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- The film Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, starring David Bowie, was released in the United States.
- U2 played the second of two concerts at the Logan Campbell Centre in Auckland, New Zealand, during their Unforgettable Fire World Tour.
- Van Halen played their final concert with David Lee Roth before his return to the band in 2007. They performed at the Monsters of Rock festival in Nuremberg, Germany.
- Sixteen-year-old high school student Debbie Gibson from Long Island signed a contract with Atlantic Records, which was impressed by the number of songs she had written and recorded as demos in her home studio.
- Debbie Gibson began recording the album Out of the Blue. She was 16 years old and still attending school at the time.
- The Human Rights Now! world tour in support of Amnesty International began with a concert at Wembley Stadium in London. Sting, Bruce Springsteen, Peter Gabriel, Tracy Chapman and Youssou N'Dour performed. The tour took place on five continents.
- “Express Yourself” by N.W\.A. debuted at number 45 on the Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart and became their second single to enter the chart.
- Ozzy Osbourne was charged with threatening to kill his wife Sharon after attempting to strangle her at their home in Buckinghamshire. He later said he had no memory of the attack. He was released on condition that he immediately enter detoxification, and the case was later dropped after the couple reconciled.
- Paula Abdul reached her third US number-one single of the year with “Cold Hearted”. She had previously reached the top with “Straight Up” and “Forever Your Girl”. The song also reached number one in the US and peaked at number 46 in the UK.
- Ric Ocasek of The Cars and Paulina Porizkova were married.
- With the album “Repeat Offender”, Richard Marx achieved his first and only number-one album on the US Billboard 200.
- Garth Brooks released the album Ropin' the Wind.
- They won the MTV Video Music Award for Best New Artist for the video “Plush”.
- English dancer, singer, television presenter and musician Roy Castle died of lung cancer two days after his 62nd birthday.
- The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame building opened in Cleveland, Ohio. Bob Dylan, Chuck Berry, Aretha Franklin, Al Green, Booker T. & the M.G.'s, Little Richard, The Allman Brothers, Boz Scaggs, James Brown and Martha Reeves were among those who performed at the opening ceremony.
- Jazz saxophonist Stan Getz died at the age of 68.
- WAR released the album Coleccion Latina, their twentieth recording.
- Sandra Denton, known as Pepa of Salt-N-Pepa, gave birth to a daughter named Egypt. Her father is rapper Treach of Naughty by Nature.
- The single “Music” debuted at number one on the UK Singles Chart, becoming Madonna’s tenth UK single to reach the top of the chart. The song was taken from her album of the same name, and the music video also featured comedian Sacha Baron Cohen as Ali G. Madonna thereby became the first woman to have ten albums reach number one on the UK Albums Chart.
- Toni Braxton received the Aretha Franklin Award for Entertainer of the Year at the Soul Train Lady of Soul Awards in Santa Monica, California. Destiny’s Child, Angie Stone and Mary J. Blige each received two awards.
- American saxophonist Jay Migliori died of cancer at the age of 70. As a session musician, he recorded with The Beach Boys, Frank Sinatra and Frank Zappa and was a founding member of Supersax, a tribute group dedicated to Charlie Parker.
- With the album “Iowa”, Slipknot reached number one on the UK album chart.
- He suffered a severe stroke after a performance during Labor Day weekend, after which he fell into a coma from which he never recovered. He died on February 9, 2005.
- Barry Cowsill, bassist for The Cowsills, died at the age of 51 in New Orleans due to drowning during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. His final phone messages to his family were left around Sept 1–2; his body was discovered on December 28, 2005, at a wharf and identified via dental records on January 3, 2006.
- Kanye West criticized President George W. Bush’s response to Hurricane Katrina during a televised benefit concert in New York. The concert was raising funds to help victims of the disaster, and West made a controversial statement during the live broadcast about the president and his relationship with the Black community. The statement was broadcast live on the US East Coast, but was removed from the edited version for the West Coast.
- Mariah Carey became only the fifth artist or group in history to simultaneously occupy the top two positions on the US singles chart. “We Belong Together” had been at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for ten consecutive weeks, while “Shake It Off” moved to number two.
- Ronald Isley, lead singer of The Isley Brothers, was sentenced to three years in prison in the US for several counts of tax fraud. The 64-year-old singer was also ordered to pay the Internal Revenue Service more than $3.1 million. The court said he had collected royalties belonging to his brother O'Kelly, who died in 1996, and had also spent millions of dollars in undeclared performance income on a yacht and two houses.
- With their fourth studio album “Eyes Open”, Snow Patrol reached number one on the UK album chart. With more than 1.5 million copies sold, it was, according to the source, the best-selling album of the year in the United Kingdom.
- The mayor of St. Louis refused to declare the day “Ike Turner Day”. Turner was performing at the Big Muddy Blues Festival in the city at the time.
- Seventeen-year-old Jamaican-American singer Sean Kingston reached number one on the UK singles chart with “Beautiful Girls”, which was also a US number-one hit. The song uses the bassline from Ben E. King’s classic hit “Stand by Me”.
- At the GQ Men of the Year Awards, she became so drunk that she insulted her co-host Elton John and, at the end of the evening, revealed news of her brother’s recent engagement in London.
- Rage Against The Machine took part in protests against the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis, but police prevented them from performing. The band went into the crowd and played two songs through a megaphone, after which riots broke out.
- Shinedown singer Brent Smith became the target of a remark about his weight by Today host Kathy Lee Gifford, who said she thought he was Meat Loaf. Smith finished the performance with the song “Second Chance”, but the comment affected him. Several years later, he used it as motivation to quit drinking alcohol and begin an intensive fitness regimen.
- Guy Babylon, Elton John’s keyboardist, died of a heart attack while swimming in the pool at his home in Los Angeles. He had been an important member of John’s touring and recording band for more than 21 years.