23 JULY
Featured Events
2014 Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin gets a speeding ticket in her hometown of Wasilla. She blames her excessive speed (63mph in a 45) on Sammy Hagar's "I Can't Drive 55," which was playing on her radio. When Hagar gets word, he tweets Palin offering to cover the ticket.
2011 Amy Winehouse dies in London of alcohol poisoning at the age of 27.More
2002 New Jersey-based alt rockers My Chemical Romance release their vampire-themed debut album, I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love. Released through the independent punk label Eyeball Records, it was produced by Thursday frontman Geoff Rickly.More
2001 Three years after the death of first wife, Linda, Paul McCartney gets engaged to former model and activist Heather Mills, whom he met at a charity event in 1999. The marriage lasts six years (including a two-year separation) and produces a daughter - Beatrice Milly McCartney - and a large settlement for Mills.
1988 Paula Abdul makes her first appearance on the US Albums chart when Forever Your Girl enters at #184. Sixty-four weeks later, it rises to #1, setting a record for most weeks on the chart before hitting the top spot.
1984 Vanessa Williams gives up her Miss America crown midway through her run after naked pictures of her appear in Penthouse. The controversy doesn't keep her from becoming a very popular actress and singer: in 1991 she releases her #1 hit "Save The Best For Last."
1971 Bluegrass-country performer Alison Krauss is born in Decatur, Illinois. She meets Union Station bandmate Dan Tyminski at a 1984 festival held by the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass in America.
23 JULY
In Music History
2021 Morgan Wallen appears on Good Morning America to address his use of a racial slur six months earlier. He says he was "ignorant," went to rehab to address his problem, and will donate $500,000 to racial justice organizations. The amount is his estimate of his sales uplift from the controversy.
2018 The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) warns against the trend of jumping out of moving cars and dancing to Drake's "In My Feelings."More
2010 Kings of Leon have a strange encounter during a show in St. Louis when just a few songs into their set, they abruptly leave the stage, complaining about a flurry of bird poop coming from a flock of pigeons chilling in the rafters. The band never returns, and a full refund is made available to all concertgoers.
2009 Danny "Dirty Dan" McBride (lead guitarist for Sha Na Na) dies in his sleep at age 63.
2009 Further to Nas and Kelis squabbling over child support and divorce for the past few months, with both sides accusing each other of infidelity, Los Angeles Superior Court orders Nas to pay Kelis nearly $40,000 in monthly support, with Kelis receiving $30,471 in spousal support per month, and the couple's son receiving $9,027 per month.
2005 For the first time, Lollapalooza stays put, with the first of two shows at Grant Park in Chicago. Pixies, Billy Idol and Weezer all perform.
2003 In a bizarre ad placed in Variety, James Brown announces his separation from his fourth wife, Tomi Rae, by featuring a picture of the couple and their two-year-old, James Brown II, posing with Goofy at Disney World.
2003 The US National Registry of Historic Places declares Memphis, Tennessee's Sun Studios, at 706 Union Avenue, a historic landmark.
2001 Megadeth is banned from playing in Malaysia, where they have a concert scheduled in three weeks. They are forced to cancel, as authorities say their albums contain "unsuitable imagery."
2000 Mike Diamond of Beastie Boys gets mangled in a bike accident while riding in New York City, forcing the group to cancel their planned Rhyme & Reason tour with Rage Against the Machine. Diamond, who took the spill after hitting a dastardly pothole, has surgery to repair a fifth degree joint dislocation in his shoulder.
1996 Rob Collins (keyboardist for The Charlatans UK) dies in a car crash at age 33.
1994 The International Astronomical Union names an asteroid in Mars' orbit ZappaFrank, after the musician Frank Zappa, who'd passed away from cancer the year before.
1993 Poetic Justice, starring Janet Jackson (in braids) and Tupac Shakur, opens in theaters. Jackson has been acting on TV since she was a kid, appearing regularly on Good Times and Diff'rent Strokes, but the film marks her big-screen debut.
1989 Ringo Starr begins his first tour since The Beatles stopped touring in 1966, introducing his "All-Starr Band" of '70s stars in Dallas, Texas.
Fiona Apple, 18, Releases Debut Album, Tidal
1996Fiona Apple, 18, releases her debut album, Tidal, featuring "Shadowboxer" and "Criminal." It sells over 3 million copies in America.
Apple got her record deal before she ever played live. A musical prodigy, she was writing songs by the time she was 11. Her high-school years were rough: she lived with her mom in New York City (her parents, never married, split when she was 4), and felt like an outcast. Music was her retreat - her way of expressing her internal struggles and making sense of the world. When she realized she would have to choose a profession at some point, she made a demo tape with three of the songs she wrote. Her friend gave it to a music publicist she was babysitting for, and Apple landed her deal. Less than a year later, Tidal was released with one song from the demo, "Never Is A Promise," on the track list. With the weight of Sony Music behind her, the highly introverted Apple sets out to promote the album with a series of showcases, interviews and performances. It quickly becomes clear that she will speak unflinchingly about the heartbreaks and horrors that inspired many of the songs on the album. One story she tells over and over is the one about being raped outside her apartment when she was 12, the subject of "Sullen Girl." The album gradually gains a following among those a generation older than Apple who appreciate her elegant artistry, and among fellow teenagers who relate to her soul-baring stories. In the summer of 1997, she joins the Lilith Fair; in September, she makes an indelible mark at the MTV Video Music Awards in her acceptance speech for Best New Artist, telling the audience, "This world is bulls--t," meaning the world of vacuous celebrity. In a concurrent controversy, her "Criminal" video takes a lot of heat for the jailbait imagery. In the clip, Apple looks dour and dissociated in a basement scene with other lightly clothed young people. All the attention pushes the song onto the pop chart, giving Apple the only Hot 100 hit of her career. Tidal takes off, but the downforce of all the media attention and public appearances finally wears Apple down, and in March 1998, she cancels her tour. "Criminal" is the only song Apple ever dashed off quickly to produce a hit. She doesn't do that again. Her next album, When the Pawn..., is filled with more intensely confessional songs. This time, Apple limits her touring and cuts back on the publicity. Over time, she becomes more reclusive and her albums are released farther apart.
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