duran Duran release their new album Astronaut, which was preceded by the single "(Reach Up For The) Sunrise".
• 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[link]

• 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 in Port-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 12 – Eminem's fourth major studio album, Encore is released four days before

planned to combat 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 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 gunman Nathan Gale,^[1][2] who shoots the guitarist three times in the head with a 9mm Beretta handgun.^[3] Gale continues to shoot, killing three other people and wounding a further seven.
• 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.