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Featured Events
2004Jennifer Lopez marries Marc Anthony. The union lasts 10 years and produces two children: twins Max and Emme.
2002R. Kelly is indicted on 21 counts of child pornography, accused of coercing underage girls into sexual acts.More
2002Eleven weeks after being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Dee Dee Ramone, a founding member of the Ramones, dies of a heroin overdose at age 50.
1993Mariah Carey marries Tommy Mottola, the music executive who signed her to Columbia Records. The marriage, her first, lasts four years.
1983U2 play the Red Rocks amphitheater in Colorado. Despite rain, the concert is intimate and energetic; it is later released as a concert film called Under a Blood Red Sky.
1968Senator Robert Kennedy is shot three times while exiting through a kitchen at a hotel where he delivered a speech after winning the Democratic nomination for president of the United States. This event prompts David Crosby to write "Long Time Gone" and The Rolling Stones to insert the lyrics, "Who killed the Kennedys?" to their new song "Sympathy For The Devil."
1959Robert Zimmerman graduates from Hibbing High School in Minnesota. He moves on to the University of Minnesota, but soon leaves for New York City to become the full-time folk singer, Bob Dylan.
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In Music History
2019Miley Cyrus plays an exploited pop star in the "Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too" episode of Black Mirror. Her character's hit song is a reworking of "Head Like A Hole" as an empowerment anthem called "On A Roll," which is released as a single in real life with a video that gets over 20 million views on YouTube.
2017Kesha is rebuffed when she tries to hug Jerry Seinfeld at a red carpet event - turns out he's not a hugger. The video quickly goes viral.More
2015Shania Twain begins her Rock This Country Tour with a show in Seattle. Billed as her farewell tour, it's her first trek since her 2003-2004 Up! tour.
2013Doo-wop singer Marshall Sewell (of The Edsels) dies of esophageal cancer at age 75.
2013Rob Halford announces that Judas Priest will be re-forming after their retirement two years earlier.
2012Herb Reed (founding member of The Platters) dies of heart disease, among other ailments, at age 83 in Boston, Massachusetts.
2012Blues singer-songwriter Lou Pride, known for the compositions "Long Arm Of The Blues" and "Love From A Stone," dies after a bout of illness at age 68.
2006Elliot Easton of The Cars breaks his clavicle when the band's tour bus swerves to avoid an accident, and Easton falls out of the bunk. Performing with "The New Cars" fronted by Todd Rundgren, he plays four shows in a brace before getting surgery, which ends the tour.
2003Metallica unleash their album St. Anger, with one of the harshest drum tones ever committed to tape.
1999Frankie Laine marries his third wife, Marcia Ann Kline.
1993Conway Twitty dies of an abdominal aortic aneurysm at age 59 after collapsing while on tour in Missouri.
1993Toby Keith scores his first #1 country hit when "Should've Been a Cowboy" reaches the top.
Tom Cruise Turns Rock Star In Rock Of Ages
2012
Tom Cruise stars as rocker Stacee Jaxx in the film adaptation of the Broadway hit Rock of Ages, an homage to '80s rock and glam metal that features songs from Bon Jovi, Twisted Sister, Pat Benatar, and Journey.
It's 1987, and only one rock star can save a dive bar on Los Angeles' Sunset Strip: Tom Cruise. The actor has never starred in a musical before, so he practices several hours a day for months to play Stacee Jaxx, frontman for the fictional band Arsenal. The film opens with Cruise singing Guns N' Roses "Paradise City." We also meet aspiring rocker Drew (Diego Boneta) and his love interest Sherrie (Julianne Hough), who both work at the struggling Bourbon Room, the club that pins its hopes of survival on Arsenal's final concert. Meanwhile, local conservatives (Catherine Zeta-Jones and Bryan Cranston) are determined to destroy the den of iniquity and protest with Twisted Sister's "We're Not Gonna Take It" and Pat Benatar's "Hit Me With Your Best Shot." Drew readies for his big break with Joan Jett's "I Love Rock And Roll" and Foreigner's "Juke Box Hero," while Stacee admits he's "Wanted Dead Or Alive" ala Bon Jovi. By the end, Drew and Sherrie take the stage to sing Drew's "original" song, Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'."
Rock of Ages is an adaptation of the Tony Award-winning 2006 Broadway hit of the same name, which ran for 2,328 performances until it closed on January 18, 2015. The film takes liberties with the storyline - altering a subplot that includes an affair between Stacee and Sherrie and putting the Bourbon Room in danger over a tax debt instead of from German developers - but uses many of the same songs. While the movie only earns a little over $59 million at the box office, the soundtrack peaks at #5 on the Billboard 200 and is certified gold in Canada.
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