This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 2001.
3.2 billion units were sold with a value of US$33.7 billion. DVD-Audio and Super Audio CD first rose to prominence in 2001, with approximately 600 titles available in these formats.[1] Portable music grew in popularity after Apple Inc. released the iTunes media library on January 9[2] and the first iPod music player device on October 23.[3] Worldwide, the best-selling albums were Hybrid Theory (2000) by Linkin Park, No Angel (1999) by Dido, and Survivor (2001) by Destiny's Child.[4] The best-selling non-English album was Cieli di Toscana (transl.Tuscan Skies; 2001) by Italian tenorAndrea Bocelli, which topped the charts in the Netherlands and Sweden[5] and was the 23rd best-selling album globally.[4]
CFXJ (Flow 93.5), Canada's first urban music station, goes to air for the first time as a testing signal (its official debut is on March 1.) This is considered a breakthrough for Canadian hip hop and R&B musicians.
February 6 – Don Felder is fired from the Eagles. Felder sues the band for wrongful termination, and is countersued by Don Henley and Glenn Frey for breach of contract. The suits are settled out of court.
February 28 – Courtney Love sues to get out of her contract with Vivendi Universal, on the grounds that music industry contracts are unfairly long compared to those in other industries.[6]
March
March 1 – Collin Raye is awarded the Artist Humanitarian Award from Country Radio Broadcasters. The award was given in recognition of Raye's work on behalf of a number of different charitable organizations including Childhelp USA, USA Weekend's Make A Difference Day and the Native American organization Hecel Oyakapi.
March 8 – Melanie C announces she does not intend to do any more work with the Spice Girls. Although the group denies it is splitting, it would not be active again until 2007.[7]
Janet Jackson's single "All for You" becomes the first song to be added to every station in three mainstream radio formats within its first week of release.[8] It was also the highest debut for a single not commercially available in both the United States and France.[9]
Eric Singer replaces Peter Criss as the drummer for Kiss as the band continues its farewell tour in Yokohama, Japan. Singer dons the "Catman" make-up, ending the band's tradition of creating new make-up and personas for replacement members.
March 13 – Janet Jackson is honored as the first ever MTV Icon. The televised tribute became the highest rated show of the night.
March 14 – The Court of Appeals in Rome finds Michael Jackson "not guilty" of plagiarism, reversing a decision made in 1999 by a lower court. Italian songwriter Albano Carrisi had claimed that Jackson's "Will You Be There" was a copy of his song "I Cigni Di Balaka."
March 16 – Sean "Puffy" Combs is acquitted on all charges stemming from a December 1999 nightclub shooting in Manhattan. However, an artist on his Bad Boy Records label, Shyne, is convicted of two counts of assault as well as reckless endangerment and gun possession.[10]
March 20 – Toadies release Hell Below/Stars Above, the band's first album in nearly seven years. The band announces irts break-up five months later.[11]
Gorillaz release their first studio album Gorillaz. The album reached number three in the UK, and was an unexpected hit in the US, hitting number 14 and selling over seven million copies worldwide by 2007. It earned the group an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records as the Most Successful Virtual Band.
Aerosmith release their thirteenth studio album, Just Push Play, charting at No. 2 in the US Billboard 200.
Two big selling albums : Hikaru Utada's Distance and Ayumi Hamasaki's A Best are released on exactly the same date. Their debut week sales are 3,002,720 and 2,874,870, respectively, setting the world's #1 and #2 one-week album sales records.[12]
March 31 – Couple Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown were thrown out and banned for life from Hollywood's Bel Air Hotel and arrested and jailed after destroying their room. Property that was allegedly damaged included a TV and two doors. According to hotel workers, the walls and carpets were also stained by alcohol. The hotel closed down the room for five days for repairs.
April 4 – Original Zombies lead singer Colin Blunstone and keyboardist Rod Argent reunite for a two-part performance at London's Jazz Cafe, the first time the two had performed together in over 30 years.
Blink-182 release their fourth studio album Take Off Your Pants And Jacket which would later sell 14 million copies worldwide. This was the band's second successful album.
June 15 – Bad Religion drummer Bobby Schayer, who had been with the band since 1991, is forced to give up music after experiencing a "most unfortunate career-ending injury". This leads to his leaving Bad Religion for good; he is replaced by current drummer Brooks Wackerman. By this time, Bad Religion were dropped from Atlantic Records and had returned to their original label Epitaph, and founding guitarist Brett Gurewitz had just rejoined the band after a 7-year hiatus.
