Events in 1996
- The Bayside Boys remix of Los del Río’s “Macarena” reached No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, where it remained for a total of 14 weeks.
- Oasis played two sold-out concerts at Balloch Castle Country Park in Scotland, drawing more than 80,000 fans. During preparations for the concerts, roadie James Hunter was killed after being crushed between a forklift and a lorry; the accident occurred the day before the first show.
- Bruce Springsteen sued two London criminals who were illegally distributing an album they claimed had been recorded by Springsteen.
- Wilson Pickett entered a drug rehabilitation program after a New Jersey judge offered him treatment for cocaine addiction instead of prison.
- Ramones played their final concert at The Palace in Hollywood, Los Angeles. It was their 2,263rd performance, and the setlist contained 32 songs. The final song was “Anyway You Want It” by The Dave Clark Five, performed with Eddie Vedder. Other guests during the concert included Dee Dee Ramone, Lemmy Kilmister, Chris Cornell, Ben Shepherd, Lars Frederiksen and Tim Armstrong. The entire concert was recorded and released in 1997 as the live album “We're Outta Here!”
- Tom Petty released the album “She's the One,” which also served as the soundtrack to the film of the same name, written and directed by Edward Burns.
- Vince Neil attempted to perform a concert at a club in Indiana. The show began more than four hours late and ended after three songs.
- A federal appeals court overturned a ruling that original Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers members Jimmy Merchant and Herman Santiago had co-written the hit “Why Do Fools Fall in Love?”. The court ruled that copyright claims must be filed within three years of a song's publication.
- KISS performed at Riverfront Coliseum in Cincinnati, Ohio, during their Alive World Tour. During the concert, a fan threw his artificial leg onto the stage, and all the members signed it and returned it to him.
- Oasis played the first of two concerts at Knebworth in Hertfordshire, England. Each night drew 125,000 people, and approximately one in every twenty people in the UK applied for tickets. The concerts became the biggest performances of their era and the high point of Britpop.
- Mel Taylor, drummer for The Ventures, died in Los Angeles at the age of 62 from lung cancer. The Ventures had six Billboard Top 40 songs between 1962 and 1969. In 2008 Taylor was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of The Ventures.
- Radiohead began a series of 13 concerts at Darien Center in New York as the opening act for Alanis Morissette. During the tour, they tested new songs including “No Surprises” and “Paranoid Android,” which later appeared on the album OK Computer.
- Performed at the Darien Lake Performing Arts Center in Buffalo, New York, with Radiohead as the opening act.
- Time magazine published the article “It's a Ska World After All” about the growing popularity of ska in the U.S.; Sublime, No Doubt and 311 all had albums on the charts at the time.
- A women's shelter on Long Island rejected a $10,000 donation from a James Brown benefit concert because of domestic violence allegations involving the singer. Brown denied the allegations, which were later dropped.
- Phish held their first weekend festival, The Clifford Ball, in Plattsburgh, New York. The event marked the beginning of the band's tradition of large-scale festivals.
- Hip-hop group A Tribe Called Quest reached No. 1 on the US album chart with their fourth studio album, Beats, Rhymes and Life.
- On the US album chart, Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill was at No. 2, Celine Dion's Falling Into You was at No. 2, Metallica's Load was at No. 8, and No Doubt's Tragic Kingdom was at No. 9.
- The ENIT festival, organized by Perry Farrell after his split from Lollapalooza, began in Holmdel, New Jersey, with Porno For Pyros as the headliners. The festival was among the first events to sell tickets online, but only four concerts took place because of poor organization.
- James Brown performed in Montauk, New York, as part of his Back at the Ranch tour. Brown, who had previously had problems with violence toward his wife, offered money raised at the event to The Retreat, an organization dedicated to preventing and combating domestic violence. The organization declined the offer.
- Snoop Doggy Dogg reached an out-of-court settlement with the Woldemariam family in a wrongful-death case the family had filed against the rapper three years earlier. Their 20-year-old son Phillip Woldemariam had been shot by Snoop Doggy Dogg's bodyguard from the back of a moving car that the rapper himself was driving. Snoop Doggy Dogg and his bodyguard claimed the incident occurred in self-defense.
