1996 in music

Table of contents

1 Events 2 Albums released 3 Top hits 4 Musical theater 5 Musical films 6 Births 7 Deaths 8 Awards 8.1 Grammy Awards 8.2 Country Music Association Awards 8.3 Eurovision Song Contest 8.4 Mercury Music Prize

Events

• January 16 - Jamaican authorities open fire on Jimmy Buffett's seaplane, mistaking it for a drug trafficker's plane. U2 singer Bono was also on the plane, but neither singer was injured.
• January 18 - Lisa Marie Presley files for divorce from Michael Jackson.
• January 28 - Chris Isaak makes a guest appearance on the television show Friends.
• January 29 - Garth Brooks refuses to accept his American Music Award for "Favorite Overall Artist". Brooks says that Hootie and the Blowfish had done more for music that year than he did.
• February 4 - Former Milli-Vanilli member Rob Pilatus is hospitalized when a man hits him over the head with a baseball bat in Hollywood, California. Pilatus was attempting to steal the man's car.
• February 14 - The Artist Formerly Known As Prince marries backup singer Mayte Garcia
• February 20 - Snoop Doggy Dogg and his bodyguard are acquitted of first degree murder. The jury deadlocks on voluntary manslaughter charges and a mistrial is declared.
• March 13 - Ramones fans riot in Buenos Aires, Argentina after waiting all night for concert tickets only to find out that the show had been sold out.
• March 16 - Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men ends its 16th consecutive week at No. 1 with "One Sweet Day". It is the longest consecutive week stay at No. 1 in Billboard Hot 100 history.
• March 18 - The Sex Pistols announce that they are reuniting for a 20th anniversary tour.
• March 28 - Phil Collins announces that he is leaving Genesis to focus on his solo career.
• April 3 - M.C. Hammer files for bankruptcy.
• April 4 - The Grateful Dead's Bob Weir and Jerry Garcia's widow, Deborah, scatter part of Garcia's ashes in the Ganges River in India.
• April 15 - The remaining part of Jerry Garcia's ashes are scattered near the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California.
• April 24 - This Train, Rick Elias, Jimmy A, Phil Keaggy, Carolyn Arends, Third Day & Ashley Cleveland perform a tribute concert for Rich Mullins at Nashville's Cafe Milano. Speakers included Reunion Records executive Terry Hemmings, record producer Reed Arvin, disc jockey Jon Rivers, & author Brennan Manning.
• May 8 - In Los Angeles, California, a judge rules against Tommy Lee and wife actress Pamela Anderson Lee in their attempt to keep Penthouse magazine from publishing still photos taken from an X-rated home movie which was stolen from their home.
• June - The Offspring records Ixnay On The Hombre, which will be a blockbuster album on February 4, 1997.
• July - The Smashing Pumpkins drummer, Jimmy Chaimberland, is arrested for possession of a controlled substance. The remaining members of the Smashing Pumpkins fire Chaimberland because they said his "insidious battle with drugs and alcohol" had nearly ruined everything for the band.
• September 12 - Controversy follows The Eagles when the band dedicates "Peaceful Easy Feeling" to Saddam Hussein at a United States Democratic Party fundraiser held in Los Angeles.
• Sheryl Crow's self titled album is banned from Wal-Mart stores because of the lyric "Watch out sister, watch out brother/watch our children while they kill each other/with a gun they bought at Wal-Mart Discount Stores".
• Dashboard Confessional forms
• Linkin Park forms
• Orgy's forms
• Coal Chamber's career begins
• Jay-Z's musical career begins
• Poison reunites
• Singer Tori Amos is sued when a man crashes his car after being distracted by a billboard advertising her album; the billboard featured a photo of Amos breastfeeding a piglet.
• Amos's single "Caught a Lite Sneeze" becomes the first song offered as a free digital download by a major record label.