July 25 – Mariah Carey checks into a hospital for what a spokesperson terms "extreme exhaustion". Carey had exhibited several incidents of bizarre behavior during the previous week, including performing a strange striptease during an unscheduled visit to MTV's Total Request Live and posting a rambling message on her website in which she wrote, "I don't know what's going on with life".[15]
August 15 – Wilco signs a buy-out deal with Reprise Records after the label rejects the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot album and the band refuses to make any changes. Wilco leaves with the rights to the album in their possession.[17]
September 5 – A performance of John Cage's As Slow as Possible on a specially-built organ in Sankt-Burchardi-Church in Halberstadt, Germany, scheduled to last until the year 2640 begins with an 18-month pause.
September 6 – At the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards, Britney Spears performs her new single I'm a Slave 4 U in a very revealing outfit and featuring a number of exotic animals including a white and live albino Burmese python on her shoulder, leading to a great deal of criticism from animal rights organisation PETA. Nevertheless, MTV named the performance as the most memorable moment in VMA history.
September 10 – Blink-182 start shooting a video for "Stay Together for the Kids", featuring the band playing in a derelict house. When they try to finish the video the following day, the 9–11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City occur, and the band abandon the attempt and decide to shoot a different video for the song.
The September 11 attacks result in the cancellation or postponement of many musical events, due to the halting of many commercial flights and the somber mood of communities around the world:
MTV and VH1 suspend regular programming to carry a newsfeed from CBS, and the 2001 Latin Grammy Awards broadcast is canceled.
Sting, who had planned to stream a performance in Italy on the Internet, reduces the Webcast to one song, "Fragile".
Mariah Carey releases her infamous soundtrack Glitter accompanied by the unsuccessful movie. The soundtrack's lead single, "Loverboy", reaches no. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100.
The First International Accordion Festival begins at La Villita in San Antonio, Texas, celebrating the multicultural traditions of the accordion with artists performing German, Colombian, Irish, Argentinian tango, Cajun-zydeco, Dominican merengue and conjunto-Tejano music.[20]
October 9 – The first CD in the Kidz Bop series, consisting of Top 40 hits sung by children, is released.
October 10 – Heavy metal band Anthrax issues a press release in response to the 2001 anthrax attacks jokingly stating that they will be changing the name of the group to "Basket Full of Puppies". It concludes, "we don't want to change the name of the band, not because it would be a pain in the ass, but because we hope that no further negative events will happen and it won't be necessary. We hope and pray that this problem goes away quietly and we all grow old and fat together."[21] The band has reported increased traffic to their website due to Internet users going to anthrax.com looking for information about the disease.[22]
Incubus releases their third full-length major label album entitled Morning View. It debuted on the Billboard Top 200 at the #2 spot (266,000 copies were sold in its first week). This was the highest ever placement for Incubus. At the same time, "Wish You Were Here" was at #2 on the Modern Rock Charts, and "Drive" sat at #48 on the Hot 100 chart.
October 30 – Michael Jackson releases Invincible, his first studio album since 1995 and his tenth studio album overall. While the album debuts at number one, its success is limited due to a feud between Jackson and Sony Music Entertainment over the rights to his back-catalog, culminating in Jackson accusing the company of racial discrimination. The album would end up being Jackson's last, with later musical efforts being offset by a second series of child molestation allegations in 2003, a trial over said allegations in 2005, and his death on the eve of a comeback tour in June 2009.
The governing body of the UK Singles Chart, Chart Information Network Ltd. (CIN), changes its name to The Official UK Charts Company.
Britney Spears starts her Dream Within a Dream Tour, in support her self-titled third studio album. The tour was accompanied by many extravagant special effect including a water screen that pumped two tons of water into the stage during the encore. The tour was commercial success, all the venues on the 2001 leg are largely sold out and grossed $43.7 million from 68 show.
November 5 – In the UK, BMG becomes the first major label to release a compact disc with copy protection, Natalie Imbruglia's White Lilies Island. Within two weeks BMG announces they will re-issue the disc without the copy protection, due to complaints from consumers who were unable to play the CDs in their personal computers.[23]
December 12 – Surviving Nirvana members Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl sue Courtney Love in an effort to oust her from the board controlling the management of the band's affairs, calling her "irrational, mercurial, self-centered, unmanageable, inconsistent and unpredictable." The legal battle over the band's legacy has blocked the release of a planned Nirvana box set containing the unreleased track "You Know You're Right".[24]
Passeggiata in tram in America e ritorno, for female Italian voice, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, electric guitar, electric violin, double bass, piano, and percussion
De vleugels van de herinnering, for voice and piano
Mamma Mia! – Broadway production opened at the Winter Garden Theatre on October 18 and ran for 5773 performances. It was the eighth longest run in Broadway musical history.
