2000 in music

January

• January 1
  • In New York City, United States, at precisely midnight, Prince celebrates the start of the final year before the new millennium by playing his anthemic "1999", in what he vows is the song's finale.
  • British composer John Tavener is knighted in the New Year's Honours List.
• January 11
  • Gary Glitter is released after serving just two months of his four-month sentence for downloading 4,000 child pornography images.
  • Sharon Osbourne quits as manager of Smashing Pumpkins after only three months. In a brash press release she announces she had to resign "for medical reasons: Billy Corgan was making me sick."^[2]
  • Singer Whitney Houston is caught with 15.2 grams of marijuana in her bag at a Hawaii airport. She boards her flight to San Francisco before police can arrive to arrest her.^[3]

• January 13 – Mexican singer Gloria Trevi is arrested in Rio de Janeiro.^[4]
• January 14 – Rolling Stone reveals that the two children of Melissa Etheridge and her partner, Julie Cypher, were fathered by David Crosby.
• January 18 – Spencer Goodman is executed by lethal injection in Huntsville, Texas, for the 1991 kidnap and murder of the wife of ZZ Top manager Bill Ham. Ham is present at the execution.
• January 21–February 6 – The Big Day Out festival takes place in Australia and New Zealand, headlined by Red Hot Chili Peppers and Nine Inch Nails. Mr. Bungle are originally named in the lineup, but are "kicked off" due to an ongoing dispute with the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

February

• February 9 – The Million Dollar Hotel, a film co-written by U2 lead singer Bono, premieres at the 50th Berlinale (Berlin International Film Festival).
• February 11 – Diana Ross divorces Arne Næss Jr., her husband of 14 years.
• February 16 – The Silver Tassie, an opera by Mark-Anthony Turnage, receives its première at the London Coliseum, performed by the English National Opera.
• February 23 – At the 42nd Annual Grammy Awards, Santana win a record 8 Grammys in one night, tying Michael Jackson who won 8 in 1984. Among the awards won are Album of the Year for Supernatural and Record of the Year and Song of the Year, both for "Smooth" featuring Matchbox Twenty frontman Rob Thomas. Christina Aguilera won Best New Artist.
• February 24 – Italian motorcycle manufacturing company Aprilia wins a lawsuit filed against the Spice Girls over a sponsorship deal that fell apart when Geri Halliwell left the group.

March

• March 6 – Foxy Brown is injured in a car accident in Brooklyn, New York, in which her car hit a fence. Police discover that Brown was driving with a suspended driver license and order her to appear in court in April. Brown's license was suspended for failing to appear in court for a parking violation.
• March 7 – Heavy metal band Disturbed release their debut studio album The Sickness.
• March 11 – 311 holds their first 3–11 Day concert at Tower Records in the French Quarter of New Orleans.
• March 13 – Blink-182 end their European tour early after guitarist/vocalist Tom DeLonge and drummer Travis Barker succumb to strep throat.
• March 21 – NSYNC rises to superstardom after the fast-paced sales of their third studio album No Strings Attached.
• March 24 – After violating a prior probation agreement by getting drunk, Ol' Dirty Bastard is ordered to undergo a 90-day diagnostic evaluation at the California Institute For Men in Chino, California.

April

• April 1 – Ted Nugent angers Hispanic groups in Texas after onstage remarks he makes during a concert at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion, in which he says that those who did not speak English should get out of America. He is banned from the venue as a result.^[5]
• April 4 – Mick Jagger attends the opening of an arts center named after him at Dartford Grammar School in southeast England.
• April 6 – Shawn Colvin, James Taylor, Cyndi Lauper, Richard Thompson, Sweet Honey in the Rock, Elton John, Cassandra Wilson, Wynonna Judd, k.d. lang, Bryan Adams, and Mary Chapin Carpenter perform in New York as part of a tribute to Joni Mitchell.
• April 12 – Metallica files a lawsuit against the peer-to-peer service Napster, as well as Yale University, University of Southern California and Indiana University for copyright infringement. Yale and Indiana are later dropped from the suit when they block access to Napster on campus computers.
• April 25 – Nu metal band Papa Roach releases their second studio album, Infest.

