Pick a Day

Music History Events: Innovations

March 24, 2020 Producers Swizz Beatz and Timbaland face off in the first Verzuz battle, where songwriters, producers and artists take turns performing their hits and are judged by an online audience. The series quickly becomes very popular, regularly drawing virtual audiences in the six figures. Popular battles include Gladys Knight vs Patti LaBelle, Teddy Riley vs Babyface, and Erykah Badu vs Jill Scott.

February 2, 2019 Marshmello performs a virtual concert inside the online game Fortnite that is seen by an estimated 10 million gamers. To pull it off, he is rigged to a body-motion suit that transfers his movements to the screen. It's the first large-scale integration of a concert within a video game.

August 25, 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

September 26, 2014 Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke releases his second solo album, Tomorrow's Modern Boxes, for just $6 on the peer-to-peer file-sharing platform BitTorrent. According to the album's producer, Nigel Godrich, "It could be an effective way of handing some control of Internet commerce back to people who are creating the work." In just over a week, the album averages 1.8 million downloads.

September 30, 2012 Faith Hill becomes the first country artist to debut a song on Twitter when she posts "American Heart."

December 1, 2011 It's a good day for comedy writers and late-night talk show hosts as Hanson announce they will be selling MMMHop beer.

October 7, 2008 Spotify launches. The most-streamed song for October is "Viva La Vida" by Coldplay; for all of 2008 it's "Human" by The Killers. Ten years later, the company boasts 180 million active users and over 40 million songs.

October 30, 2006 Keane becomes the first major act to release a song on a USB memory stick. For £3.99, fans can purchase the 512MB drive at HMV stores, plug it into a computer, and transfer the track "Nothing In My Way" along with various videos and screensavers. The "single on a stick" format would fail to catch on.

April 11, 2006 For the 25-year anniversary reissue of David Byrne and Brian Eno's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts album, the multi-tracks for two songs - "A Secret Life" and "Help Me Somebody" - are made available for download, for fans to remix and upload to the website.

December 6, 2005 T-Pain, 20, releases his first solo album, Rappa Ternt Sanga, the first major release with an Auto-Tune effect on every song. Soon, Auto-Tune is everywhere, with Kanye West, Lil Wayne, Migos and many other rappers embracing it.

April 19, 2002 "Jeepster" by T. Rex becomes the first song successfully identified by Shazam in a pre-launch version of the service that requires the user to call a number and receive a text message with the name of the song.

October 23, 2001 Apple introduces the iPod, an MP3 player that can hold about 1000 songs, making digital music portable. Most users fill their devices with songs ripped from their CD collections or downloaded from file-sharing sites like Napster.

March 25, 2001 At the Academy Awards, where she is nominated for Best Song from her movie Dancer In The Dark, Bjork wears a swan dress complete with a purse that looks like an egg, which she "lays" on the red carpet. Such bold fashion would not be seen again until Lady Gaga's emergence.

July 13, 1999 In support of their acclaimed synth-infused album The Soft Bulletin, The Flaming Lips embark on a "headphones tour" that combines pre-recorded material, provided to the audience through customized headsets, with the live stage show.More

March 17, 1999 Sinead O'Connor records the first ever single via the Internet in a BBC studio as part of the Tomorrow's World program. The song is a cover of Bob Marley's "Them Belly Full (But We Hungry)" recorded for the War Child charity.

July 16, 1982 Peter Gabriel launches the 3-day WOMAD (World of Music, Arts and Dance) festival at the Royal Bath and West showground in Somerset, England, with acts including the Drummers Of Burundi, Echo & the Bunnymen, and the Tian Jin dancers from China. It's a financial disaster but artistic success; Gabriel revives it the next year and the festival carries on, branching out to many countries over the next several years.

March 1, 1979 The Coca-Cola Company introduces Mello Yello as a competitor to Pepsi's Mountain Dew in the urine-colored soda category. Donovan hopes they will use his song "Mellow Yellow" in their advertising, but the company declines.

September 30, 1957 The Louis Armstrong album Louis Armstrong Plays King Oliver is recorded at Radio Recorders studio in Hollywood, marking the first stereo album recorded in America.

August 26, 1936 Duke Elllington music, Helen McKay sings "Here's Looking At You" as part of a test transmission for the BBC television service, making it the first song ever broadcast on television.

May 24, 1930 After taking off from Croydon, London, on May 5, the British aviator Amy Johnson lands in Darwin, Australia, inspiring the songs "Amy" (by Horatio Nicholls) and "Flying Sorcery" (by Al Stewart).

October 6, 1927 The first talking picture is released: The Jazz Singer, a musical starring Al Jolson. Irving Berlin's "Blue Skies" is one of the first songs heard by talkie audiences.

February 10, 1927 "Shepherd Of The Hills" becomes the first song to be performed on two Continents immediately after being written. The song was read down the phone at 5pm London time, and performed at the Alhambra at 8:40pm by Jack Hylton and his band. It was performed later that same night in New York.