^"ORICON STYLE – Weekly album chart : 2nd week of April 2001". Oricon.co.jp.
^"WEDDINGS; Elise Wood, John Hicks Jr". The New York Times. June 24, 2001.
^Amy Vickers (July 12, 2001). "Napster to stay offline". The Guardian. Retrieved November 5, 2012.
^Mitchell Fink with Alissa Macmillan (July 28, 2001). "Summer In The City Kin Helping To Carey Diva's Load". New York Daily News. Retrieved November 4, 2012.
^Christina Saraceno (August 3, 2001). "Whitney a $100 million woman". Rolling Stone. Retrieved November 5, 2012.
^Colin Devenish (August 15, 2001). "Wilco Trot Off Reprise". Rolling Stone. Retrieved November 5, 2012.
^"As U.S. Mourns Attack, Entertainment Industry Unites". Billboard. 2001-09-22. pp. 1, 8.
^"MuchMusic Cancel Video Awards". ChartAttack. September 13, 2001. Archived from the original on July 31, 2013. Retrieved November 5, 2012.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
^Staff, "Hits of the Week", Houston Chronicle (September 29, 2001): Houston section, p. 2.
^"A N T H R A X – Press Release". November 8, 2004. Archived from the original on November 8, 2004. Retrieved November 5, 2012.
^Oliver Burkeman and Imogen Tilden (October 11, 2001). "Anthrax, the band, consider name change". The Guardian. Retrieved November 5, 2012.
^Tony Smith (November 19, 2001). "BMG to replace anti-rip Natalie Imbruglia CDs". The Register. Archived from the original on 2010-02-17. Retrieved November 5, 2012.
^"Nirvana members sue Love". BBC. December 13, 2001. Retrieved November 5, 2012.
^"Prefuse 73: Vocal Studies And Uprock Narratives". Warp. Archived from the original on September 21, 2012. Retrieved May 22, 2015.
^"BBC – Asian Network – Top 40 Soundtracks of All Time". The BBC Asian Network. Retrieved June 23, 2017.
^"Got Charts? Linkin Park, Shaggy, 'NSYNC Are 2001's Top-Sellers". MTV News.
^Fordham, John (7 February 2001). "Obituary: JJ Johnson". The Guardian. Retrieved 6 November 2015.
^Griffiths, Paul. (5 February 2001). "Iannis Xenakis, Composer Who Built Music on Mathematics, Is Dead at 78". The New York Times, p. B7
^Brooks, Patricia; Brooks, Jonathan (2006). "Chapter 8: East L.A. and the Desert". Laid to Rest in California: a guide to the cemeteries and grave sites of the rich and famous. Guilford, CT: Globe Pequot Press. pp. 235–37. ISBN978-0762741014. OCLC 70284362.
^Patrick O'Conner (February 20, 2001). "Charles Trenet". The Guardian. Retrieved April 5, 2021.
^"Richard Stone; Won Emmys as Composer of Cartoon Music". Los Angeles Times. March 15, 2001. Retrieved 15 June 2015.
^Thomas Penny (12 April 2001). "Goon star Sir Harry Secombe dies aged 79". The Daily Telegraph.
^Allan Kozinn (23 April 2001). "Giuseppe Sinopoli, Intense and Physical Conductor, Dies at 54 After Collapsing Onstage". The New York Times. p. B 7. Retrieved 6 February 2020.
^Riddle, Amanda (May 14, 2001). "Crooning baritone Perry Como dies". The Madison Courier. Indiana. Associated Press. p. 1. Retrieved August 30, 2013.
^Pareles, Jon (June 22, 2001). "John Lee Hooker, Bluesman, Is Dead at 83". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved February 9, 2019.
^"Guitars Gently Weep as Nashville Pays Tribute to Chet Atkins". The New York Times. July 4, 2001. Retrieved September 19, 2016.
^"Musician Larry Adler, 87, Dies". 8 August 2001. Retrieved 6 October 2018 – via washingtonpost.com.
^"U.S. investigators to probe Aaliyah crash". CNN. August 27, 2001. Archived from the original on April 13, 2009. Retrieved April 8, 2009.
^Allan Kozinn (2001-09-23). "Violinist Isaac Stern Dies at 81; Led Efforts to Save Carnegie Hall". The New York Times. Retrieved 2015-04-12.
^"George Harrison's Death Certificate". The Smoking Gun. Archived from the original on 28 June 2012. Retrieved 22 June 2012.
^"Gilbert Becaud French Singer G ..." The Washington Post. Retrieved 2020-03-09.