- Former Talking Heads singer David Byrne sued the other members of the group in an attempt to prevent them from performing under the name “The Heads”. The dispute was settled out of court.
- Rick James was released from Folsom Prison after serving two years of a five-year sentence for holding a woman hostage while under the influence of drugs and for assault.
- The film “She's The One”, featuring a soundtrack by Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, was released in cinemas. Jennifer Aniston and Edward Burns, who appeared in the film, also appeared in the video for the song “Walls”.
- Nearly four months after its first No. 1 finish, Alanis Morissette returned to No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard 200 with the same album, „Jagged Little Pill“, and began another three-week run at the top.
- The six-disc DVD collection Elvis Presley – The Signature Collection was released, containing the films „It Happened at the World's Fair“, „Speedway“, „Spinout“, „Harum Scarum“, „Jailhouse Rock“ and „Viva Las Vegas“.
- „Missing“ by the British duo Everything But The Girl surpassed the record held by The Four Seasons with „December, 1963 (Oh What A Night)“ when it appeared on the Billboard Hot 100 for its 55th week, its final week on the chart.
- Liam Gallagher failed to show up for Oasis's MTV Unplugged recording at the Royal Festival Hall in London before an audience of 400. He later watched the concert from the audience while his brother Noel took over the vocals.
- Delegates at the Democratic National Convention took a break to dance to “Macarena”, including First Lady Hillary Clinton, who imitated the dance moves from the crowd.
- Pearl Jam released their fourth studio album “No Code” through Epic Records. The album debuted at No. 1 on the US album chart, but was not as commercially successful as their previous three albums and quickly fell down the chart.
- Isaac Hayes, co-writer of Sam & Dave’s classic song “Soul Man”, protested against its use in the campaign of Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole. Dole supporters altered the lyrics to “I'm A Dole Man”. Hayes demanded that Dole stop using the song, and publisher Rondor Music subsequently issued a formal legal warning threatening a $10,000 fine for each further unauthorized use.
- Isaac Hayes, co-writer of the classic song "Soul Man" released by Stax Records, sent a letter to presidential candidate Bob Dole asking him to stop using his song, which his supporters had adapted as "I'm A Dole Man".
- Liam Gallagher rejoined the rest of Oasis in Chicago after a week of speculation about the band's future. He had left the group several days earlier.
- Liam Gallagher flew to America to rejoin his Oasis bandmates on the tour for the album “(What's the Story) Morning Glory?”. The band played their first four concerts with his brother Noel as the singer after the singer watched their MTV Unplugged performance from backstage and claimed to be suffering from a throat infection.
- The Cranberries released the album To the Faithful Departed.
- Cat Stevens (Yusuf Islam) appeared at a London music store after an 18-year absence, signing copies of his new spoken-word Islamic album The Life of the Last Prophet, released under his legal name, Yusuf Islam.
- Oasis caused a stir at the MTV Awards at Radio City Hall in New York. During their performance of “Champagne Supernova,” singer Liam Gallagher spat on stage and threw beer into the audience.
- Oasis reached number one in the UK with “Don't Look Back in Anger,” which was released there as a single.
- At the MTV Video Music Awards, Van Halen appeared on stage for the first time in 11 years with founding singer David Lee Roth, who had recently split from the band with Sammy Hagar. They did not perform together but jointly presented Beck with the award for Best Male Video for “Where It's At.” The reunion was short-lived, and a month later the band announced Gary Cherone, formerly of Extreme, as their new singer. Roth issued a statement saying he had been an unwitting participant in the deception. Van Halen released one album with Cherone before reuniting with Roth in 2007.
- Capitol Records released The Beatles Anthology video collection, containing more than ten hours of material.
- Michael Jackson began his third solo world concert tour, the HIStory World Tour, with the first concert at Letná Park in Prague. The tour consisted of 82 concerts, attracted approximately 4.5 million fans and, according to the source, surpassed his previous Bad Tour with 4.4 million attendees. Total gross exceeded $163.5 million.
- Rap star Tupac Shakur was shot five times in a drive-by attack after a boxing match in Las Vegas. Music manager “Suge” Knight was also wounded in the attack. Shakur died from his injuries six days later at the age of 25.
- A Pearl Jam concert in Hartford, Connecticut, ended in disturbances when mass fights broke out among approximately 30,000 attendees.
