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Featured Events
1984Frankie Goes to Hollywood release their debut album, Welcome To The Pleasuredome, in the UK.More
1983Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon album breaks the record for most weeks on the Billboard albums chart when it eclipses Johnny's Greatest Hits by Johnny Mathis with 491 weeks. Dark Side remains on the chart until 1988, when it drops off with 724 weeks. Thanks to reissues and promotions, it returns from time to time, notching over 880 weeks on the chart in total.
1983"Islands in the Stream," written by the Bee Gees and intended for Marvin Gaye, goes to #1 in the US as a duet by Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton.More
1972Diana Ross and her husband Robert Ellis Silberstein have their second child, Tracee Ellis Ross. She becomes an actress, starring in the TV series Girlfriends and Black-ish.More
1966Powered by a captivating Vox Continental organ riff and a lead singer who always wears sunglasses and goes by the name of "?", "96 Tears" by ? & the Mysterians hits #1 in America.More
29
In Music History
2016John "Buck" Ormsby, bass player for the Wailers (sometimes the "Fabulous" Wailers) and founder of Etiquette Records, passes away from a fall in Mexico.
2014NPR posts T-Pain's Tiny Desk concert, where he sings three songs without Auto-Tune. Listeners are shocked to hear he can sing really well, and the video goes viral, becoming the most popular Tiny Desk concert in the history of the series.
2012While campaigning for the 2012 election, president Barack Obama takes time out to interview with radio station WIZF Cincinnati, to talk about his favorite music artists. Asked "what's on the presidential iPod?," Obama names Stevie Wonder, James Brown, The Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan as his "old school" choices, Jay-Z, Eminem, and Fugees for newer artists, and John Coltrane, Miles Davis, and Gil Scott-Heron amongst his favorite jazz artists.
2009To celebrate the 25th anniversary of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, a series of concerts take place at Madison Square Garden, featuring inductees Bruce Springsteen, Bono, Mick Jagger and Aretha Franklin.
2007Bon Iver signs to Jagjaguwar Records.
2006Billboard executive Tom Noonan, who helped launch the Billboard Hot 100 during his 30-year tenure, dies of bladder cancer at age 78.
2005The wax figures of the younger Beatles used in the cover of the band's Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album are auctioned off for 81,500 pounds in London after being discovered languishing in the backroom of Madame Tussauds' famous wax museum.
2004At a campaign rally in Columbus, Ohio, George W. Bush unveils his new theme song in his presidential re-election campaign: "Still The One" by Orleans. The song's co-writer, John Hall, is watching on CNN and is mortified, as he actively opposes Bush's policies. Along with his band members and the song's co-writer (his ex-wife, Johanna), Hall demands that Bush stop using the song.More
2003Italian opera singer Franco Corelli dies at age 82, months after suffering a stroke.
2003A study by the Nielsen ratings people finds that a full third of the sales of Beatles 1 were to new fans between the ages of 19 and 24, skewing the fan base even younger than it had been previously.
2001Henry Berthold "Spike" Robinson, jazz tenor saxophonist, dies at age 71.
2001Musician/poet Gil Scott-Heron is sentenced to 1-3 years in state prison in a New York court, after failing to appear at an Oct. 1 hearing regarding the mandatory drug rehabilitation required by his plea bargain on an earlier drug possession charge.
2000The Spice Girls score their ninth and final UK #1 hit as the double-sided "Holler"/"Let Love Lead The Way" reaches the top of the chart.
1998Singer/guitarist Brian Setzer files suit against Ken Kinnally, a former member of Setzer's pre-Stray Cats group the Bloodless Pharaohs. Setzer alleges that, without his knowledge or consent, Kinnally licensed 1978 studio tracks and 1979 live recordings to Collectibles Records, which issued an album titled Brian Setzer & the Bloodless Pharaohs.
1998Dead Kennedys lead singer Jello Biafra is sued by his bandmates over unpaid royalties. They eventually win the case and gain control of the group's songs and the rights to the name. In 2001, they re-form with a new lead singer replacing Biafra, who never re-unites with the band.
Slash Out Of Guns N' Roses
1996Axl Rose announces that Slash is no longer a member of Guns N' Roses. Slash forms Slash's Snakepit and Velvet Revolver, while Axl keeps GnR going with a variety of new faces.
In 1991, Guns N' Roses embarked on their Use Your Illusion Tour, which lasted two-and-a-half years. Axl Rose insisted on grandiose treatment, with lavish parties and amenities to rival The Rolling Stones, whom they opened for a few years earlier. But Rose didn't always show up, and when he did, it was often hours late, resulting in massive curfew fees. He also had a tendency to incite riots. And he was the (relatively) clean one, staying away from drugs while his bandmates indulged. During this time, he gained control of the band name by threatening to abandon the tour. In 1994, Axl took more control of the band in the studio, pushing them in a more techno direction. They recorded a cover of "Sympathy For The Devil" for the film Interview With The Vampire, but couldn't accomplish much more. With the band in stasis, Slash, Gilby Clarke and Matt Sorum formed Slash's Snakepit and released their first album, recorded in just two weeks, in 1995. Only Axl Rose can decide who is an official member of the band, and on October 29, 1996 he breaks news to MTV in a terse and mercurial fax that Slash is out. It's the first the public has heard from him in two years, and it's big news. In the fax, Axl reveals that there will be no tour, videos, website, fan club or merchandise. There will be "a new Guns N' Roses 12 song minimum recording with three original B sides," but "Slash will not be involved in any new Guns N' Roses endeavors." That "12 song minimum recording" ends up being Chinese Democracy, which isn't released until 2008. Axl is the only original member to play on it; contributors include Paul Tobias, Tommy Stinson, Frank Ferrer and Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal. In 2002, GnR alumni Slash, Duff McKagan and Matt Sorum form Velvet Revolver with Scott Weiland, whose band Stone Temple Pilots has disbanded. In 2004, their debut album, Contraband, goes to #1 in America on its way to selling over 2 million copies. In 2016, Slash and McKagan join the band for a headlining appearance at Coachella, and also for a few shows leading up to it. This goes surprisingly well, so they keep it going with the Not In This Lifetime tour. It's the fourth-highest-grossing tour of 2016, behind Bruce Springsteen, Beyoncé and Coldplay.
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