• Elegy - Amorphis
• Boys for Pele - Tori Amos
• 1977 - Ash
• The Gray Race - Bad Religion
• Odelay - Beck
• The Beatles Anthology, volume 2 - The Beatles
• Three Snakes & One Charm - The Black Crowes
• The Great Escape - Blur
• Fashion Nugget - Cake
• Vile - Cannibal Corpse
• Swansong - Carcass
• Dance Into the Light - Phil Collins
• Dusk... and Her Embrace - Cradle of Filth
• None So Vile - Cryptopsy
• Death Threatz - MC Eith
• Face to Face - Face To Face
• Cat's Clause - The Germs
• Afterlife - The Godfathers
• The Dark Saga - Iced Earth
• Jerky Boys 3 - Jerky Boys
• Life Is Peachy - Korn
• Louder Than Hell - Manowar
• Load - Metallica
• Irreligious - Moonspell
• High/Low - Nada Surf
• Murder Ballads - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
• Curb - Nickelback
• Hesher - Nickelback
• Beacon Street Collection - No Doubt
• Ixnay on the Hombre - The Offspring
• The Great Southern Trendkill - Pantera
• Off Parole - Rappin 4-Tay
• One Hot Minute - Red Hot Chili Peppers
• Greatest Hits - Poison
• Da Villain in Black - MC Ren
• Test for Echo - Rush
• Roots - Sepultura
• One Chord to Another - Sloan
• Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness - The Smashing Pumpkins
• Tha Doggfather - Snoop Dogg
• White Light, White Heat, White Trash - Social Distortion
• Irresistible Bliss - Soul Coughing
• Down on the Upside - Soundgarden
• Emperor Tomato Ketchup - Stereolab
• ''Tiny Music... Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop - Stone Temple Pilots
• Episode - Stratovarius
• Sublime - Sublime
• 311 - 311
• Ænima - Tool
• All Eyez on Me - 2Pac
• Supercharged Straight to Hell - The Turbo AC's
• Best of, Volume 1 - Van Halen
• Running on Ice - Vertical Horizon
• Bad Hair Day - Weird Al Yankovic

• "Ironic" - Alanis Morissette
• "Change the World" - Eric Clapton, written by Wayne Kirkpatrick, Gordon Kennedy and Tommy Sims, won a Grammy award for song of the year in 1997
• "Free As A Bird" - The Beatles
• "Wonderwall" - Oasis
• "California Love" - 2Pac
• "How Do U Want It" - 2Pac
• "6th Avenue Heartache" - The Wallflowers
• "If It Makes You Happy" - Sheryl Crow
• "Aeroplane" - Red Hot Chili Peppers
• "Give Me One Reason" - Tracy Chapman
• "Macarena" - Los Del Rio
• "Wash Away" - Vertical Horizon
• "All Mixed Up" - 311
• "Head Over Feet" - Alanis Morissette
• "Down" - 311
• "Can't Get You Off My Mind" - Lenny Kravitz
• "I Want To Come Over" - Melissa Etheridge
• "Professional Widow (Star Trunk Funkin' Mix)" - Tori Amos
• "You Learn" - Alanis Morissette

Musical theater

• Chicago     Broadway revival
• A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum     Broadway revival
• I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change     off-Broadway production
• The King and I     Broadway revival
• Once upon a Mattress     Broadway revival
• Rent     Broadway production (originally off-Broadway}
• State Fair     Broadway production

• Everyone Says I Love You
• Evita
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame     animated feature
• James and the Giant Peach     animated feature

Deaths

• February 20 - Toru Takemitsu, composer
• March 4 - Minnie Pearl (84)
• March 15 - Olga Rudge (101), violinist
• March 22 - Don Murray, The Turtles
• April 18 - Bernard Edwards, Chic, pneumonia
• June 15 - Ella Fitzgerald, jazz singer
• July 17 - Marcel Dadi 45, French country and western guitarist died in crash of TWA flight 800
• July 29 - Jason Thirsk, bass member of Pennywise
• August 13 - David Tudor, pianist and composer
• September 13 - Tupac Shakur, rapper, poet, actor
• November 30 - Tiny Tim, musician
• December 29 - Mireille, French singer

• The following artists are inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: David Bowie, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Jefferson Airplane, Little Willie John, Pink Floyd, The Shirelles and The Velvet Underground

• Grammy Awards of 1996

Eurovision Song Contest

• Eurovision Song Contest 1996

• Different Class - Pulp wins.