Pick a Day

17 APRIL

In Music History

2026 Madonna makes a surprise appearance during Sabrina Carpenter's headlining set at Coachella, rising from the stage to perform "Vogue" and "Like a Prayer" alongside Carpenter and debut "Bring Your Love," the lead single from her upcoming Confessions II album. Madonna's first appearance at the festival was 20 years earlier in 2006 when she prepared to launch her Confessions Tour.

2026 Nine Inch Nails and German electronic-music producer Alex Ridha (known professionally as Boys Noize) release a collaborative album titled Nine Inch Noize. The 12-track collection features various remixes, including versions of older Nine Inch Nails songs, a tune by the Trent Reznor side project How To Destroy Angels, and a cover of British synth-pop duo Soft Cell's "Memorabilia."

2020 Fiona Apple releases her fifth album, Fetch The Bolt Cutters, her first since 2012. The title is a reference to a line Gillian Anderson says in the TV series The Fall and is a metaphor for setting yourself free.

2018 Tina Turner's life story, already depicted in the 1993 film What's Love Got To Do With It, is adapted for the stage as Tina: The Musical, opens in London's West End. It opens on Broadway the following year.

2010 When Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros frontman Alex Ebert takes the stage at Coachella, he clumsily knocks a microphone stand into the crowd. A guy in the audience catches it with his forehead, and blood spills all over the place. Ebert, horrified, gives the guy his sportcoat and his shirt to staunch the bleeding, and performs the set topless. It proves a breakout performance for the band, whose song "Home" starts showing up everywhere.

2009 Brad Paisley and his wife, Kimberly Williams, welcome their second child, Jasper. His song "Today" is about this event.

2009 Davy Jones of The Monkees visits Bikini Bottom when he plays himself on the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "SpongeBob SquarePants vs. The Big One."

2008 Danny Federici (organist, accordionist for Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band) dies at age 58 after three years of suffering with melanoma.

2007 Arcturus officially announces they are splitting up.

2003 Blues musician Earl King, composer of the standards "I Hear You Knocking" and "One Night," dies at age 69 of diabetes-related complications.

2000 "I Will Survive" singer Gloria Gaynor makes an appearance on Ally McBeal.

1997 Country singer Toby Keith and his wife Tricia welcome new arrival Stelen Keith Covel to the family.

1993 Susanna Hoffs of The Bangles marries screenwriter Jay Roach in Los Angeles.

1991 Jack Yellen, lyricist and screenwriter who wrote "Happy Days Are Here Again" (1929), dies in Concord, New York, at age 98.

1989 Neil Young releases an EP titled Eldorado. Released exclusively in Japan and Australia and recorded with a one-time backing band called The Restless, it contains three songs ("Don't Cry," "Eldorado" and "On Broadway") that will appear on Freedom six months later.