May

• May 1 – A $1.8 million civil fraud lawsuit is filed against Neil Young in Los Angeles Superior Court by a former Village Voice writer. The lawsuit charges that Young broke an agreement to have a biography written about him when he blocked the book's publication.
• May 3 – 75-year-old tenor Carlo Bergonzi makes his final professional appearance at Carnegie Hall, in a concert performance of Otello.^[6] After two acts, he is replaced by an understudy.
• May 5 – Rod Stewart undergoes an hour-long throat operation at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles to remove a growth on his thyroid, which turns out to be benign.
• May 6 – John Mellencamp receives an honorary Doctor of Music degree as the commencement speaker for Indiana University's Class of 2000.
• May 7 – Westlife releases their 2000 debut album with the release of their Billboard #1 hit single "Swear It Again", as the group's first and only single to have charted in the US.
• May 13 – The 45th Eurovision Song Contest final, held in Stockholm's Globe Arena, is won by Denmark's Olsen Brothers and the song "Fly on the Wings of Love".
• May 16 – Prince announces that he has changed his name back to Prince now that his publishing contract with Warner/Chappell has expired. He had been known as an unpronounceable symbol since 1993.^[7]
• May 20 – The 28th OTI Festival, held at the Centro de Convenciones [es] in Acapulco, Mexico, is won by the song "Hierba mala", written by Angie Chirio, Olga María Chirino, and Emilio Estefan, and performed by Hermanas Chirino representing the United States.
• May 23 – Eminem releases his third studio album The Marshall Mathers LP selling over 1.76 million copies in its first week, and becomes the fastest selling hip-hop album ever in first week sales.
• May 24 – 50 Cent is shot nine times in Queens. After spending time in hospital he returns to recording and performing.
• May 25 – Eddie Van Halen begins treatment for prevention of tongue cancer at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas.^[8]
• May 29 – Michael Jackson and Mariah Carey are named the Best Selling Male and Female artist of the millennium at the World Music Awards in Monaco.

June

• June 8 – Sinéad O'Connor comes out as a lesbian in an interview with Curve magazine.^[9]
• June 17 – Aaliyah's "Try Again" reaches number one on the Billboard Hot 100. It becomes the first airplay song in history to reach number one following new chart rules placed in 1998 that allowed airplay singles to chart for the first time.
• June 20 – Britney Spears begins her Oops!... I Did It Again World Tour, her first world tour, visiting North America, Europe and Brazil in support her sophomore album, Oops!... I Did It Again. The tour was a commercial success and became the second highest-grossing tour by a solo artist in 2000, only behind Tina Turner's Twenty Four Seven retirement tour.
• June 23–25 – The Experience Music Project, now the Museum of Pop Culture, opens in Seattle.
• June 30 – Nine people are crushed to death during Pearl Jam's set at the Roskilde Festival, in Roskilde, Denmark.

July–August

• July 21–22 – Oasis plays at Wembley Stadium. The first of this night is featured on the double CD and the DVD Familiar to Millions.
• July 26 – A U.S. district judge orders the Napster to halt the trading of copyrighted music among its users, essentially ordering it shut down. A stay on the injunction is granted two days later, allowing the site to continue operating for the time being.^[10]
• August 1 – Experimental pop band Animal Collective release their debut album Spirit They're Gone, Spirit They've Vanished under the name Avey Tare & Panda Bear.^[11]
• August 8 – A coalition of 28 U.S. states file a lawsuit against the major record labels, accusing them of keeping the prices of CDs fixed at artificially high prices since 1995.^[12]
• August 11 – Madonna gives birth to her second child, son Rocco. Film director Guy Ritchie is the father.
• August 14 – Outside the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, Rage Against the Machine performs a free concert protesting the two-party system. In a chaotic scene after the performance, police forcibly disperse the crowd and several arrests are made.^[13]
• August 16 – Rapper Eminem files for divorce from wife Kim Mathers.
• August 20 – Skinny Puppy reunite for a concert at the Doomsday Festival in Dresden, Germany.
• August 22 – Nu Metal band Mudvayne Released their debut studio album L.D. 50.

