25 AUGUST
Featured Events
2009 Skillet's Awake album debuts at #2 on the US albums chart, tying with Underoath's Define The Great Line and Casting Crowns' The Altar and the Door for the highest-charting Christian rock album. The album also features their first Hot 100 entry: "Awake and Alive."More
1998 Fugees member Lauryn Hill releases her solo album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. It becomes the first hip-hop album to win the Grammy for Album of the Year.More
1994 Jimmy Page and Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin reunite in a London studio to record the concert that becomes the MTV special Unledded.
1979 The Knack's "My Sharona" hits #1 in the US for the first of six weeks.
1976 Boston release their self-titled debut album, which despite being mostly recorded in Tom Scholz' basement studio, becomes one of the best-selling debuts of all time.More
1975 Bruce Springsteen releases his third album and big breakthrough: Born to Run.
1970 The little-known 23-year-old singer Elton John plays his first live show in the United States, co-headlining with the singer/songwriter David Ackles at The Troubadour in West Hollywood. The show gets rave reviews, giving him a huge career boost in America.More
1970 Jimi Hendrix opens Electric Ladyland Studios in New York City. He dies a few months later, but the studio lives on, with many major acts recording there over the years.
1967 Jimmy Page's band The Yardbirds play the Village Theatre (later the Fillmore East) in New York City, where their opening act, Jake Holmes, plays his song "Dazed And Confused." Later with Led Zeppelin, Page releases a very similar song with the same title.More
1961 Billy Ray Cyrus is born in Flatwoods, Kentucky. The "Achy Breaky Heart" singer is also known as dad to Hannah Montana alum Miley Cyrus.
25 AUGUST
In Music History
2018 During her Reputation tour, Taylor Swift headlines a concert at the Nissan Stadium in Nashville, Tennessee, where Tim McGraw and Faith Hill join her onstage for a performance of her seminal country hit "Tim McGraw."
2018 Neil Young and Daryl Hannah get married in a secret ceremony in Atascadero, California. It's Young's third marriage, her first.
2016 Kanye West begins his Saint Pablo Tour with a concert in Indianapolis. During the show, West performs on a floating stage that hovers about 15 feet over the audience.More
2013 'N Sync reunite to perform at the MTV Video Music Awards, where group member Justin Timberlake accepts the Video Vanguard Award. It's their first performance since 2004; they don't perform again until 2024, when they make a surprise appearance at one of Timberlake's concerts.
2009 Chris Brown is sentenced to five years probation and six months hard labor for assaulting Rihanna in February 2009 the night of the Grammy awards. Brown is also ordered to stay away from her for the next five years and undergo a full year of domestic violence counseling.
2008 The Verve release Forth, their first album since Urban Hymns in 1997. It proves to be their last.
2007 The Veronicas' fashion line for Target is released in Australia. "It's a bit punk princess, mixed with rock 'n' roll,'' says Lisa Origliasso.
2007 While singing his 1968 hit "Fire" on stage in Lewes, England, Arthur Brown catches on fire after wearing his customary tinfoil hat with a small fire burning in the center.
2006 Longtime Aerosmith bassist Tom Hamilton misses his first gig in 24 years after being diagnosed with throat cancer.
2000 Composer Jack Nitzsche dies after a cardiac arrest in Hollywood, California, at age 63. Aside from playing keyboard for The Rolling Stones in the '60s, he co-wrote the 1983 hit "Up Where We Belong" from the romantic drama An Officer and a Gentlemen.
1995 Dutch rock 'n roller Arnie Treffers (of Long Tall Ernie & the Shakers) dies of lung cancer in Westeremden, Groningen, Netherlands, at age 48. Had an international hit in 1977 with "Do You Remember."
1994 Billy Joel is officially divorced from the model Christie Brinkley. Their marriage lasted nine years.
1994 Jimmy Buffett swims to safety after crashing his seaplane while trying to take off in Nantucket.
1993 Snoop Doggy Dogg drives his Jeep Cherokee to Woodbine Park in Los Angeles, where his passenger, McKinley Lee, shoots and kills a rival gang member. Both are tried for murder but found not guilty in 1996.More
1992 Mary J. Blige releases "Real Love," her first Top 10 hit on the Hot 100.
Aaliyah Dies In Plane Crash
2001After shooting the music video for "Rock The Boat" in The Bahamas, 22-year-old Aaliyah dies in a plane crash along with eight others when the overloaded aircraft goes down shortly after takeoff.
Aaliyah's self-titled album debuted at #2 on the Billboard 200 albums chart two months earlier but sales are beginning to wane, making her record labels, Blackground and Virgin Records, anxious for a high-charting single to boost profits. With veteran hip-hop director Hype Williams at the helm, Aaliyah and her entourage head to the Bahamas to shoot a video for "Rock the Boat," a contemporary R&B groove about sexual satisfaction that is sure to rock the charts. Williams, who was keeping busy with a string of clips for the likes of TLC, R. Kelly, and Ginuwine, recalls the laidback beach sessions with fondness for the star: "Some stars have a unique way of capturing their audience without saying a word. That comes from charisma, it comes from charm. A lot of it comes from someplace else. I can't really define it, but I'm always able to recognize it. She had that 'magic,' for lack of a better word." Despite the fun in the sun, Aaliyah is ready to go home early, a day before her flight is scheduled. The aircraft is smaller than the one she and her crew arrived in, but seems to accommodate the seven passengers, including her make-up artist and record execs, and all of their equipment. Shortly after takeoff, however, the overloaded plane crashes and explodes on the runway. An ensuing FAA investigation also finds that pilot Luis Morales III was unlicensed and under the influence of drugs and alcohol. The coroner's report attributes Aaliyah's death to "severe burns and a blow to the head." Aaliyah was being hyped as a rising star in hip-hop-oriented R&B and pop on the strength of her R. Kelly-produced debut, Age Ain't Nothing But A Number, and her sophomore release, One In A Million, the latter pairing her with producers Missy Elliott and Timbaland. The record labels get their wish in the most tragic of ways, as the singer's untimely death does wonders for her album sales. Aaliyah propels to #1, the first time an artist posthumously topped the chart since John Lennon did in 1980 with Double Fantasy. "Rock The Boat" lands at #14 on the pop chart (#2 R&B) and is nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance.
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