2004 in music

Specific locations

• 2004 in British music
• 2004 in Irish music
• 2004 in Norwegian music
• 2004 in Scandinavian music
• 2004 in South Korean music

  Specific genres

• 2004 in classical music
• 2004 in country music
• 2004 in heavy metal music
• 2004 in hip-hop
• 2004 in jazz
• 2004 in Latin music
• 2004 in progressive rock

  Events

January–February

• 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.
• January 16–February 1 – The Big Day Out festival takes place in Australia and New Zealand, headlined by Metallica. A Perfect Circle is originally named in the lineup but later withdraw, with Fear Factory appearing as a mystery artist in place of all of A Perfect Circle's scheduled slots.
• 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 wins five awards. Coldplay's "Clocks" wins Record of the Year, while Luther Vandross' "Dance with My Father" wins Song of the Year. Evanescence win Best New Artist.
• February 9 – Blink-182 release single "I Miss You" from the album Blink-182. The song will reach number one on the Billboard Modern Rock chart.
• February 10 – Paulina Rubio releases her seventh studio "Pau-Latina" under Universal Music Mexico. The album charted at #1 on the Billboard Latin Pop Albums and at #105 on the Billboard 200. The album also got certified 2× Platinum by the RIAA.
• 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 are 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

• March 2 – Britney Spears embarks on 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 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.
• 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

• May 1-2 – The annual Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival takes place in California. Headlined by Radiohead and The Cure, the lineup also features Pixies, The Flaming Lips, Belle and Sebastian, Muse, MF Doom, Basement Jaxx, Death Cab for Cutie, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Kraftwerk and Kool Keith.
• May 10
• *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.
• *Keane release Hopes and Fears which becomes the 16th best selling album of the millennium in the UK. It went 8× platinum and was nominated for the Mercury Prize and the BRIT award for best album.
• May 12–15 – The 49th Eurovision Song Contest, held at Abdi İpekçi Arena in Istanbul, Turkey, is won by Ukrainian singer Ruslana with the song "Wild Dances". It is the first contest to take place as a multi-date event.
• May 18-23 – The European Festival of Youth Choirs 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.
• May 25
• *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 – 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 each headline one 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 were working on side project Alter Bridge along with Myles Kennedy of The Mayfield Four. Their first album is One Day Remains, which was scheduled to be released on August 10.
• June 5-6 – The annual Download Festival takes place at Donington Park in Leicestershire, England, with Linkin Park and Metallica headlining the main stage. Pennywise and HIM headline the Snickers "Game On" stage, while the Barfly stage is headlined by Peaches and SuicideGirls.
• 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, Velvet Revolver, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Yellowcard.
• June 22 – 14th annual Lollapalooza festival, scheduled for July 17, is cancelled. Organizers cite "poor ticket sales".
• 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.
• * While in Scheeßel, Germany for his A Reality tour, David Bowie suffers a heart attack onstage and is subsequently rushed to the emergency room for an angioplasty. The incident brings an abrupt end to the tour and prompts Bowie to move away from both musicianship and public life in the following years, with his next album coming out nearly nine years later.

  July–August

• 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 24–25 – The Splendour in the Grass music festival is held in Byron Bay, Australia, headlined by PJ Harvey & Jurassic 5.
• 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.
• *Dispatch performs their last live show at the DCR Hatchshell in Boston, Massachusetts.
• August 8 – Dave Matthews Band's tour bus dumps 800 lb 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 postponed first full-length album Always Outnumbered Never Outgunned, 7 years after 1997's The Fat Of The Land.

  September–October

• September 18 – Britney Spears marries Kevin Federline.
• September 20 – Green Day release their seventh studio album American Idiot, making a comeback for the band, following disappointing sales of their 2000 album Warning. American Idiot eventually receives the award for Best Rock Album at the 47th Grammy Awards on February 13, 2005.
• September 21 – Gloria Trevi is acquitted and released from jail after being cleared of the charges related to Sergio Andrade's sex-crimes.
• September 26 – Avril Lavigne begins her Bonez Tour.
• September 28
• *Brian Wilson releases Brian Wilson Presents Smile, the first official interpretation of the Smile sessions since their shelving in 1967.
• *On the same day, young Filipino singer Christian Bautista unveiled his first self-titled debut album.
• October – Jazz at Lincoln Center performance venue opens in New York City.
• October 2 – Billy Joel marries for the third time, to the food critic and chef Katie Lee.
• October 11 – 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.