Calendar Search Results: pop songs
April 18, 1987 Aretha Franklin and George Michael's duet "I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)" hits #1 in the US, returning Franklin to the top spot for the first time since "Respect" in 1967. The feat breaks the record for the longest span between #1 hits.More
March 21, 1987 Club Nouveau's poppy cover of the Bill Withers song "Lean On Me" hits #1 on the Hot 100. The original hit the top spot in 1972.
February 22, 1987 Pop artist Andy Warhol, former manager of The Velvet Underground and designer for The Rolling Stones' Sticky Fingers album cover, dies of a cardiac arrhythmia following gallbladder surgery.
April 7, 1986 Sade makes the cover of Time magazine under the headline Pop's Smooth Operator. The article lauds her as "a new princess of pop" with a "sophisticated sound, elegant look."More
February 28, 1986 The movie Pretty In Pink, based on the Psychedelic Furs song but with a very distorted interpretation of the lyric, is released in theaters.More
February 4, 1986 Janet Jackson, 19, asserts her independence on her third album, Control, where she takes on much of the songwriting and production. With five big hits, including the #1 "When I Think of You," it vaults her into a league with her brother Michael.More
January 23, 1986 The first inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame include Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and Fats Domino.More
November 16, 1985 "We Built This City" by Starship hits #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. It is later named Worst Song of All Time by Blender magazine.More
November 2, 1985 The Miami Vice soundtrack album, featuring the #1-hit theme song, tops the albums chart in America, ushering in a new age of TV soundtracks.More
October 9, 1985 On what would have been John Lennon's 45th birthday, a section of Central Park in New York City is christened "Strawberry Fields" in his memory.More
August 14, 1985 Three years after their duet "The Girl Is Mine," Paul McCartney advises Michael Jackson to invest in publishing. Jackson makes a winning bid of $47.5 million for the rights to over 250 Lennon-McCartney Beatles songs owned by ATV publishing, which turns out to be a great investment, but kills their friendship.More
June 7, 1985 The movie Perfect debuts in theaters, starring John Travolta as a Rolling Stone reporter who falls for aerobics instructor Jamie Lee Curtis. While the drama is a dud with critics, it portrays Rolling Stone as more than a music magazine – which is exactly what its editor-in-chief Jann Wenner hoped. More
May 10, 1985 Pop singer Ashley Poole (of Dream) is born in Blythe, California.
February 25, 1985 British synthpop duo Tears For Fears release their sophomore album, Songs From The Big Chair, featuring the hits "Shout" and "Everybody Wants To Rule The World."More
October 9, 1984 The extraordinarily popular children's show Thomas The Tank Engine And Friends begins its run on BBC-TV, featuring a narrator by the name of Ringo Starr.
September 16, 1984 The TV series Miami Vice makes its debut with a two-hour episode that includes a scene featuring the Phil Collins hit "In The Air Tonight."More
August 21, 1984 Pop singer/actress Melissa Schuman (of Dream) is born in San Clemente, California.
July 27, 1984 Prince stars in the film Purple Rain. The movie, in which he plays as an upstart musician who clashes with his band, parallels his life story, but is not strictly autobiographical, and he didn't write or direct it.More
January 27, 1984 At the peak of his popularity, Michael Jackson films an ad for Pepsi that goes horribly wrong when some stray pyro sets his hair on fire.More
January 9, 1984 Van Halen release their sixth album, 1984, which finds Eddie Van Halen playing synthesizer as well as guitar. It's their most popular album, reeling in new fans with radio-friendly songs like "Jump" and "I'll Wait" while feeding their faithful with rockers like "Panama" and "Hot For Teacher." Lead singer David Lee Roth leaves the next year, replaced by Sammy Hagar.
November 14, 1983 Michael Jackson's 14-minute film Thriller debuts at the Metro Crest Theater in Los Angeles. Directed by John Landis, the short film will become the most popular video in MTV history when the network begins airing it in December. Many of Jackson's famous friends show up at the premiere, including Diana Ross, Eddie Murphy and Warren Beatty. The film gets a standing ovation and the crowd demands an encore, which is granted.
May 28, 1983 Apple's Steve Wozniak hosts the second US Festival, intending it to be the "Super Bowl of rock." The lineup is even more impressive than that of its 1982 predecessor, and the attendance is substantially larger. Wozniak splurges on David Bowie with two million dollars of his own money, simply because he "really loves him."More
March 6, 1982 Beauty and the Beat hits #1 in America, making The Go-Go's the first all-girl band with a #1 album.More
September 25, 1981 The Rolling Stones start their US tour with a concert at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia, where they play to a crowd of 90,000. The tour is sponsored by musk maker Jovan, establishing a new paradigm for corporate involvement.More
July 20, 1981 Journey release Escape, their most popular album. The ballad "Open Arms" is the highest charting single, but "Don't Stop Believin'" is the one that endures, becoming one of the biggest songs of all time.
May 10, 1981 Kraftwerk release their eighth studio album, Computer World, featuring prescient songs about the influence of computers on society.More
January 22, 1981 Pop singer/actress Willa Ford is born Amanda Lee Williford in Ruskin, Florida. She performs as Mandah but to avoid confusion with Mandy Moore, she settles on a variation of her surname.
October 20, 1980 U2 release their debut album, Boy, produced by Steve Lillywhite. It doesn't yield any hits but "I Will Follow" becomes one of their most popular songs.
September 4, 1980 Pop singer Dan Miller (of O-Town) is born in Laconia, New Hampshire.
June 6, 1980 Urban Cowboy, a Western romance film starring John Travolta and Debra Winger, opens in theaters. The mellow country soundtrack spawns hits from Kenny Rogers, Johnny Lee, and Anne Murray, and spurs a trend of pop-leaning fare in country music dubbed the "Urban Cowboy Movement."More
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