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This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 1994.

Events

January–February

• January 29 - The Supremes' Mary Wilson is injured when her Jeep hits a freeway median and flips over just outside of Los Angeles, California, USA. Wilson's 14-year old son is killed in the accident.
• February 1 - Green Day release their breakthrough album Dookie, ushering in the mid-90's punk rock revival. Dookie eventually achieves diamond certification.
• February 7 - Blind Melon's lead singer Shannon Hoon is forced to leave the American Music Awards ceremony for his loud and disruptive behavior. Hoon is later charged with battery, assault, resisting arrest, and destroying a police station phone.^{[citation needed]}
• February 11 - Beginning on February 11 and finishing in March, the three surviving members of The Beatles secretly reunite to record additional music for a few of John Lennon's old unfinished demos, presented to Paul McCartney by Yoko Ono, with Jeff Lynne producing. The track, "Free As A Bird", is released as a single in late 1995 as part of the exhaustive Beatles Anthology project, reaching #2 in the UK and #6 in the United States.
• February 12 - first ever EP and Alice in Chains album to reach 1
• February 14 - The Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia marries Deborah Koons.
• February 17 - Blink 182 release their debut album Cheshire Cat.
• February 23 - Eddie Van Halen, Chris Isaak, and B.B. King attend the ground breaking ceremony for the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino takes place in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.

March–April

• March 1
  • Nirvana play their final concert in Munich.
  • Frank Sinatra receives the Grammy Awards Lifetime Achievement award. Sinatra's acceptance speech is cut short and other artists, upset by this action, criticize the producer's decision during the show, including Billy Joel who takes extra time to perform his song, The River of Dreams, noting that he is wasting valuable air time.
• March 3 - In Rome, Nirvana's Kurt Cobain lapses into a coma after overdosing on Rohypnol and champagne.
• March 5 - Grace Slick is arrested for pointing a shotgun at police in her Tiburon, California home.
• March 8
  • Soundgarden releases Superunknown
  • Trent Reznor releases his second album, The Downward Spiral, as Nine Inch Nails
• March 18
  • Courtney Love calls the police fearing that her husband, Nirvana's Kurt Cobain, is suicidal. Police confiscate four guns and twenty-five boxes of ammo from Cobain's home.
  • Bassist Darryl Jones replaces Bill Wyman in The Rolling Stones.
• March 30 - Pink Floyd embarks on what would be their last world tour before their breakup. The record-breaking tour supports their Division Bell album, with the band playing to 5,500,000 people in 68 cities and grossing over £150,000,000.
• March 31 - Madonna appears on The Late Show with David Letterman, making headlines for her foul-mouthed, profanity-laced interview. Robin Williams later describes the segment as a "battle of wits with an unarmed woman."
• April 8
  • The body of Kurt Cobain, lead singer of Nirvana, is found. Cobain's death three days before, is legally declared to be suicide from a self-inflicted gunshot.
  • The Offspring release their third album, Smash, which helps bring the 1990s punk scene into the mainstream and has been credited as the highest selling independent album of all time.
• April 19 - Rapper Nas releases his debut album, Illmatic, which is heralded as a rebirth of East Coast hip hop.
• April 25
  • Blur releases Parklife, its first album reaching #1 in UK, where it was certified "quadruple platinum" ^[1].
  • Adam Horovitz of the Beastie Boys is sentenced to 200 hours of community service for attacking a television cameraman during funeral services for actor River Phoenix in November 1993
• April 26
  • The legendary Fillmore club reopens in San Francisco, California.
  • Grace Slick pleads guilty to pointing a shotgun at police officers on March 5.

