Chart Rigger's five-year anniversary week is winding down and will conclude tomorrow. Hope you've been enjoying the trip down memory lane! Today's focus in the pop music timeline is the year 2008. As with the other years featured this week, all the facts are pulled from actual posts that appeared on the blog over the past half a decade.* JANUARY 2008: Actor Heath Ledger dies at age 28 in New York City. New Kids On The Block announce they're reuniting after 14 years. Former American Idol winners Ruben Studdard and Taylor Hicks are dropped from their labels, as is Idol runner-up Katharine McPhee. The Virgin Megastore on Sunset Blvd. in Los Angeles closes after 15 years. Ace Of Base (minus Linn Berggren) announce that they're working on new songs. Natalie Imbruglia and husband Daniel Johns of Silverchair split.
* FEBRUARY 2008: The Spice Girls reunion tour is cut short when Victoria Beckham pulls out. Australia and China are jilted. Heidi Montag of MTV's The Hills stuns the masses—for all the wrong reasons—with her debut music video "Higher." Take That win BRIT Awards for Best Live Act and Best Single ("Shine"). Duffy tops the U.K. chart with "Mercy." Chart Rigger begins the nostalgic "Throwback" series.
* MARCH 2008: Madonna unveils the cover 11th studio album Hard Candy. It's not pretty. Leona Lewis makes her U.S. debut on The Oprah Winfrey Show and tops the Billboard Hot 100 with "Bleeding Love," making her the first U.K. female artist to do so in 21 years. Danish pop act Alphabeat land their single "Fascination" at #6 on the U.K. chart.
* APRIL 2008: Mariah Carey and Madonna duke it out on the Hot 100 after releasing new singles in the same week. The result: Mariah hits #1 with "Touch My Body," while Madonna lands at #3 with "4 Minutes." Carey moves past Elvis Presley and is now second only to The Beatles with the most American chart-toppers; the Fab Four had 20, while Mimi has 18.
* MAY 2008: David Cook wins American Idol. Mariah Carey confirms that she secretly married Nick Cannon on the Bahamian island of Windermere. Boy band mogul Louis Pearlman is sentenced to 25 years in the clink for money laundering and tricking me into buying shit albums that only had two good songs apiece on them in the late '90s. Rihanna tops the U.S. chart with "Take A Bow."
* JUNE 2008: Hillary Clinton concedes the Democratic Primary race to Barack Obama. Coldplay top both the U.S. and U.K. singles charts with "Viva La Vida." A week later the song is bumped off the Billboard Hot 100 by Katy Perry's "I Kissed A Girl." After nearly six-and-a-half years, I quit my job at Instinct magazine.
* JULY 2008: Christopher Ciccone releases boring tell-all Life With My Sister Madonna.
* AUGUST 2008: Both Madonna and Michael Jackson turn
* SEPTEMBER 2008: Clay Aiken shocks no one by coming out in a People cover story. Britney Spears wins three MTV VMAs. Christina Aguilera cops Lady Gaga's look and Goldfrapp's sound for new single "Keeps Gettin' Better." The Killers release "Human." Pink tops the U.S. chart with "So What" while Kings Of Leon top the U.K. chart with "Sex On Fire."
* OCTOBER 2008: Britney Spears' "Womanizer" becomes her first single to top the U.S. chart since "Baby...One More Time" in 1999. High School Musical 3 is released in theaters. Jennifer Hudson's mother, brother and nephew are murdered. Irish boy band Boyzone release "I Love You Anyway," their first single in nine years. Girls Aloud top the U.K. chart with "The Promise."
* NOVEMBER 2008: Senator Barack Obama is elected the 44th President of the United States. Indie vampire movie Twilight takes a bite out of pop culture. MTV pulls the plug on Total Request Live after 10 years. Guns N' Roses release Chinese Democracy, an album that took 13 years and $13 million to record. It tanks. Christina Aguilera tells the Los Angeles Times she doesn't know if Lady Gaga is a man or a woman. Meanwhile, Lady Gaga's debut single "Just Dance" cracks the U.S. Top 10. Rick Astley rickrolls the entire Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade by appearing on a float. Take That debut at #1 on the U.K. chart with new single "Greatest Day."
* DECEMBER 2008: Britney Spears releases her sixth album Circus. Madonna reaches a divorce settlement with husband of ten years Guy Ritchie. Beyonce tops the U.S. chart with "Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)." Alexandra Burke wins The X Factor. Chart Rigger selects Pussycat Dolls' "When I Grow Up" as the Worst Single Of 2008, and Chris Brown's "Forever" as the Best Pop Single Of 2008.
ALSO SEE:
* The Chart Rigger Timeline, Part One: 2005
* The Chart Rigger Timeline, Part Two: 2006
* The Chart Rigger Timeline, Part Three: 2007