Events in 1993
- PolyGram purchased Motown Records from investment company Boston Ventures for $301 million.
- Sheryl Crow released her debut album, “Tuesday Night Music Club,” on A&M Records.
- Randy Jo Hobbs, bassist for The McCoys and Edgar Winter Group, was found dead in a hotel room in Dayton, Ohio, at the age of 45.
- Hip-hop group Cypress Hill's second studio album “Black Sunday”, led by the single “Insane In The Brain”, debuted at No. 1 on the U.S. albums chart. The album featured their signature song “Insane In The Brain”.
- Pete Townshend performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music during his Psychoderelict tour.
- Lionel Richie divorced his first wife, Brenda Harvey.
- Billy Joel released “River of Dreams,” his final album of pop songs.
- Soundgarden performed at the Civic Auditorium in Rapid City, South Dakota, on the first show of an eight-date tour headlined by Neil Young with Blind Melon as the opening act. These concerts were Soundgarden's only live performances of 1993.
- Red Hot Chili Peppers replaced guitarist Arik Marshall with Jesse Tobias.
- The group, which had split in 1981, reunited and began a US tour with a concert at The Palace in Auburn Hills, Michigan.
- Posthumously scored his first solo number-one hit on the UK chart with a remix of “Living On My Own”, originally released in 1985 on his solo album Mr. Bad Guy. The song was a minor hit in its original version in 1985 and was later re-released in a remixed version, leading to major chart success.
- Ed Roberts of Ruby And The Romantics died at the age of 57 from cancer. The Akron vocal group had three Top 40 hits, the biggest being “Our Day Will Come”, which reached No. 1 in 1963.
- Jeff Buckley performed at the Sin-é café in New York. Several months later, recordings from this performance became his first released material in the form of the EP Live at Sin-é.
- Los Angeles police began investigating allegations of child abuse made against Michael Jackson. No criminal charges were ultimately filed, and the civil lawsuit was settled out of court in January 1994.
- Type O Negative released their fifth studio album, Bloody Kisses, one of the few gothic metal albums to receive platinum certification.
- Longtime Elton John lyricist Bernie Taupin married his third wife, Stephanie Haymes.
- Police raided Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch after a child staying there made allegations of sexual abuse. Jackson allowed police to conduct a personal search, which was deeply humiliating for him. He was not charged, but later faced further allegations.
- The soundtrack to the successful romantic comedy “Sleepless in Seattle”, starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, spent one week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, knocking Cypress Hill's album “Black Sunday” from the top spot. The album contains songs by artists including Louis Armstrong, Joe Cocker, Carly Simon and Nat King Cole. “Black Sunday” by Cypress Hill was at No. 2, “janet.” by Janet Jackson at No. 3, “Zooropa” by U2 at No. 4 and “Core” by Stone Temple Pilots at No. 5. UB40 were at No. 6 with “Promises and Lies”, the “The Bodyguard” soundtrack at No. 7, Rod Stewart at No. 8 with “Unplugged...And Seated”, Aerosmith at No. 9 with “Get a Grip” and Blind Melon entered the Top 10 with their self-titled album.
- Duff McKagan testified in court against his former Guns N' Roses bandmate Steve Adler. During the testimony, the so-called “spaghetti incident” was also discussed, which later became the title of another album by the band, “The Spaghetti Incident”.
- Duran Duran received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
- The Los Angeles Police Department formally announced that Michael Jackson was the subject of a criminal investigation following allegations of child sexual abuse.
- The album „The 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration“, honoring Bob Dylan's career, was released.
- Snoop Doggy Dogg drove his passenger McKinley Lee in a Jeep Cherokee to Woodbine Park in Los Angeles, where Lee shot and killed a member of a rival gang. Both were charged with murder and Snoop Doggy Dogg was released on $1 million bail. In 1996 both were found not guilty.
- Apple Records won an auction for a rare recording of The Beatles performing “Kansas City” and “Some Other Guy” at the Cavern Club in Liverpool in 1962, paying £16,000 for the acetate disc.
- A two-sided acetate recording of The Beatles featuring live recordings of “Kansas City” and “Some Other Guy” from the Cavern Club in Liverpool in 1962 was sold at Christie's auction in London for $32,000 (£16,500), which at the time was a record price for a recording.
- U2 performed at the National Stadium in Cardiff Arms Park in Cardiff, Wales.
