28 FEBRUARY
Featured Events
2016 At the Oscars, Lady Gaga is introduced by Vice President Joe Biden and performs "Til It Happens To You" joined by a group of sexual assault survivors. A few minutes later, it loses the Best Song award to Sam Smith's "Writing's On The Wall."More
2012 Fall Out Boy lead singer Patrick Stump makes a blog post titled "We Liked You Better Fat: Confessions of a Pariah" where he writes about hitting a low point with a failed solo album and taunts from audience members. The post prompts FOB bass player Pete Wentz to contact Stump, and they get the band back together, staging a triumphant comeback with their 2013 album Save Rock and Roll and the hit "My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark (Light Em Up)."More
2009 Flo Rida's "Right Round" hits #1 on the Hot 100 for the first of six weeks. An unknown singer named Kesha Sebert provides the hook. She soon becomes a star under the moniker Ke$ha, with the $ in her name included for ironic purposes as she claims money isn't very important to her (which explains why she isn't too upset about getting paid very little for her contribution to this song).
1998 Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On," from the movie Titanic, goes to #1 in the US. The film has been #1 at the box office since December 21, 1997, and the soundtrack has been #1 since January 24, 1998.More
1995 Jewel Kilcher releases her debut album, Pieces of You, under the mononym Jewel.More
1984 Michael Jackson is the big winner at the Grammy Awards, winning eight trophies, including Album of the Year for Thriller and Record of the Year for "Beat It." He makes the ceremony despite being injured the previous day when his hair caught fire shooting a Pepsi commercial.More
1970 The title track of Simon & Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water album hits #1 on the Hot 100, where it remains for six weeks, longer than any other song in 1970.
1968 Frankie Lymon dies of a heroin overdose at age 25.
28 FEBRUARY
In Music History
2019 The composer André Previn dies at 89.
2014 Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale have their third child: Apollo Bowie Flynn.
2012 The Malaysian Government cancels a concert by Erykah Badu scheduled for the following day due to her tattoos, including one with the word "Allah" in Arabic.
2008 Mike Smith (lead vocalist, keyboardist for The Dave Clark Five) dies of pneumonia at age 64.
2006 Ne-Yo's first album, In My Own Words, debuts at #1 in America.
2006 Bruce Springsteen releases Hammersmith Odeon London 1975.
2004 Usher's club anthem "Yeah!," featuring Ludacris and Lil Jon, hits #1 in America. It stays at the top for 12 weeks to become the biggest hit of 2004.
2004 Gigli sweeps the 24th Golden Raspberry Awards with nine nominations and six wins, including Worst Actress for star Jennifer Lopez and Worst Actor for Ben Affleck (whose award also includes his roles in Daredevil and Paycheck). Despite having a highly publicized off-screen romance, the pair also lands Worst Screen Couple.
1999 Hole and Marilyn Manson kick off their joint Beautiful Monsters tour with a show in Spokane, Washington, but cancel it after nine dates when Hole pulls out and Manson injures his ankle on stage.
1998 Columbia Records releases Train's self-titled debut album, which the band issued independently in 1996 after the label passed on it. It includes their first hit, "Meet Virginia."
1998 Garth Brooks hosts Saturday Night Live. As the musical guest, he performs his hit "Two Piña Coladas."
1996 22-year-old Alanis Morissette becomes the youngest artist to win the Grammy for Album of the Year when Jagged Little Pill takes the prize. She holds the record until 2010, when 20-year-old Taylor Swift nabs the title with Fearless.
1996 Alison Krauss and Shenandoah's "Somewhere In The Vicinity Of The Heart" wins the Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration With Vocals. The single, a #7 hit, was Krauss's first Top 10 entry on the country chart.
1995 Mike Watt of Minutemen and Firehose releases his first solo album, Ball-Hog or Tugboat?, with an all-star team of guest musicians including Eddie Vedder, Dave Grohl, Flea, Henry Rollins and Frank Black. Vedder and Grohl join his band for the subsequent tour.
1995 Billie Joe Armstrong (of Green Day) and wife Adrienne welcome their first child, son Joseph "Joey" Marciano Armstrong, named for Ramones singer Joey Ramone.
Pretty In Pink Movie Reboots Psychedelic Furs Song
1986The movie Pretty In Pink, based on the Psychedelic Furs song but with a very distorted interpretation of the lyric, is released in theaters.
The song first appeared in 1981 on the Psychedelic Furs' second album, Talk Talk Talk. It did well in their native UK, but was little known to all but the most musically adventurous Americans, the kind Molly Ringwald plays in Pretty In Pink, where her character works at a record store. Ringwald was also the teen star of the John Hughes movies Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club. When Hughes heard the song "Pretty In Pink," he used it as the title and basis for his next movie, staring Ringwald as Andie, a poor but feisty high school girl who ends up in a homemade pink prom dress, looking pretty. The song though, bears no resemblance to the plot. The lyric describes a girl named Caroline who sleeps around. She thinks she's hot stuff, but the guys make fun of her when she's not around. The movie, which deals with teenage romance and class divides, distills the song to a literal meaning, which isn't what the group had in mind. It does, however, boost their profile in America, a nut they'd been trying to crack since 1983 when lead singer Richard Butler and his bass player brother Tim moved there from England. The Psychedelic Furs recorded a new version for the movie that sanded off the rough edges and brought the song up to date musically with others on the soundtrack, including "If You Leave" by OMD. They also made a new video incorporating clips from the film. Released as a single, this new version of "Pretty In Pink" becomes their most famous song in the States. Lead singer Richard Butler is grateful for the exposure but troubled by the interpretation. "It was nothing like the spirit of the song at all," he says. The film isn't a blockbuster but becomes a cultural touchstone, with many who see it in their teens remembering it as vividly as their first crush. The Psychedelic Furs' record company pushes the band in a pop direction for their 1987 album Midnight To Midnight, which contains the memorable "Heartbreak Beat." This proves bad for their health: Richard Butler feels overworked and compromised, and develops a heart condition from the stress. The group puts out two more albums before calling it quits in 1991. When they return to action in 2000, it's with a new appreciation for their old songs. "Pretty In Pink" remains a crowd favorite.
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