May–June

• May 6
  • Pearl Jam files a complaint against Ticketmaster with the U.S. Justice Department charging that the company has a monopoly on the concert ticket business.
  • To help promote his new album, Alice Cooper released a three part comic book that followed the album The Last Temptation.
• May 8
  • Weezer release their debut album, the self-titled "blue" album, which goes multiplatinum.
  • Tupac Shakur begins serving a 15-day sentence in a county jail for attacking director Allen Hughes on the set of a video shoot.
• June 7 - Grace Slick is sentenced to 200 hours of community service and three month's worth of Alcoholics Anonymous meetings after a March 5 incident with police officers.
• June 21 - Rap group Bone Thugs-N-Harmony releases their first major debut album Creepin On Ah Come Up, Which eventually goes multiplatinum and garners critical success.

July–August

• July - The Verbier Festival is launched.
• August - Rich Mullins and "Leave a Legacy" contest winner, 76-year-old Miguel Garcia Massiate, travel to Bogotá, Colombia with Compassion International. The two men visit the Ciudad Sucre Center where Mullins presented them with over $40,000 that was raised on his summer '94 Ragamuffin Band tour.
• August 9 - Machine Head release their first album Burn My Eyes, which was a big success and becomes Roadrunner Records' best selling debut album.
• August 12-August 14 - Woodstock '94
• August 23 - Jeff Buckley releases his single, critically-acclaimed, full-length studio album "Grace;"
• August 30 - Oasis release their debut album Definitely Maybe, it becomes the fastest selling debut album in the United Kingdom at the time until 2006 when it was beaten by the Arctic Monkeys' debut album, Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not.

September–October

• September - José Cura wins the Operalia – International Plácido Domingo Opera Singer Competition[1].
• September 8 - Richard A. Morse, lead male vocalist of RAM, narrowly escapes a kidnapping by armed men during the band's live performance at the Hotel Oloffson in Port-au-Prince, Haiti; the attempted kidnapping was provoked by the performance of "Fèy", a RAM single banned nationwide by the military authorities.
• October 4 - Dream Theater releases their third studio album Awake.
• October 11 - Korn release their debut album Korn. It is often considered the first nu metal album.

Unknown dates

• Christian Olde Wolbers replaces Andrew Shives in Fear Factory.
• Jeff Burrows signs a Cymbal deal with Sabian.
• ALL part ways with their original home Cruz Records, and sign a recording contract with Interscope (though they shortly leave that label after releasing an album in the following year).
• The Offspring frontman Dexter Holland and bassist Greg Kriesel form the label Nitro Records, an incubator for successful punk artists such as AFI. The label later releases albums from classic punk bands, including The Damned and TSOL, and also reissues the first Offspring album.
• Social Distortion manager Jim Guerinot forms the label Time Bomb Recordings in joint-venture agreement with Arista. The label actually exists mostly as an imprint for current releases from Social Distortion and solo albums by Mike Ness, along with the administration of the label's back catalog.
• Brett Gurewitz leaves Bad Religion to concentrate on the fast-growing Epitaph Records, leaving singer Greg Graffin and bassist Jay Bentley the only founding members of the band still performing with the group. He is replaced by former Minor Threat/Dag Nasty guitarist Brian Baker, who turned down a touring job for R.E.M. at this time. Gurewitz rejoined Bad Religion in 2001.
• Moldova adopts Limba noastră as its new national anthem.

Musicians starting their career

• For bands, see
• Björn Gelotte

Bands disbanded

• American Music Club (reform in 2004)
• Bigod 20
• Codeine
• Deacon Blue
• Demolition Hammer
• The Farm
• Firehose
• The God Machine
• Gumball
• Good Original Guns 'N' Roses
• Jellyfish
• Level 42 (reform in 2001)
• Luv' (reform in 2005)
• Metal Church
• New Kids On The Block (reform in 2008)
• Nirvana
• Not Drowning, Waving
• Rodan
• Screeching Weasel (reform in 1996)
• Slowdive
• Tesla (reform in 2000)
• Uncle Tupelo
• The Wonder Stuff (reform in 2000)

Bands reformed

• Circle Jerks (hiatus since 1989)
• King Crimson (since 1984)

