Pick a Day

24 JUNE

In Music History

2022 The movie Elvis, directed by Baz Luhrmann, hits theaters, starring Austin Butler as Presley. The soundtrack includes new songs by Eminem ("The King and I") and Doja Cat ("Vegas") along with Elvis songs in their original form and in new versions by the likes of Kacey Musgraves ("Can't Help Falling In Love") and Måneskin ("If I Can Dream").

2021 A section of Van Arsdale Place in Teaneck, New Jersey, is renamed The Isley Brothers Way in honor of The Isley Brothers, who formed there and named their record label, T-Neck, after the township.

2014 A copy of Caustic Window, an album by Richard James (aka Aphex Twin) that was abandoned after test-pressing allegedly only five copies, sells for $46,300 on eBay. The winner is Markus Persson, creator of video game Minecraft.

2011 Beyoncé releases 4. It's her fourth album; the title also references her favorite number, as she was born on September 4 and married on April 4.

2010 JoJo Billingsley (backing vocalist for Lynyrd Skynyrd) dies of cancer at age 58.

2008 A blogger who had thought it would be a good idea to leak some finished tracks from Guns N' Roses' Chinese Democracy receives a visit from the FBI and a cease-and-desist letter.

2004 Doris Day receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

1999 Pioneering music technologist and World War II veteran John Thomas "Jack" Mullin dies of a heart attack at 85 years old.

1997 Sugar Ray release their second album, Floored, with their breakthrough hit "Fly."

1995 Eddie Vedder, felled by a bad tuna fish sandwich, has to leave Pearl Jam's show at the Polo Fields in San Francisco after seven songs. Neil Young, on hand to play a song or two as a special guest, takes over, playing 14 songs to quell a potential riot. The No Code song "Red Mosquito" is about this incident.

1994 Weezer release "Undone - The Sweater Song," the first single from their debut album, Weezer (aka The Blue Album).

1993 The California band Severe Tire Damage pull off the first webcast in history, live streaming a concert from the Xerox Research Center in Palo Alto to an extremely small audience. The next year, The Rolling Stones become the first major artist to do a webcast.

1991 14-year-old Shakira releases her debut album, Magia. Though sales are dismal, the collection of Spanish-language pop tunes boosts her visibility in her native Colombia. Two years later, she releases its followup, Peligro.

1982 Jeffrey Daniel of Shalamar does the Moonwalk on the British TV show Top Of The Pops, getting the attention of Michael Jackson, who popularizes it in America a year later.More

1978 Jackson Browne and Pete Seeger perform in Seabrook, New Hampshire, to protest a nuclear reactor planned for the site. It's one of the first "no nukes" rallies where musicians get involved, and it leads to a more organized effort: Musicians United For Safe Energy (MUSE), which also involves Bruce Springsteen, Bonnie Raitt, James Taylor. The Seabrook plant is built, but efforts to build more are thwarted, as opposition to nuclear power becomes more vociferous.