Roswell Incident Leads To Spate Of UFO Songs
1947New Mexico's Roswell Daily Record reports an alien aircraft has crashed near a local ranch with the headline "RAAF Captures Flying Saucer In Roswell Region." In the coming decades, extraterrestrials and flying saucers invade several songs, including David Bowie's "Starman," Megadeth's "Hangar 18," and Radiohead's "Subterranean Homesick Alien."
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2023 Elton John wraps up his farewell tour with a show in Stockholm. The trek started in 2018 and played to over 6 million fans in 22 countries. It sets the mark for highest-grossing tour with over $900 million, a record broken months later by Taylor Swift's Eras tour.
1996 Spice Girls release their debut single, "Wannabe," in the UK. It shoots to #1, setting Spice-mania in motion. The single is released in the US in January 1997, and climbs to the top spot there as well.
1981 The Go-Go's release their debut album, Beauty and the Beat. It reaches #1 in the US, becoming the first by an all-girl band to do so.
1978 After a disco-rific six months at #1, the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack is finally bumped off the top spot by Gerry Rafferty's City To City.More
1972 Bill Withers' "Lean On Me" hits #1 in America. The song endures as a message of compassion and goodwill; in 1989 it is used as the theme to the movie Lean On Me, about a troubled school and its no-nonsense principal.
1967 In Jacksonville, Jimi Hendrix opens for The Monkees in a musical train wreck. Hendrix plays seven more shows with the pop stars before leaving the tour.
1954 Dewey Phillips at WHBQ in Memphis becomes the first DJ to play an Elvis Presley song when he spins "That's Alright Mama" on his Red Hot & Blue show. The switchboard lights up, so Phillips keeps playing the song, giving Elvis some prime publicity early in his career.
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