Albums released

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Release Date Unknown

• Old Stuff, Part Two - Anal Cunt
• Frigate - April Wine
• Hell Paso (EP) - At the Drive-In
• A Western Harvest Field by Moonlight - Beck
• Big Bad Voodoo Daddy - Big Bad Voodoo Daddy
• Goodbye to the Age of Steam - Big Big Train
• Dingleberry Haze (EP) - Bloodhound Gang
• Giant Robot - Buckethead
• Harbinger - Paula Cole
• Halo in a Haystack - Converge
• Storyteller - Crystal Waters
• Promises - Bo Diddley
• Everyone's Got One - Echobelly
• Quick - Far
• Flesh - David Gray
• The Business Trip - Hawkwind
• Jimmy Eat World - Jimmy Eat World
• Pandemonium - Killing Joke
• Superstar - Len
• Blue Cadet-3, Do You Connect? (EP) - Modest Mouse
• Murmurs - The Murmurs
• Love, Nancy - Nancy Wilson
• Fear, Emptiness, Despair - Napalm Death
• Move Me - Nazareth
• Sour - Ours
• Rester vrai - Florent Pagny
• Potatoes for Christmas (EP) - Papa Roach
• Pigeonhed - Pigeonhed
• I Hope Your Heart Is Not Brittle - Portastatic
• Life in the Streets - Prince Ital Joe & Marky Mark
• Stuck - Puddle of Mudd
• The Best of Chris Rea - Chris Rea
• Rivermaya - Rivermaya
• Churn - Seven Mary Three
• Rotting Piñata - Sponge
• Nefarious (EP) - Spoon
• Ungod - Stabbing Westward
• Robbin' the Hood - Sublime
• Green World (demo) - The Suicide Machines
• That Dog. - that dog.
• Live!! New York City 10/14/94 - They Might Be Giants
• Dreamchild - Toyah
• When You're a Tuesday Girl - The Tuesdays
• Clocking Out Is For Suckers - Drake Tungsten
• Blue Room - Unwritten Law
• Isolationism - Various Artists
• Now That's What I Call Music! 27 - Various Artists
• Socialism, Sexism & Sexuality - White Town
• Information Highway Revisited - New Bomb Turks

Biggest hit singles

The following songs achieved the highest chart positions in the charts of 1994.

