Pick a Day

Featured Category : Controversies

June 5, 2025 The Velvet Sundown release their debut album, Floating On Echoes. Their songs quickly populate algorithm-driven playlists and amass millions of streams, even though nobody has heard of the band or any of its members. They're later revealed to be an AI-generated act, the first to garner big streaming numbers.More

March 16, 2019 "Old Town Road" by the rapper Lil Nas X makes the Country chart, but is removed the following week when Billboard declares it ineligible for the tally. The attention leads to a remix with Billy Ray Cyrus that goes to #1 on the genre-agnostic Hot 100.More

March 3, 2019 Undeterred by a lawsuit filed by Michael Jackson's estate, HBO airs the first part of the 4-hour documentary Leaving Neverland, leveling new accusations of child abuse at Jackson 10 years after his death. In the aftermath, many distance themselves from Jackson: The Simpsons pulls his episode, and some radio stations drop him from playlists.

November 29, 2016 Minneapolis-based musicians Lydia Liza and Josiah Lemanski flame a cultural debate about gender roles when they post a reinterpreted version of the Christmas song "Baby It's Cold Outside" with new lyrics: Instead of pressuring her to spend the night, the guy respects her decision to leave and helps her get home safely.More

June 24, 2016 Kanye West debuts the video for "Famous," which shows him in bed with nude likenesses of his wife Kim Kardashian, Donald Trump, Bill Cosby, Rihanna, and other celebrities and associates. West appears next to a likeness of Taylor Swift, who is derisively mentioned in the lyrics, "I made that bitch famous." West calls the video "a comment on fame."

November 24, 2015 The only copy of Wu-Tang Clan's new double album Once Upon A Time In Shaolin is sold at auction. The buyer is not Wu-Tang obsessive Quentin Tarantino as many hoped, but Martin Shkreli, a 32-year-old pharmaceutical executive notorious for buying a drug company and raising the price of their AIDS drug Daraprim from $13.50 to $750 per pill.More

September 9, 2014 Who doesn't like a free gift? Apparently, about 500 million iTunes users who create an uproar when U2's latest album, Songs of Innocence, shows up sans charge and sans permission in their personal libraries.More

September 23, 2010 Katy Perry's appearance on Sesame Street is edited out after viewers complain about her revealing dress.More

July 5, 2008 Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl" hits #1 in the US, where it stays for seven weeks. Perry's first chart-topper, it's a startling turnabout from just seven years earlier, when she was a gospel singer recording under her real name: Katy Hudson.More

September 21, 2004 Yusuf Islam (formerly Cat Stevens), is denied entry into the United States when he shows up on a terrorist watch list, accused of funding terror groups.More

February 1, 2004 Justin Timberlake punctuates the Super Bowl halftime show by tearing away part of Janet Jackson's costume, revealing her right breast to a massive audience that quickly reaches for their TiVos for a replay. Both artists blame it on a "wardrobe malfunction," but while Jackson gets blacklisted, Timberlake is welcomed back by the music industry and the NFL after a series of apologies.More

December 28, 2003 Out on bail and awaiting trial on charges he molested a teenage boy, Michael Jackson proclaims his innocence on 60 Minutes, telling Ed Bradley, "I was outraged. I could never do something like that."

May 2, 2003 Dixie Chicks appear naked on the front cover of Entertainment Weekly, with slogans such "Traitors," "Hero," "Boycott," "Saddam's Angels" and "Proud Americans" printed across their bodies. The slogans represent the mixed reaction Dixie Chicks received following singer Natalie Maines' anti-George W. Bush comments.More

November 19, 2002 While greeting fans from a fifth-floor hotel balcony in Berlin, Michael Jackson shocks onlookers by dangling his newborn son Prince Michael II over the side of the railing.

September 14, 2001 Program directors at Clear Channel Communications, the largest owner of radio stations in the United States, begin circulating a list of songs that might be considered offensive in light of the September 11 attacks.More