Pick a Day

7 SEPTEMBER

In Music History

2025 Mariah Carey, long a fixture on MTV but never a VMA winner, finally gets her due with the Video Vanguard Award. Video Of The Year goes to Ariana Grande for Brighter Days Ahead, a 26-minute short film.

2020 Lily Allen marries David Harbour (Hopper on Stranger Things) at the Graceland Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas, with an Elvis impersonator presiding. Their breakup in 2025 inspires her album West End Girl, which is filled with songs about cheating and deceit.

2019 Thanks to an appearance in the Netflix show Someone Great where Gina Rodriguez gets tipsy and sings it to get over a breakup, "Truth Hurts" by Lizzo goes to #1 in America nearly two years after it was first released.

2018 Lenny Kravitz releases his 11th studio album, Raise Vibration, which features guest vocals from the late Michael Jackson on the single "Low." Kravitz collaborated with the King of Pop on Jackson's track "(I Can't Make It) Another Day" from the posthumous album Michael.

2018 Country singer Kathy Mattea ends a six-year recording hiatus when she releases the folk album Pretty Bird, featuring covers of Joan Osborne's "St. Teresa," Mary Gauthier's "Mercy Now," and Bobbie Gentry's "Ode To Billie Joe." It also debuts a new voice from the husky-throated singer, whose vocal problems forced her to learn to tap into her lower register.

2018 Rapper Mac Miller dies at 26 of an apparent drug overdose.

2010 The xx take home the 2010 Mercury Prize.

2008 While performing the song "Morning Glory" at the V Festival in Toronto, Noel Gallagher of Oasis is attacked by a concert-goer who rushes the stage and pushes him into his monitor. The band continues the show, but Gallagher is taken to a hospital that night to treat injuries to his ribs. He suffers a fractured rib and ligament damage, which forces the cancellation of several Oasis concerts.

2008 MTV makes up for trotting out a lethargic Britney Spears to open their previous year's Video Music Awards by giving her three awards for "Piece Of Me." Kanye West also debuts "Love Lockdown" on the show.

2001 Ryan Adams shoots the video for his song "New York, New York" with the World Trade Center in the background. Four days later, the buildings are destroyed in terrorist attacks; when the video is released, it is dedicated to the victims.

2001 The movie Rock Star, starring Mark Wahlberg as the lead singer of a tribute band who ends up joining his favorite group, hits theaters. A number of musicians have roles in the film, including Stephan Jenkins of Third Eye Blind and Brian Vander Ark of The Verve Pipe, whose song "Colorful" Wahlberg lip-synchs at the end of the film.

2001 Michael Jackson plays the first of two concerts at Madison Square Garden as part of his 30th anniversary tribute. Performers honoring Jackson include Slash, 'N Sync and Britney Spears. The concerts are edited and aired as a special on CBS.

1999 Pop singer-songwriter Gracie Abrams is born in Los Angeles, California, to filmmaker JJ Abrams and producer Katie McGrath. The "I Love You, I'm Sorry" singer builds a following during the COVID-19 pandemic by livestreaming shows from her childhood bedroom over Zoom.

1994 Fifteen-year-old Brandy releases her self-titled debut album, which goes on to sell over 4 million copies and establish her as an R&B star. Hits from the album include "I Wanna Be Down" and "Baby."

1988 INXS, the new sensation from Australia, are the big winners at the MTV Video Music Awards, taking five trophies, including Video Of The Year, for "Need You Tonight/Mediate." The songs are separate tracks on the album but combined for the video; the "Mediate" part is an homage to Bob Dylan's 1965 "Subterranean Homesick Blues" film.