#	Artist	Title	Year	Country	Chart Entries
1	Bruce Springsteen	Streets of Philadelphia	1994		Austria 1 - Apr 1994, Norway 1 - Feb 1994, Poland 1 - Feb 1994, Germany 1 - Mar 1994, Éire 1 - Mar 1994, Oscar in 1993, UK 2 - Mar 1994, Switzerland 2 - Mar 1994, Italy 3 of 1994, France 4 - Feb 1994, Holland 6 - Feb 1994, RYM 6 of 1994, Sweden 7 - Feb 1994, US BB 9 of 1994, Europe 29 of the 1990s, US BB 30 of 1994, Australia 30 of 1994, US CashBox 49 of 1994, POP 63 of 1994, AFI 68, Germany 74 of the 1990s, WXPN 837
2	Bryan Adams, Rod Stewart & Sting	All For Love	1994	/	US BB 1 of 1994, Sweden 1 - Dec 1993, Austria 1 - Feb 1994, Switzerland 1 - Jan 1994, Norway 1 - Jan 1994, Poland 1 - Dec 1993, Germany 1 - Jan 1994, Éire 1 - Jan 1994, Australia 1 for 2 weeks Apr 1994, UK 2 - Jan 1994, Holland 3 - Jan 1994, US BB 9 of 1994, Italy 9 of 1994, Australia 10 of 1994, US CashBox 22 of 1994, POP 25 of 1994, Germany 87 of the 1990s
3	Rednex	Cotton Eye Joe	1994		UK 1 - Dec 1994, US BB 1 of 1995, Holland 1 - Aug 1994, Sweden 1 - Aug 1994, Austria 1 - Oct 1994, Switzerland 1 - Oct 1994, Norway 1 - Oct 1994, Germany 1 - Jan 1995, New Zealand 1 for 6 weeks Mar 1995, POP 1 of 1995, Germany 18 of the 1990s, US BB 25 of 1995, Australia 41 of 1995, Party 54 of 2007, Scrobulate 72 of party
4	All-4-One	I Swear	1994		US BB 1 of 1994, Holland 1 - Jul 1994, Austria 1 - Aug 1994, Switzerland 1 - Jul 1994, Germany 1 - Jul 1994, New Zealand 1 for 6 weeks Jul 1994, Australia 1 for 5 weeks Nov 1994, UK 2 - Jun 1994, Norway 2 - Jul 1994, Australia 2 of 1994, US CashBox 3 of 1994, Sweden 3 - Aug 1994, US BB 7 of 1994, Poland 14 - Jul 1994, Germany 39 of the 1990s, OzNet 657
5	Mariah Carey	Without You	1994		UK 1 - Feb 1994, Holland 1 - Feb 1994, Sweden 1 - Feb 1994, Austria 1 - Apr 1994, Switzerland 1 - Apr 1994, Poland 1 - Feb 1994, Germany 1 - Mar 1994, Éire 1 - Feb 1994, New Zealand 1 for 1 weeks Apr 1994, US BB 3 of 1994, Norway 3 - Mar 1994, US CashBox 15 of 1994, Australia 15 of 1994, Germany 25 of the 1990s, POP 37 of 1994

