16 DECEMBER
Featured Events
2007 Dan Fogelberg dies of prostate cancer at age 56. Emerging out of the '70s soft rock scene, the singer-songwriter made his mark with sensitive records like "Leader Of The Band" and "Same Old Lang Syne."
2003 Shania Twain becomes the first woman with three Diamond albums when the RIAA certifies her fourth album, Up!, with 10 million in sales. Her second and third albums, The Woman in Me (1995) and Come On Over (1997) also went Diamond.
1993 Nirvana's Unplugged concert airs on MTV. A rare look at the band in an acoustic setting, it is one of Kurt Cobain's last performances, as he is found dead less than four months later.
1983 Pete Townshend issues a statement announcing he's leaving The Who, not surprising considering they called their last shows in 1982 their "Farewell Tour." It's far from the end, as they reunite for a seemingly unending series of "reunions," starting with Live-Aid in 1985.
1972 "Me and Mrs. Jones," a song about a man cheating on his wife, knocks Helen Reddy's "I Am Woman" out of the top spot on the Hot 100.
1969 At the Fillmore West in San Francisco, Keith Emerson's band The Nice shares a bill with Greg Lake's band, King Crimson. The pair enjoy a jam session before the show and discuss a partnership, which with the addition of Carl Palmer from Atomic Rooster, becomes Emerson, Lake and Palmer.
1966 The first Jimi Hendrix single is released: "Hey Joe." The song is about a guy shoots his "old lady" after catching her cheating.More
1770 Ludwig van Beethoven is born in Bonn, Germany.
16 DECEMBER
In Music History
2020 After disguising herself as Sun all season, LeAnn Rimes is unmasked as the winner on the season 4 finale of The Masked Singer. She ended her run with an a cappella rendition of Billie Eilish's "When The Party's Over."
2020 After nearly 178 days, Twenty One Pilots pull the plug on the livestream for their "Level Of Concern" video, which refreshed every 3:40 with new footage uploaded by fans. Guinness declares it the longest music video ever made.
2018 With some radio stations pulling "Baby It's Cold Outside" from their holiday playlists in response to the #MeToo movement, WAKY in Louisville, Kentucky plays the song continuously for two hours. Response from listeners is overwhelmingly positive.
2013 Brantley Gilbert releases his country chart-topper "Bottoms Up."
2013 Country singer Ray Price dies of pancreatic cancer at age 87.
2012 Billy Idol fans weep as Miley Cyrus performs "Rebel Yell" on the VH1 Divas special.
2011 The Swedish House Mafia play the first ever electronic dance music show in New York's Madison Square Garden.
2011 Yeah Yeah Yeahs host a special benefit concert for New York DJ and good friend Jonathan Toubin, who a week earlier was seriously injured in a car accident in Portland, Oregon.
2007 Beyoncé hits #1 in America with the Ne-Yo-penned single "Irreplaceable," which spends an astonishing 10 weeks at the top spot.
2001 Big Country lead singer Stuart Adamson commits suicide by hanging himself in his Honolulu hotel room. He was 43.
1997 Nicolette Larson dies of cerebral edema and liver failure at age 45.
1988 Disco sensation Sylvester (Sylvester James Jr.) dies of AIDS at 41.
1984 Dusty Hill of ZZ Top is shot in the stomach when his girlfriend pulls off his boot and his .38-caliber derringer falls out and discharges. The bullet is designed not to exit, but to do internal damage, which is bad news; he makes it to the hospital where doctors remove most of it, but fragments remain in his back.
1984 Just six weeks after first meeting, Bette Midler marries Martin von Haselberg of the UK performance duo The Kipper Kids. Unlike many showbiz unions, this one lasts.
1983 Hoping to jumpstart her flagging acting career after the box-office bomb Xanadu, Olivia Newton-John reunites with Grease co-star John Travolta in the fantasy film Two of a Kind. It flops, but yields the Top 10 hit "Twist Of Fate."
Eminem Tops The UK Chart With "Stan"
2000Eminem lands his second UK #1 when "Stan" tops the chart. The song, which tells the story of a deranged, obsessive fan, samples the lilting Dido song "Thank You," giving her a huge boost in America.
Most of the song is from the voice of Stan, whose letters to Eminem get more manic as the song goes on. When he doesn't hear back from his hero, he loses it. In the last verse, Eminem writes him back, realizing midway through that Stan is the guy he saw on the news who drove his car off a bridge with his girlfriend in the trunk. It's dark matter that makes a salient point: Eminem is just clowning when he says outrageous stuff. Anyone who takes it literally or imitates it is just as unhinged as Stan. The song becomes so ingrained in the culture that in 2017 the word "stan" is entered into the Oxford American Dictionary as a term for an obsessive fan.
Categories
©2024 Songfacts®, LLC
Comments
send your comment