2008 Eighteen-year-old Taylor Swift releases her second album, Fearless, which goes on to sell over 10 million copies in America. Standout tracks include "Love Story" and "You Belong With Me."
1994 Christie's auction house in New York City holds their first-ever auction of rock memorabilia, including The Beach Boys' guitars, a stage outfit worn by Jimi Hendrix, and John Lennon's famous Army fatigues.
1991 Per Michael Jackson's wishes, one week before his controversial "Black Or White" music video airs, a memo circulates at MTV instructing the network's on-air personnel to refer to Jackson as the King of Pop at least twice a week during the next two weeks.More
1986 David Gilmour, Nick Mason and Richard Wright announce they are working on a new Pink Floyd album despite a lawsuit from original member Roger Waters trying to retire the group. The album, A Momentary Lapse of Reason, is issued the following year; soon after, the lawsuit is settled.
1982 Prince begins his 1999 tour with a show in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The opening acts are two groups he put together in Minneapolis: The Time and Vanity 6.
1972 Berry Oakley (bassist for The Allman Brothers Band) dies at age 24 after a motorcycle accident in Macon, Georgia, just three blocks from the site of Duane Allman's fatal motorcycle crash a year earlier.
1970 Bob Dylan publishes his first novel, a poorly received stream-of-consciousness work called Tarantula.
2012 INXS, with Ciaran Gribbin on lead vocals, play their last concert, performing at Perth Arena in Australia as the support act for Matchbox Twenty. The band had re-formed with various lead singers since the death of frontman Michael Hutchence in 1997.
2011 Black Sabbath announce they will reunite with their original lineup for a new album and tour in 2012. The press conference is hosted by Henry Rollins.
2007 John Petersen (drummer for Beau Brummels, Harper's Bizarre) dies of a heart attack at age 65.
2005 Billy Joel begins touring again, launching his first solo tour in eight years.
2004 M'hammed Soumayah, bodyguard for Liza Minnelli, sues the singer for $100 million for allegedly forcing him to have sex with her or be fired.
2003 The owner of a pub in Wiltshire, England, is awarded £40,000 in damages after suing Van Morrison for pulling out of a scheduled performance at the pub in the summer of 2002 at the last moment.
2003 At the emotional funeral for Righteous Brother Bobby Hatfield, Bill Medley, the remaining half of the famous blue-eyed-soul duo, sings the gospel standard "Precious Lord."
2002 The Cure play the first of two Trilogy Concert shows at the Tempodrom Berlin, which sees them performing their dark trio of albums - Pornography, Disintegration, and Bloodflowers - in their entirety. The concerts are filmed and released on a double live album DVD set the following year.
2000 The original Meters reunite for one - and only one - gig in San Francisco, their first since 1977.
1999 A teenaged Britney Spears wins for Best Female, Best Pop, Breakthrough Artist and Best Song ("Baby One More Time") at the MTV Europe Music Awards in Dublin.
1998 Madrid band Jarabe De Palo tops the 45th Premios Ondas in Barcelona, winning for Best Album (Depende) and Best Video. Other winners include Alejandro Sanz for Best Song ("Corazon") and Ella Baila Sola, Best Group. The Ondas are organized by media group Prisa through Radio Barcelona.
1997 At a Tower Records in-store performance in New York City, Green Day trash the place, smashing instruments, pouring beer on the CD racks, and spray painting the windows. Their label happily pays the $50,000 in damage as Green Day prove they're still punk to the core.
1997 Following in the footsteps of Garth Brooks, Metallica holds a free concert in Philadelphia to celebrate the release of their newest album, Re-Load.
1994 Billy Vera, Micky Dolenz of The Monkees and Rick Neilsen of Cheap Trick all appear on the TV show Boy Meets World in the episode "Band on the Run."
1993 James Brown appears on The Simpsons in the episode "Bart's Inner Child."
John Lennon and Yoko Ono release the album Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins with a cover photo of the pair naked. Many record stores stock it in a brown paper wrapper.
Lennon's first album away from The Beatles, Two Virgins is 30 minutes of sound effects and random noise. Lennon had made recordings of experimental music before, but rarely played them for anyone. Yoko, though, could appreciate this work, as she herself was an avant-garde recording artist. The pair spent a night recording the album at Lennon's home, then, according to Lennon, consummated their relationship (John was still married at the time). The title is a reference to the art exhibition where John and Yoko met in 1966: "Unfinished Paintings And Objects." Only the most adventurous listeners take interest in the music, but the photos, showing the couple standing naked on both the front and back covers, make quite a statement. Lennon took the photos himself using a delayed-action shutter (early selfie!). It's set to be the first album released on the Beatles label Apple Records, but the controversial cover delays it, giving George Harrison's Wonderwall Music the honor of first Beatles solo album and first on the label. When it does get released, Two Virgins hits stores in a brown wrapper. It's mostly a curiosity, with little in sales, but Lennon stands by it. "Being ourselves is what's important," he says. "If everyone practiced being themselves instead of pretending to be what they aren't, there would be peace."
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