Top hits

• "21st Century (Digital Boy)" - Bad Religion
• "90's Girl" - BlackGirl
• "100% Pure Love" - Crystal Waters
• "About a Girl (Unplugged)" - Nirvana
• "A Girl Like You" - Edwyn Collins
• "All Apologies - Nirvana
• "All For Love" - Bryan Adams, Rod Stewart & Sting
• "All I Wanna Do" - Sheryl Crow
• "All That She Wants" - Ace of Base
• "Always" - Bon Jovi
• "Always" - Erasure
• "Amazing" - Aerosmith
• "Another Night" - M.C. Sar & the Real McCoy
• "Any Time, Any Place" - Janet Jackson
• "Asshole" - Denis Leary
• "Basket Case" - Green Day
• "Backwater" - Meat Puppets
• "Back in the Day" -Ahmad
• "Bedtime Story" - Madonna
• "Big Empty" - Stone Temple Pilots
• "Better Man" - Pearl Jam
• "Big Poppa" - Notorious B.I.G.
• "Big Yellow Taxi" - Amy Grant
• "Black Hole Sun" - Soundgarden
• "Born To Roll" - Masta Ace
• "Come Out and Play" - The Offspring
• "Coming Back" - P.O.D.
• "Corduroy" - Pearl Jam
• "Closer" - Nine Inch Nails
• "Crazy" - Aerosmith
• "C.R.E.A.M- Wu-Tang Clan
• "Creep" - TLC
• "Cut Your Hair" - Pavement
• "Deuces Are Wild" - Aerosmith
• "Don't Turn Around" - Ace of Base
• "Everyday" - Phil Collins
• "Fantastic Voyage- Coolio
• "Found Out About You" - Gin Blossoms
• "Funkdafied" - Da Brat
• "Gin & Juice" - Snoop Doggy Dogg
• "Girls & Boys" - Blur
• "Getto Jam" - Domino
• "House Of Love" - Amy Grant
• "Human Nature" - Madonna
• "I Alone" - Live
• "I'll Make Love to You" - Boys 2 Men
• "I'll Remember" - Madonna
• "I Like to Move It" - Reel 2 Real
• "I Stay Away" - Alice in Chains
• "I Swear" - All-4-One
• "I'm Broken" - Pantera
• "Infected" - Bad Religion
• "It Ain't Hard to Tell" - Nas
• "It's Alright" - East 17
• "It's Me" - Alice Cooper
• "I Used To Love H.E.R." - Common Sense
• "I Wanna Be Down" - Brandy
• "Je danse le Mia" - IAM
• "Juicy" - Notorious B.I.G.
• "Keep Ya Head Up" - 2Pac
• "(Lay Your Head On My) Pillow" - Tony! Toni! Tone!
• "Let The Dream Come True" - DJ Bobo
• "Live Forever" - Oasis
• "Longview" - Green Day
• "Loser" - Beck
• "Lost In America" - Alice Cooper
• "Love Is Strong" - Rolling Stones
• "Lucky One" - Amy Grant
• "Machinehead" - Bush
• "Mary Jane's Last Dance" - Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
• "Mr. Jones" - Counting Crows
• "Mass Appeal" - Gangstarr
• "Never Lie" - Immature
• "No Rain" - Blind Melon
• "Rape Me - Nirvana
• "Regulate" - Warren G featuring Nate Dogg
• "Return To Innocence" - Enigma
• "Sabotage" - Beastie Boys
• "Say You'll Be Mine" - Amy Grant
• "Secret" - Madonna
• "Seether" - Veruca Salt
• "Self Esteem" - The Offspring
• "Sensualité" - Axelle Red
• "Seven Seconds" - Neneh Cherry & Youssou N'dour
• "Sleeping In My Car" - Roxette
• "Slow Wine" - Tony! Toni! Tone!
• "Stay (I Missed You) - Lisa Loeb
• "The Sign" - Ace of Base
• "Spoonman" - Soundgarden
• "Supersonic" - Oasis
• "Take a Bow" - Madonna
• "The Man Who Sold the World" - Nirvana
• "The Red Strokes" - Garth Brooks
• "Thuggish Ruggish Bone" - Bone Thugs-N-Harmony
• "Tootsee Roll" - 69 Boyz
• "Trouble" - Shampoo
• "U Send Me Swingin'" - Mint Condition
• "Until I Fall Away" - Gin Blossoms
• "What's My Name"- Snoop Doggy Dogg
• "Waterfalls" - TLC
• "Welcome to Paradise" - Green Day
• "What Would You Say" - Dave Matthews Band
• "When I Come Around" - Green Day
• "Without You" - Mariah Carey
• "You Know How We Do It" - Ice Cube
• "You Want This" - Janet Jackson
• "Player's Ball" - Outkast
• "PistolGrip Pump- Volume 10

See also: Hot 100 No. 1 Hits of 1994

Classical music

• Thomas Beveridge - Yizkor Requiem
• George Crumb - Quest for guitar, soprano saxophone, harp, double bass, and percussion (two players)
• Richard Danielpour - Cello Concerto
• Mario Davidovsky - Festino for guitar, viola, violoncello, contrabass
• David Diamond - Trio for violin, clarinet and piano^[2]
• Lorenzo Ferrero
  • Portrait for string quartet
  • Paesaggio con figura for small orchestra
  • Five Easy Pieces for piano
• Vagn Holmboe - Symphony No. 13, M.362 (begun 1993)
• Karl Jenkins - Adiemus: Songs of Sanctuary
• Oliver Knussen - Horn Concerto
• György Kurtág - Stele
• Tristan Murail - L'esprit des dunes
• Michael Nyman - Concerto for Trombone
• Einojuhani Rautavaara - Symphony No. 7 Angel of Light
• Steve Reich - City Life; Nagoya Marimbas
• Robert Simpson - String Quintet No. 2 (1991-4)
• Boris Tishchenko - Symphony No. 7

Opera

• Giovanni Bertolani (orchestrated by Francesco Germini) - Matilde
• Vivian Fine - Memoirs of Uliana Rooney
• Adam Guettel - Floyd Collins
• Nicholas Lens - The Accacha Chronicles Trilogy: Flamma Flamma - The Fire Requiem

