Pick a Day

Music History Events: Releases

October 25, 2010 Taylor Swift releases her third album, Speak Now. One of the more confessional songs is "Mean," where she takes aim at her critics, including industry insider Bob Lefsetz, who wrote that Swift was "too young and dumb to understand the mistake she made" in performing with Stevie Nicks at the Grammy Awards.

September 28, 2010 Bad Religion release their 15th full-length studio album, The Dissent of Man.

September 10, 2010 Linkin Park release their fourth studio album, A Thousand Suns, an apocalyptic-themed concept album that finds the rap-rockers exploring electronic rock on singles like "The Catalyst" and "Waiting For The End."

August 31, 2010 Papa Roach release their first live album, Time for Annihilation. Alongside nine live tracks, the record contains five new studio tracks.

August 24, 2010 Teenage Dream, Katy Perry's second major-label album, is released. It goes to #1 in the US, where the first five singles, starting with "California Gurls," all top the Hot 100.

August 2, 2010 Arcade Fire release The Suburbs, their third studio album. It's almost universally lauded by fans and critics alike, with the latter feeling that the album fully realizes the great artistic potential hinted at by Funeral and Neon Bible, the band's first two albums.More

June 22, 2010 Lynyrd Skynyrd release Live from Freedom Hall, their eight live album. It features music performed June 15, 2007 at Freedom Hall in Louisville, Kentucky.

March 30, 2010 Barenaked Ladies release their ninth studio album, All In Good Time. It's their first album since the departure of co-lead singer Steven Page, who officially left the band in 2009.

January 26, 2010 Lady Antebellum release their second album, Need You Now, which goes to #1 in America, where it sells over 4 million copies. The title track becomes the first country song to make a big impact on the pop chart since "Not Ready To Make Nice" by Dixie Chicks in 2007. Both groups later change their names, becoming Lady A and The Chicks.

December 1, 2009 R. Kelly releases Untitled, his ninth studio album.

November 3, 2009 Country singer Carrie Underwood releases her third studio album, Play On, featuring the crossover hit "Cowboy Casanova."

September 29, 2009 Lynyrd Skynyrd release Gods & Guns, their 13th album.

August 11, 2009 Lady Antebellum release "Need You Now," a song about drunk dialing. A huge crossover hit, it goes to #1 on the Country chart, #2 on the Hot 100, and sells 9 million digital downloads.

August 11, 2009 Train get back on track, releasing "Hey Soul Sister," their first hit since "Calling All Angels" in 2003. It becomes the top-selling song of 2010 on iTunes.

July 14, 2009 The debut album by The Dead Weather, Horehound, is released, and spawns the singles "Hang You from the Heavens," "Treat Me Like Your Mother," and "I Cut Like A Buffalo."

July 10, 2009 Shakira releases the electro-pop album She Wolf. The singer was in a bad mood when the disco-influenced title track roared out of her consciousness: "The image of the she wolf just came to my head, and when I least expected it I was howling and panting."

March 31, 2009 Lynyrd Skynyrd release Live at the Cardiff Capitol Theatre. It features music recorded at Cardiff, Wales' Capitol Theatre on November 4, 1975. It's released alongside the album Authorized Bootleg: Live In Winterland, San Francisco, CA, 3/07/76.

January 20, 2009 Bon Iver release Blood Bank, a four-track EP and follow-up to the hugely-successful For Emma, Forever Ago. The song "Woods" is sampled by Kanye West on his track "Lost in The World."

November 25, 2008 A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All!, the soundtrack to the Christmas comedy special of the same name starring Stephen Colbert, is released on iTunes. Most of the songs featured on the album were written by comedy writer David Javerbaum and Adam Schlesinger, who is the bass player for Fountains of Wayne. The album will go on to win the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album.

October 13, 2008 Five months after marrying Jay-Z, Beyoncé releases the sassy "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)." It goes to #1 in America for four weeks and win the Grammy for Song of the Year.

September 30, 2008 Disney releases Nightmare Revisited, a cover album of songs from The Nightmare Before Christmas. The new album commemorates the fifteenth anniversary of the film's original 1993 release and features new arrangements by KoRn, Amy Lee of Evanescence, and Marilyn Manson.

August 25, 2008 The Verve release Forth, their first album since Urban Hymns in 1997. It proves to be their last.

August 12, 2008 Metallica release "The Day That Never Comes," the lead single from their ninth studio album, Death Magnetic.

August 12, 2008 The Jonas Brothers' A Little Bit Longer, featuring the hit single "Burning Up," debuts at #1 in America.More

August 11, 2008 Noah and the Whale debut Peaceful, the World Lays Me Down is released on the Mercury/Vertigo label. Laura Marling, who was a member of the band at the time of recording but soon left to focus on her solo career, is featured as a vocalist on the album. Fellow Indie-Folk artist Emmy the Great also contributes vocals to the album.

July 22, 2008 Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor foots the bill for the band's seventh studio album, The Slip, which is released digitally on their website for free with the tag, "This one's on me." Fans wanting a physical copy, however, will have to shell out their money for a limited-edition two months later. (NIN also did this four months earlier with the free digital release of Ghosts I-IV, an album made up of almost entirely instrumental, unnamed tracks).

June 17, 2008 The Offspring release Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace - their first album in nearly five years.

March 26, 2008 The B-52's lose their apostrophe and become the B-52s with the release of their album Funplex. The apostrophe, which is grammatically incorrect because apostrophes show possession, was simply an error made by the friend that designed their logo.

March 2, 2008 Nine Inch Nails release their sixth album, an almost entirely instrumental Ghosts I-IV, as a free digital release - a concept they will revisit with their next album, The Slip, in July. Physical copies are sold at a regular price a few months after the digital releases.

February 19, 2008 Bon Iver's debut album, For Emma, Forever Ago, self-released a year earlier, is issued on Jagjaguwar Records. An embodiment of indie rock, it gets lots of attention and leads to a collaboration with Kanye West on this 2010 album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.