September

• September 7 – Rage Against the Machine's Tim Commerford is arrested for climbing on the set at MTV's Video Music Awards after his band lost the award for "Best Rock Video" to Limp Bizkit. The director of Rage's "Sleep Now in the Fire" video, Michael Moore, suggests Commerford was probably "just bored" by the show.^[14] NSYNC performed their hit single "Bye Bye Bye".
• September 11- Successful British girl group Sugababes release their debut single 'Overload'.
• September 13 – The first Latin Grammy Awards are held.
• September 23 – Isaac Stern celebrates his 80th birthday together with his 40th anniversary as President of Carnegie Hall.
• September 26 – Pearl Jam releases twenty-five live albums, each taken from a different show on their European tour, as the initial part of the Pearl Jam Official Bootlegs series.

October

• October 1 – Midnight Oil perform their single "Beds are Burning" at the closing of the 2000 Summer Olympics dressed in outfits clearly displaying the word "Sorry" in reference to Australian Prime Minister John Howard's refusal to apologise to the Stolen Generation.
• October 2 – Radiohead release their fourth studio album, Kid A. While highly anticipated in the leadup to its release, the album is met with polarized responses from fans and critics as a result of its shift from the densely-layered alternative rock of its 1997 predecessor in favor of electronica-tinged post-rock. However, its reputation would grow more unanimously positive over the years, eventually being regarded by music analysts as one of the greatest albums of all time.
• October 3 – Green Day release their sixth album Warning. Despite positive reviews from critics, it would end up a commercial disappointment compared to their previous efforts.
• October 5
  • The Beatles release a hardcover book version of The Beatles Anthology, containing newly published photos and interviews with band members. The book went straight to the top of the New York Times Bestseller List.
  • EMI and Warner Music Group withdraw their application to the European Commission for a proposed $20 billion merger due to regulators' concerns. The merger would have concentrated 80% of the European music business into the hands of just four major labels.^[15]
• October 18 – Zack de la Rocha leaves Rage Against the Machine saying that the band's decision-making process has completely failed.
• October 24 – Linkin Park release their debut album Hybrid Theory. It has reached diamond certification by the RIAA, with 11 million units as of 2017, making it the best-selling rock album of the 21st century.
• October 31 – Napster and BMG Music announce a partnership that would change the website into a subscription-based service offering legal downloads.^[16]

November–December

• November 5 – The fourth Terrastock festival is held in Seattle.
• November 18 – A new musical adaptation of Georg Büchner's Woyzeck by Robert Wilson and Tom Waits opens in Copenhagen.
• November 21 - The Backstreet Boys experience back-to-back sales after the release of their 4th/3rd album Black & Blue.
• December 2
  • Tripp Eisen formerly of Dope replaces Koichi Fukuda in Static-X.
  • The Smashing Pumpkins played what was to be their final concert at the Metro Club in Chicago. The band would reunite in 2005.
• December 22
  • Madonna marries film director Guy Ritchie, at Skibo Castle in Dornoch, Sutherland, Scotland with Gwyneth Paltrow, Stella McCartney, Sting, George Clooney, Jon Bon Jovi, Celine Dion, Bryan Adams, Rupert Everett and others in attendance.
  • The Coen brothers film, O Brother, Where Art Thou? is released, scored by a T-Bone Burnett-produced soundtrack that revives the popularity of traditional American folk music and bluegrass.
• December 31 – Chris Robinson of The Black Crowes marries actress Kate Hudson.

January–March

April–June

July–September

October–December

Release date unknown

• Cherry Kicks – Caesars
• Chicks on Speed Will Save Us All – Chicks on Speed
• The Doldrums – Ariel Pink
• Fig.5 – Jackie-O Motherfucker
• Marvin at the Movies – Hank Marvin
• Mountains – Mary Timony
• Still Standing – Yellowcard
• Wicked - Shemekia Copeland