Musical theater

• Beauty and the Beast - Broadway production
• Carousel (Rodgers & Hammerstein) - Broadway revival
• Damn Yankees (Richard Adler and Jerry Ross) - Broadway revival
• Grease - Broadway revival
• Show Boat (Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II) - Broadway revival
• Sunset Boulevard (Andrew Lloyd Webber) - Broadway production

Musical films

• The Lion King - animated feature film with songs by Elton John and Tim Rice
• That's Entertainment! III

Births

• April 4 - Risako Sugaya, Japanese singer
• April 12 - Airi Suzuki, Japanese singer
• September 1 - Bianca Ryan, American singer
• September 17 - Taylor Ware, American singer and yodeller

Deaths

• January 6 - Harold Sumberg, violinist
• January 15 - Harry Nilsson, 52, singer, songwriter (heart attack)
• January 17 - Georges Cziffra, pianist
• February 7 - Witold Lutosławski, composer
• February 24 - Dinah Shore, singer, actress
• March 6 - Yvonne Fair, 51, African-American singer
• March 16 - Nicolas Flagello, composer
• March 22 - Dan Hartman, 42, singer (brain tumour)
• March 23 - Donald Swann, 70, pianist, composer and entertainer (Flanders and Swann)
• April 5 - Kurt Cobain, 27, singer (self-inflicted shotgun wound) (Nirvana)
• June 11 – Robert Beadell, composer
• June 14 - Henry Mancini, composer
• June 15 - Manos Hadjidakis, composer
• June 16 - Kristen Pfaff, 27, bass guitarist (heroin overdose)(Hole)
• June 25 - DJ Train, producer (smoke inhalation)
• June 29 - Kurt Eichhorn, conductor
• July 31 - Anne Shelton, British singer
• August 6 - Domenico Modugno, 66, Italian singer and songwriter
• September 2 - Roy Castle, 62, musician and all-round entertainer (lung cancer)
• September 6 - Nicky Hopkins, session musician, keyboardist
• September 13 - John Stevens, jazz musician
• September 20 - Jule Styne, songwriter
• September 24 - Urmas Alender, 40, singer (drowned in MS Estonia sinking)
• September 29 - Cheb Hasni, 26, Algerian Raj musician (murdered)
• October 19 - Martha Raye, singer and comedienne
• October 22 - Shlomo Carlebach, Jewish songwriter
• November 4 - Fred "Sonic" Smith, 45, MC5 guitarist (heart attack)
• November 7 - Shorty Rogers, jazz trumpeter
• November 11 - Elizabeth Maconchy, composer
• November 18 - Cab Calloway, jazz and scat singer
• November 28 - Vic Legley (Victor Legley), Belgian violist and composer of French birth
• December 8 - Antonio Carlos Jobim, bossa nova composer and songwriter
• December 10 - Garnett Silk, reggae singer

Awards

• The following artists are inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: Ruth Brown, Cream, Creedance Clearwater Revival, The Doors, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, Etta James, Van Morrison, and Sly and the Family Stone
• Inductees of the GMA Gospel Music Hall of Fame include Tennessee Ernie Ford

Filmfare Awards

• Kumar Sanu - Filmfare Best Male Playback Award
• Filmfare Best Music Director Awards - Rahul Dev Burman

Grammy Awards

• Grammy Awards of 1994

Country Music Association Awards

Eurovision Song Contest

• Eurovision Song Contest 1994

Mercury Music Prize

• Elegant Slumming - M People wins.

Juno Award

• Rascalz - Juno Award Best rap album

Charts

KROQ

• KROQ Top 106.7 Countdown of 1994

Triple J Hottest 100

• Triple J Hottest 100, 1994

See also

• 1994 in music (UK)
• Record labels established in 1994

References