- This year's three-day Reading Festival in the UK began with headliners New Order, The The, The Lemonheads, Rage Against The Machine and Dinosaur Jr. On the Melody Maker stage, Blur, Radiohead, The Boo Radleys and Shampoo performed.
- Rick Rubin changed the name of his record label Def American Recordings to American Recordings because he felt that the word “Def” was overused in pop culture as a synonym for “cool” and had been exhausted after being added to the Webster's dictionary. He staged a symbolic funeral ceremony at the Hollywood Forever cemetery in Los Angeles, which included a eulogy by Reverend Al Sharpton and the burial of a coffin filled with records.
- Billy Joel began a three-week run at No. 1 on the US album chart with his twelfth studio album “River of Dreams”. Joel said that most of the music for the album came to him in his sleep, inspiring its title. The album eventually sold more than four million copies in the United States. The album cover was painted by his second wife, former model Christie Brinkley, and was later voted the worst album cover of the year.
- Bruce Dickinson gave his final performance with Iron Maiden at Pinewood Studios in London before leaving the band for six years. The concert was filmed by the BBC and broadcast on MTV and pay-per-view in the UK; it was later released as “Raising Hell”. The show included magician Simon Drake performing elaborate staged “deaths”, including an iron maiden stunt in which Dickinson apparently died onstage.
- German multinational dance group Culture Beat began a four-week run at No. 1 on the UK singles chart with “Mr Vain”. It was the first UK No. 1 single that was not available in a 7-inch format. “Mr Vain” became a worldwide success and reached No. 1 in at least 19 countries.
- At a benefit concert at Fort Adams State Park in Newport, Rhode Island, Natalie Merchant performed her first concert after leaving the group 10,000 Maniacs.
- Peter Daltry, keyboardist for the band Family, died at the age of 45.
- Singer Liam Payne was born in Wolverhampton, England. He rose to fame as a member of the boy band One Direction. The group was formed after his appearance on the seventh series of The X Factor in 2010 and had UK No. 1 singles "What Makes You Beautiful" and "One Way or Another (Teenage Kicks)". Payne died on October 17, 2024, at the age of 31 in Argentina after falling from the third floor of the CasaSur Hotel in Buenos Aires.
- Comedic songwriter Allan Sherman died at the age of 68.
- At the premiere of The Late Show with David Letterman on CBS, Billy Joel became the first musical guest. The show was broadcast from the newly renovated Ed Sullivan Theater in New York. Joel performed with Paul Shaffer and the newly named CBS Orchestra, playing “No Man's Land”.
- He was born in Edmonton, London. He is a British rapper and DJ known as Tion Wayne.
- They won the MTV Video Music Award for Best New Artist for the video “Plush”.
- Motown Records was sold to the Dutch record and entertainment company PolyGram for $325 million. This was more than five times the $61 million received by founder Berry Gordy when he sold the company in 1988.
- Paula Abdul hosted the AIDS-awareness television special In a New Light '93.
- UB40 spent their seventh week at number one with their cover of Elvis Presley's classic “Can't Help Falling in Love.”
- The musical The Will Rogers Follies closed after 983 performances.
- Don Henley, Jimmy Buffett, Elton John, Sting and Aerosmith performed at a benefit concert in Boston supporting Walden Woods.
- Counting Crows released the album August and Everything After.
- Wilson Pickett was sentenced to one year in prison after driving under the influence of alcohol and hitting an 86-year-old pedestrian with his car. During his sentence, he suffered an eye injury in a confrontation with another inmate that required several operations.
- Def Leppard released Retro Active, an album compiled from previously unreleased tracks, B-sides, and studio recordings from various periods of the band's career.
- The Pet Shop Boys' album "Very" reached No. 1 on the UK Albums Chart. It featured the hit single "Go West" and also topped the charts in Finland, Germany, Sweden and Switzerland.
- American country singer Scotty McCreery was born in Garner, North Carolina. He rose to fame after winning the tenth season of "American Idol" in May 2011, and his debut studio album "Clear as Day" peaked at No. 1 on the US chart.
- Take That, featuring Scottish singer Lulu, topped the UK Singles Chart with their version of Dan Hartman's 1979 disco hit "Relight My Fire." It became Take That's second UK No. 1 single and gave Lulu another No. 1 nearly 30 years after her first hit.
- Faith Hill releases her debut album, Take Me As I Am, which includes “Piece of My Heart” and “Wild One,” both of which reached No. 1.