15 JUNE
Featured Events
2017 Jay-Z becomes the first rapper inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
2016 Jimmy Page takes the stand in a trial where he is accused of stealing part of the song "Taurus" for the intro to "Stairway To Heaven." Led Zeppelin played on the same bills with the band Spirit, who performed "Taurus" in their sets, but Page says he never heard that song before writing "Stairway." The jury rules in favor of Led Zeppelin.
1999 After a seven-year recording hiatus, Santana release the album Supernatural, which goes to #1 thanks to hit singles like "Smooth," "Maria Maria," and "Put Your Lights On." It's their first chart-topping album in 28 years.More
1996 The Beastie Boys host the first Tibetan Freedom Concert, with performers that include Sonic Youth, Smashing Pumpkins and John Lee Hooker. About 100,000 attend the two shows, raising money for the Milarepa Fund.More
1994 The Disney film The Lion King hits theaters. A runaway hit, the movie takes in over $300 million in 1994, second only to Forrest Gump. The soundtrack goes Diamond, meaning over 10 million copies sold - a record for the soundtrack to an animated film.More
1989 Nirvana's debut album, Bleach, is released, with a cover tune as its lead single.More
1986 At Giants Stadium in New Jersey, The Police headline the last concert on the Conspiracy of Hope tour, which benefits Amnesty International. They have plans to record an album, but scrap them after drummer Stewart Copeland is injured in a polo match. The trio does not tour again until 2007.
1967 Peter Green leaves John Mayall's Bluesbreakers to form Fleetwood Mac. He hires Mick Fleetwood, but it takes John McVie four months to leave The Bluesbreakers and join the band named after him.
15 JUNE
In Music History
2017 Shania Twain releases "Life's About To Get Good," her first single in five years.
2014 American Top 40 host (and voice of Shaggy on Scooby Doo) Casey Kasem dies at age 82.
2013 Roger LaVern (keyboardist for The Tornados) dies at age 75.
2012 The conservative radio and TV personality Glenn Beck announces plans for launching a competitor to the popular TV series Glee, which revolves around a high school glee club with many musical numbers. Beck, incensed at the show's liberal portrayal of issues such as homosexuality and bullying, tells a Faith & Freedom Coalition conference in Washington that the left "won't know what hit them" when he launches his own conservative version of the show. The show never materializes.
2008 Lionel Richie is given a TV Land Icon Award by the cable network.
2007 Ferlin Huskey undergoes leg surgery in a Springfield, Missouri, hospital to improve his circulation.
1999 Peso Pluma, whose music combines corridos and hip-hop, is born Hassan Emilio Kabande Laija in Zapopan, Mexico. His stage name means "featherweight" in English, a reference to his slight build.
1997 Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson appear on VH1's Storytellers.
1996 Ella Fitzgerald dies of complications from diabetes at age 79.
1996 Aurora is born Aurora Aksnes in Bergen, Norway.
1995 Five years after their successful debut After the Rain, Nelson release their second album, Because They Can, which tanks.More
1991 Paula Abdul hits #1 in America with the ballad "Rush, Rush," her fifth chart-topper. A young Keanu Reeves is in the video.
1991 MC Hammer kicks off his Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em world tour in Louisville, Kentucky. About 70 people, who perform various duties on stage, are in the entourage. Rolling Stone reports that Hammer is a taskmaster, fining dancers for missing steps and insisting that everyone go directly to their hotel rooms after shows.
1990 At Lake City Concert Hall, in Seattle, Washington, bassist Ben Shepherd plays his first show with Soundgarden.
1989 The Offspring's self-titled debut album is released only on vinyl. A CD and cassette reissue are eventually released in 1995.
Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures
1979Unknown Pleasures, the debut long-player from British post-punk band Joy Division, is released. Although it does not chart, it becomes hugely influential and is widely critically acclaimed as one of the defining albums of the post-punk era.
Joy Division - named after a Nazi concentration camp in the novel House of Dolls (1955) - are formed in the North of England in the summer of 1976 by keyboard player Bernard Sumner and bassist Peter Hook following a Sex Pistols gig. The line-up is completed by drummer Stephen Morris and the enigmatic singer and lyricist Ian Curtis. They rapidly make a name for themselves in the growing punk scene in Manchester, immediately drawing the attention of audiences through their unique bass-driven sound and Ian Curtis's charismatic performances. After being bought out of their first recording contract with RCA by local impresario and television presenter Tony Wilson, the band sign to his new label Factory Records and set to work on recording their debut album. Unknown Pleasures is an austere and atmospheric record, courtesy of producer Martin Hannett's liberal use of sound effects and studio techniques, such as recording the sound of the studio elevator played through a Leslie rotating speaker and laying down vocal tracks through a telephone. The band are split on the record's sound, which does not reflect their raw live performances but soon becomes their signature. Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook denounce it as "sounding like Pink Floyd," whereas Ian Curtis and Stephen Morris believe that live shows and records should be treated differently. The band do not release any singles in support of Unknown Pleasures, and record only one more album - Closer (1980) - which is released shortly after the suicide of Ian Curtis in May 1980. The remaining members, together with Morris's girlfriend Gillian Gilbert, continue to write and perform as New Order.
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