25 JULY
Featured Events
2001 Aaliyah gives her final performance, singing "More Than a Woman" on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Exactly one month later, she is flying back from a video shoot in the Bahamas when the overloaded plane crashes and explodes on the runway, killing everyone on board.
1989 After leaving Def Jam, Beastie Boys release their second album, Paul's Boutique, on Capitol Records.More
1980 AC/DC release Back In Black, their first album without lead singer Bon Scott, who died five months earlier.More
1975 The musical A Chorus Line debuts on Broadway, the first of 6,137 performances in a 15-year run.
1965 Dylan plugs in! At the Newport Folk Festival, Bob Dylan plays an electric set for the first time, horrifying folkies everywhere.More
1964 The Beatles' A Hard Day's Night goes to #1 in America, where it stays for 14 weeks. It is already the #1 album in the UK, where it has a 21-week run at the top.
25 JULY
In Music History
2020 Fleetwood Mac founder Peter Green dies at 73. Green gave the band a strident blues sound before leaving in 1970.
2019 PledgeMusic, a platform for fans to fund musicians, goes offline without delivering the money pledged to hundreds of artists.More
2017 Barbara Sinatra, widow of Frank Sinatra, dies at age 90. Barbara was married to the singer from 1976 until his 1998 death.
2012 MGA Entertainment, the toy corporation behind the "Bratz" line of dolls, files a lawsuit against Lady Gaga, alleging that she and her managers delayed approval on marketing a Lady Gaga doll. MGA calls it "breach of contract" and is asking for $10 million - this, only eight months after the deal was struck.
2010 John Fogerty performs "Centerfield" at the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame induction ceremonies, where he donates a guitar shaped like a baseball bat.More
2009 Red's Recovery Room shuts its doors for good. Luckily, the beloved roadhouse has already been immortalized in Tom Waits' song "Filipino Box Spring Hog."
2009 World War I veteran Harry Patch, subject of the Radiohead song "Harry Patch (In Memory Of)," dies at age 111.
2003 Erik Braunn (Iron Butterfly guitarist) dies of a heart attack related to a birth defect in Los Angeles, California, at age 52.
2001 The Doors' John Densmore, Bonnie Raitt, and others are arrested in Itasca, Illinois, for demonstrating against a company which they claim destroys the rainforest.
2000 LeAnn Rimes releases the Christian-pop single "I Need You" from the soundtrack to the TV miniseries Jesus. It peaks at #11 on the Hot 100 and stays on the chart for 25 weeks.
1999 Woodstock '99 comes to a fiery conclusion as the crowd loots and burns anything they can find while the Red Hot Chili Peppers play the last set. Poor conditions and a mostly collage-age crowd swelled by testosterone and nu metal have made the riot pretty much inevitable. Remarkably, there are relatively few injuries; when police arrive, the crowd seems more than happy to leave.
1998 Jazz guitarist Tal "Octopus" Farlow dies from esophageal cancer at age 77 in New York City.
1995 Nina Simone is arrested for firing a pellet gun at noisy teenagers playing near her home in the south of France, for which she is placed on an 18-month probation and ordered to seek counseling.
1995 Bone Thugs-N-Harmony release their breakthrough album E. 1999 Eternal, which sells over 4 million copies. The big hit from the set is "Tha Crossroads," which wins a Grammy for Best Rap Performance By a Duo or Group.
1995 Country performer Charlie Rich, known for "Behind Closed Doors" and "The Most Beautiful Girl," dies of a blood clot at age 62 at a motel in Hammond, Louisiana.
ESPN Creates A New Genre: Jock Jams
1995ESPN releases Jock Jams, Volume 1, an album of high-energy, stadium-friendly hits like "Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)" by C+C Music Factory and "Get Ready For This" by 2 Unlimited. It sells over 2 million copies and leads to four more compilations.
ESPN and Tommy Boy Records first teamed for a compilation of sporting event favorites in 1994 with Jock Rock, a collection of oldies like "Tequila" and "Born To Be Wild" that have been playing in stadiums for decades. But if you really want to fire up the crowd, you need to pump up the jams... the Jock Jams. Jock Jams, Volume 1 is much more contemporary, with the kind of hip-hop and techno grooves that fill up dance floors at clubs. There's "Hip Hop Hooray" by Naughty By Nature, "The Power" by Snap, "Unbelievable" by EMF. For the dads, there's "Rock And Roll Part 2" (the one that goes "na na na na na na na...HEY!") and "Y.M.C.A." But it's not just music. The set opens with boxing announcer Michael Buffer's trademark "Let's get ready to rumble!" (Buffer really did trademark the phrase) segueing into "Get Ready 4 This" by 2 Unlimited. There are cheerleaders, marching bands, even hot dog hawkers recorded at Yankee Stadium. It's one of several big brand extensions for ESPN, along with a magazine, website, sports bars and video games. The album sells over two million copies, and the next year, Volume 2 is released, this time with "This Is How We Do It" and "Macarena." Volume 3, released in 1997, features a mashup called "The Jock Jam" that includes snippets of 17 different songs along with calls and chants. Released as a single, it charts at #31 in America. This disc also includes the manic version of "Cotton Eye Joe" by Rednex, which becomes a staple of between-inning entertainment at minor league baseball games. Volume 4, released in 1998, opens with Austin Powers doing his "yeah baby" catchphrase followed by bangers like "Gettin' Jiggy Wit It" and "Raise The Roof" (raising the roof, where an athlete celebrates by pushing both palms to the sky, is trending). Each of these albums goes Platinum, but record labels start licensing their jams instead to the Now That's What I Call Music! compilation series, run by Sony and Universal. The last Jock Jams album appears in 2001.
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