5 November

Pick a Day

5 NOVEMBER

In Music History

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2022 Thanks to huge streaming numbers, Taylor Swift claims every spot on the Top 10 of the Hot 100 with songs from her album Midnights, with "Anti-Hero" at #1. She's the first artist to do so; Drake held nine of the Top 10 for a week in September 2021.

2021 ABBA release Voyage, their first album in 40 years, and also their last. They decided to make it while preparing for their show Voyage, which features digital avatars ("Abba-tars") of the band members. The album goes to #1 in most European countries and also Australia.

2017 Robert Knight, who had a hit with "Everlasting Love," dies at 72.

2014 It's a big day in Las Vegas, as Kiss begin their first residency with a show at the Hard Rock, while Britney Spears is honored with a key to the strip in celebration of her successful concert production at Planet Hollywood, which began in December 2013.

2012 The building at 1325 Commmonwealth Avenue in Boston, where the five members of Aerosmith shared an apartment in the '70s, is declared a historic landmark. To celebrate, the band play a free concert outside the building to thousands of fans.

2007 Garth Brooks plays the first of nine sold-out shows at the Sprint Center in Kansas City, Missouri, which opened a month earlier. When baseball season begins in 2008, the Kansas City Royals begin a tradition of playing "Friends In Low Places" during the sixth inning of every home game.

2005 Beach Boys singer Mike Love sues the group's mastermind Brian Wilson, whom Love claims is "shamelessly misappropriating Mike Love's songs, likeness and the Beach Boys trademark" in promotion for his album SMiLE. The lawsuit is later dismissed.

2005 Link Wray (of Link Wray & His Ray Men) dies of heart failure at age 76 at his home in Copenhagen, Denmark.

2003 Jimmy Buffett wins his first Country Music Association Award when "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere," a duet with Alan Jackson, is named Vocal Event of the Year.

2003 Bobby Hatfield (of The Righteous Brothers) dies of a cocaine-induced heart attack at age 63.

2002 Billy Guy (original baritone singer of The Coasters) dies of heart disease at age 66.

2000 U2 score their eighth UK #1 album when All That You Can't Leave Behind tops the chart, keeping Blur off the top.

2000 The Who guest star on the "A Tale of Two Springfields" episode of The Simpsons.

2000 Jimmie Davis, a country singer-songwriter who also served as governor of Louisiana from 1960-1964, dies at age 101 of a possible stroke. In 1945, he had a #1 hit on the country chart with "There's A New Moon Over My Shoulder."

1999 Mariah Carey makes her acting debut, playing a temperamental opera singer in the romantic comedy The Bachelor, starring Chris O'Donnell and Renée Zellweger.

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Beach Boys Land First #1 In 22 Years With "Kokomo"

1988

The Beach Boys, who haven't had a #1 hit since "Good Vibrations" in 1966, top the charts with the Brian Wilson-less "Kokomo," used in the movie Cocktail. It's the longest gap between #1 hits for any artist.

The Beach Boys days of Surfin' Safaris may be over, but they are still drawn to the water, this time in the tropical paradise of Kokomo, where you can get there fast and then take it slow. Yeah, that's where we want to go. The group hasn't had a Top 10 hit since their 1976 cover of Chuck Berry's "Rock And Roll Music," but they're still active, playing oldies shows and state fairs with a lineup that includes original members Carl Wilson, Al Jardine and Mike Love. "Kokomo" is commissioned for the Tom Cruise movie Cocktail, where he plays a bartender who goes to Jamaica. Mike Love writes the song with producer Terry Melcher and two other stars of the '60s: John Phillips of the The Mamas & the Papas and Scott McKenzie of "San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Some Flowers In Your Hair)." Together, they create a lilting daydream of a song with steel drums and their famous harmonies. Thanks to a video that shows clips from the film along with the band performing beachside (with John Stamos on drums), the song climbs all the way to #1 on the Hot 100, their first chart-topper since "Good Vibrations" in 1966. At 22 years, it sets the record for longest stretch between #1 hits, a record that is broken by Cher in 1999 when she hits the top with "Believe." The song is also notable for having nothing to do with Brian Wilson, who was working on his first solo album at the time. So where is this island of delight? There's a city in Indiana called Kokomo, but that's not what they had in mind. This Kokomo is a name John Phillips came up with that sounded very island. After the song took off, various Kokomo resorts appeared.

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