16 June

Pick a Day

16 JUNE

In Music History

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2023 Re-creating a scene from the "All The Small Things" video, Kourtney Kardashian announces her pregnancy with blink-182 drummer Travis Barker by holding up a sign reading "Travis I'm Pregnant" at the band's concert in Los Angeles.

2022 Eight years after signing a "cessation of touring agreement," Mötley Crüe kick off a co-headlining tour with Def Leppard in Atlanta.

2018 The Carters (Jay-Z and Beyoncé) release their first single, "Apes--t," with an opulent video shot at the Louvre in Paris.More

2014 Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony divorce. They married in 2004 and welcomed twins Maximilian and Emme in 2008.

2007 61-year-old Rod Stewart marries his third wife, 35-year-old model Penny Lancaster, on board the yacht Lady Ann Magee in Portofino, Italy.

2007 Muse become the first band to sell out the rebuilt Wembley Stadium in London, when about 90,000 fans see them perform.

2006 The White Stripes win a lawsuit brought on by Ghetto Recorders studio owner Jim Diamond. Diamond claimed he produced the band's first two albums and that the band owed him royalties for his work. In reality, Jack White was the sole producer of those records and Diamond wasn't entitled to any more money as the band had already given him credit as engineer.

2004 The three surviving original members of the New York Dolls perform together for the first time since 1975 at the first of two shows at London Royal Festival Hall. The concerts are spearheaded by The Smiths' frontman, Morrissey, who was once the president of the Dolls' UK fan club. The band continues to record and perform in various incarnations after the reunion.

2001 Cardigans singer Nina Persson marries songwriter/author Nathan Larson.

1999 Phil Collins gets a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

1997 John Wolters (drummer for Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show) dies of cancer at age 52.

1994 Kristen Pfaff (bassist for Hole) dies of acute opiate intoxication at age 27.

1993 The US Postal Service issues a booklet of commemorative rock and roll stamps featuring Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Otis Redding, Bill Haley, Ritchie Valens, Clyde McPhatter, and Dinah Washington.

1990 The Rolling Stones' "Paint It Black," re-released in the Netherlands as a single, climbs to the top of the charts 24 years after its initial release.

1990 The Swedish pop duo Roxette earn their third chart-topper when their breakup ballad "It Must Have Been Love" from the Pretty Woman soundtrack hits #1.

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Trout Mask Replica Released

1969

Experimental avant-garde/free-jazz artist Don Van Vliet, aka Captain Beefheart, releases Trout Mask Replica, a polyrhythmic, polytonal collection of noise that is either an unlistenable mess or a work of genius.


Beefheart had released two albums with his Magic Band, but Trout Mask Replica is their first after signing to Frank Zappa's label, Straight Records. With complete creative freedom (the Zappa way), Beefheart moved his band into a house in Woodland Hills, California (near Los Angeles), where they worked on the album. To many listeners, the album sounds like a disjointed jumble of sound, but it was meticulously planned. Beefheart composed every part on piano, which was notated by his drummer, John French. The musicians spent months learning and practicing their parts, which were intentionally out of sync. Beefheart's behavior was as erratic as his music. He claimed the house was haunted and that he communicated with the spirits; he gave the band new names, like Zoot Horn Rollo (guitarist Bill Harkleroad) and Rockette Morton (bass player Mark Boston). John French became Drumbo. The arduous preparation paid off when the band recorded the album, using very little studio time to complete it. When it is released, it gets a lot of attention thanks to the strange, merman cover, but few Americans buy it and it never makes the Billboard chart. In England, the influential DJ John Peel plays it on his Top Gear radio show, which sends it to #21 on the UK chart. Despite the tepid reception from the public, many critics champion the album, including Lester Bangs, who writes in his Rolling Stone review: "Captain Beefheart's new album is a total success, a brilliant, stunning enlargement and clarification of his art." Such sentiments are shared by many musicians and artists of other ilk, who deem it an avant-garde feat of daring. The Simpsons creator Matt Groening and film director David Lynch both call it their favorite album. In 2011, it is entered into the National Recording Registry at the Library of Congress, deemed to be "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" (the album Songs of the Humpback Whale is also chosen). When Mojo names their 500 top albums in 2000, they call Trout Mask Replica "The most radical-sounding record of the 1960s."

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