2014 Lyricist Gerry Goffin, author of over 100 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, many with former wife and songwriting partner Carole King, dies at age 75.
2010 Backstreet Boys join New Kids on the Block at NKOTB's show in Radio City Music Hall. The response is so great that the re-formed bands begin touring together... as NKOTBSB.
1999 In an interview published in Melody Maker, Britney Spears says, "I would have to be totally happy in every aspect before I would get married. I believe marriage is for life." She ends up getting married twice... in 2004.
1987 Mötley Crüe begin their Girls, Girls, Girls tour with a show in Tucson, Arizona. The stage show features an inflatable Harley, lots of pyro, and a contraption that spins Tommy Lee and his drum kit upside down while he plays. Whitesnake is the opening act; later on the tour an new band called Guns N' Roses takes that slot.
1971 Carole King's album Tapestry hits #1 in the US, where it stays for 15 weeks.More
1965 "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)" by The Four Tops goes to #1 in America, knocking off another Motown song: "Back in My Arms Again" by The Supremes. Both songs were written and produced by the team of Holland-Dozier-Holland.
1948 Folk artist Nick Drake is born in Rangoon, Burma. Raised in England, the mercurial and highly influential musician releases three albums before his death in 1974.
2018 The day after he is murdered, XXXTentacion breaks Taylor Swift's record for most Spotify streams in a single day, with 10.4 million. A month earlier, the rapper was banned from Spotify playlists as part of their short-lived "hateful conduct" policy.
2017 In Matal v Tham, the United States Supreme Court rules 8-0 that Asian-American rock band The Slants can copyright their name in spite of its disparaging racial meaning.
2013 '50s country singer Slim Whitman, who enjoyed a career revival in the '80s thanks to a television direct-marketing campaign, dies of heart failure at age 90.
2012 R&B singer Bobby Brown winds up a 2-year engagement to his fiance (and manager) Alicia Etheredge by tying the knot. The couple get married at a modestly pleasant ceremony in Hawaii.
2012 Fiona Apple releases her fourth album, The Idler Wheel..., her first since Extraordinary Machine in 2005.More
2006 Duane Roland (guitarist for Molly Hatchet) dies of natural causes at age 53.
2004 An audience member hurls a lollipop on stage while David Bowie is performing in Oslo, Norway. The lollipop wedges itself in David Bowie's left eye (which already has an enlarged and frozen pupil following a childhood fight). Bowie halts the concert to remove the lollipop. Luckily, he escapes serious injury.
1997 "Jingle Bell Rock" singer Bobby Helms dies from emphysema and asthma at age 63.
1996 Comedic composer Vivian Ellis, known for the 1929 musical number "Spread A Little Happiness," popularly covered by Sting in 1982, dies at age 92.
1983 Rapper Macklemore (Macklemore & Ryan Lewis) is born Ben Haggerty in Seattle, Washington.
1980 Donna Summer is the first artist to sign with Geffen Records.
1973 Roberta Flack... The First Time Ever TV special airs on ABC.
1973 The Rocky Horror Show musical debuts at London's Royal Court Theatre. Two years later, it starts a brief Broadway run and is adapted into the cult classic film The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
1972 The United States Supreme Court rules in favor of MC5 manager John Sinclair and his White Panther associates in a landmark case that makes it illegal for the government to use wiretapping without a warrant. The White Panthers were accused of bombing the CIA agency in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
1969 Metal guitarist Brian Welch (of KoRn) is born in Torrance, California.
"California Gurls" hits #1, the first of five Hot 100 chart-toppers from Katy Perry's Teenage Dream album - a feat equaled only by Michael Jackson's Bad.
Written with the help of "I Kissed a Girl" producers Dr. Luke and Max Martin, along with frequent collaborator Bonnie McKee, Perry's West Coast summer anthem is an answer to Jay Z's New York City tribute "Empire State of Mind." California-born Snoop Dogg adds to the beachy vibe with his rap, "I wish they all could be California girls," a nod to the 1965 Beach Boys hit. Landing at #1 in its fourth week on the charts, it ties a 43-year-old record for the fastest rise to the top of the charts by a Capitol Records artist, a feat first made by Bobbie Gentry in 1967 with "Ode To Billie Joe." That's nothing compared to what happens next. Perry continues her hot streak with four more #1 singles: "Teenage Dream," "Firework," "E.T.," and "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)." Not since Michael Jackson's Bad (1987) has an album spawned five #1 singles on the Billboard Hot 100.
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