- Van Halen dismissed David Lee Roth for the second time after they had recorded several new songs together for the planned greatest-hits compilation Best Of Volume 1. The band stated that the intention from the beginning had been to record two new songs with Roth for the compilation; however, after his appearance with the band at the MTV Video Music Awards in September 1996, it became clear that a long-term reunion of the original lineup would not happen. Roth announced on October 2 that the reunion would not continue, and Van Halen's statement was released on October 3, 1996.
- Fiddler Jerry Rivers, a member of The Drifting Cowboys, the group that accompanied Hank Williams, died of cancer.
- Roger Miller was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
- Celine Dion reached No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard 200 with her fourteenth studio album Falling into You. The album reached No. 1 in thirteen countries and sold more than 30 million copies worldwide.
- The first Concert to Benefit the Pedro Zamora Foundation was held. Performers included Joan Osborne, Soul Asylum, Jewel, Extra Fancy, The Presidents of the United States of America, and Dog's Eye View, along with other artists. The proceeds were intended to educate children about AIDS. Pedro Zamora had died two years earlier from an AIDS-related illness and had been a cast member of MTV's The Real World: San Francisco.
- “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” by American band Deep Blue Something reached No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart on October 5, 1996. In the United States, the song reached No. 5, and its title refers to the classic 1961 Audrey Hepburn film Breakfast at Tiffany's.
- Neal McCoy and his wife Melinda held a concert at Longview High School Coliseum in Longview, Texas, raising $150,000 for the East Texas Angel Network. Bryan White, Troy Aikman, Joe Avezzano and Bob Kingsley also contributed. The organization provided financial assistance to families with seriously ill children for medical treatment and related expenses.
- Faith Hill and Tim McGraw were married.
- During the Ghost of Tom Joad tour, Bruce Springsteen sold out his solo acoustic performance at the 2,600-seat Ovens Auditorium in Charlotte, North Carolina, in just eight minutes.
- Scottish singer and songwriter Lewis Capaldi was born in Glasgow. His single “Someone You Loved” reached No. 1 on the UK chart for seven weeks in 2019 and also reached No. 1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 in November of the same year.
- Michael Jackson performed at El Menzah Stadium in Tunis before approximately 60,000 spectators during his HIStory tour. It was his first concert performance in Africa, and the tour subsequently continued in Asia.
- Pearl Jam fan Mark Zupan crowd-surfed his way to the stage in a wheelchair during the band's concert at Fort Lauderdale Stadium. He later became captain of the US wheelchair rugby team and appeared in the film Murderball.
- The Rock the Vote campaign, focused on registering young voters in the United States, received support from the NFL. Quarterbacks Jeff Blake, Drew Bledsoe, Jim Kelly, and Steve Young recorded public service announcements supporting the campaign.
- Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne performed at a benefit concert for environmental organizations at the Britt Pavilion in Jacksonville, Oregon. Their performance was accompanied by the noise of chainsaws from loggers who opposed their efforts to restrict their livelihoods.
- Jimmy Chamberlin, drummer for The Smashing Pumpkins, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of disorderly conduct in connection with heroin use with touring keyboardist Jonathan Melvoin, who subsequently died of an overdose. Chamberlin was fired from the band but returned in 1999.
- Maxwell sold out a concert at the Roxy Theater, which had to be moved from the smaller Cotton Club because of overwhelming demand.
- The U.S. albums chart features an unusual top three: Celine Dion’s Falling Into You is No. 1, Kenny G’s The Moment is No. 2, and Marilyn Manson’s Antichrist Superstar is No. 3.
- British-Australian singer Peter Andre reaches No. 1 on the UK albums chart with his second studio album, Natural.
- The Chemical Brothers reach No. 1 on the UK singles chart with “Setting Sun,” featuring vocals by Noel Gallagher of Oasis.
- After nearly 28 years, the concert film The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus, filmed in December 1968, is released. Alongside the Rolling Stones, it features The Who, Jethro Tull, Taj Mahal, and Marianne Faithfull. John Lennon and Yoko Ono perform with the group Dirty Mac. The Rolling Stones had long delayed its release, reportedly partly because they feared The Who’s performance had overshadowed their own.