June 9, 1990 MC Hammer's Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em becomes just the second rap album to reach #1 in America (Licensed to Ill by Beastie Boys was the first).More
June 3, 1990 The Big Day free festival takes place in Glasgow, Scotland, with Wet Wet Wet, Deacon Blue, Hothouse Flowers, Sheena Easton, Texas, Hue and Cry, John Martyn, Eddi Reader, The Average White Band and others. Channel 4 TV runs a six-hour live broadcast from the event.
June 1, 1990 Mariah Carey makes her national TV debut, performing "Vision Of Love" on The Arsenio Hall Show. The song enters the Hot 100 the next day and goes to #1 eight weeks later.
May 30, 1990 Australian rockers Midnight Oil make headlines when they stage a protest concert outside of the Exxon building in New York City in response to the Exxon Valdez oil spill that devastated Prince William Sound in Alaska the year before. Vocalist Peter Garrett says: "We can't treat the world like a garbage dump, and there's more to life than profit and loss."More
May 16, 1990 Sammy Davis Jr. dies of complications from throat cancer at age 64. He was one of the most popular entertainers of the 1960s and 1970s, appearing in many movies and TV shows, and landing a #1 hit with "The Candy Man."
May 5, 1990 Lou Reed, Al Green, Terence Trent D'Arby, Kylie Minogue and Randy Travis are among the performers at a John Lennon tribute concert in his hometown of Liverpool, England.More
April 21, 1990 Sinead O'Connor's cover of the Prince song "Nothing Compares 2 U" goes to #1 in America, where it stays for four weeks. It thrusts O'Connor into the spotlight, which she quickly rejects, finding the rituals of fame vapid and materialistic. Two years later, she makes news for tearing up a picture of the Pope on live TV.
April 19, 1990 The TV movie Summer Dreams: The Story Of The Beach Boys airs on ABC.
April 7, 1990 Bonnie Raitt emerges from a career slump with her first #1 album, Nick Of Time, unseating Paula Abdul's Forever Your Girl.More
December 13, 1989 Taylor Swift is born in Reading, Pennsylvania. She is raised in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, and moves to Nashville at age 14, where she discovers her knack for turning heartache into hit singles.More
November 26, 1989 MTV's acoustic showcase Unplugged premieres with an episode featuring Squeeze. Jules Shear hosts the first season.More
November 25, 1989 Thanks to a video that gets Alice Cooper his first significant spins on MTV, "Poison" hits #7 - the rocker's first Top 40 hit in nine years.
September 19, 1989 Janet Jackson releases her groundbreaking album Rhythm Nation 1814. It contains seven Top 5 hits and a message imploring young people to come together and stand up for education and equality.More
September 6, 1989 After initially refusing to play it, MTV gives Neil Young's "This Note's For You" the Video of the Year award at the MTV Video Music Awards.
September 6, 1989 A week into their gig as opening act on The Rolling Stones' Steel Wheels tour, Living Colour wins MTV Video Music Awards for Best Group Video, Best Stage Performance and Best New Artist. Mick Jagger presents the group with the trophies backstage at their show in Pittsburgh.
September 6, 1989 Mötley Crüe frontman Vince Neil punches Guns N' Roses guitarist Izzy Stradlin in the face during the MTV Video Music Awards.More
July 25, 1989 After leaving Def Jam, Beastie Boys release their second album, Paul's Boutique, on Capitol Records.More
July 21, 1989 Performing on the Club MTV tour at a stop in Bristol, Connecticut, Milli Vanilli's tracks go screwy when they try to lip-synch to the song "Girl You Know It's True." As the line "girl you know it's..." repeats over and over, the duo panic and scurry off stage. It is later revealed that they didn't sing on their album.More
July 14, 1989 New York Family Court judge Judy Sheindlin, soon to become TV star "Judge Judy," orders Tom Jones to pay child support to model Katherine Berkery after making the singer take a paternity test. Their child, Jonathan Jones Berkery, becomes a singer.
May 30, 1989 Yusuf Islam (formerly Cat Stevens) appears on a British TV show called Hypotheticals, where he addresses the fatwa issued against the author Salman Rushdie. Islam seems to support the fatwa - when asked if he would attend a protest where a Rushdie effigy is burned, he replies, "I would have hoped that it'd be the real thing."More
March 30, 1989 To help promote Bon Jovi's album New Jersey, MTV gives away Jon Bon Jovi's childhood home (which they bought from his parents) to contest winners Jay and Judy Frappier. "This is the place where I learned about the finer things in life," Jon said in promos for the contest. "Like rock and roll and women."
March 20, 1989 After 37 years on the air, Dick Clark announces he will discontinue hosting his creation, ABC-TV's highly influential American Bandstand. The show continues with another host, but folds for good soon after.
March 3, 1989 A day after the song debuts in a 2-minute Pepsi commercial, the video for Madonna's "Like A Prayer" hits MTV and causes an uproar.More
January 3, 1989 The Arsenio Hall Show debuts in syndication, bringing a spate of contemporary musical acts - including many hip-hop artists - to late night during its five-season run. Highlights include Mariah Carey's national TV debut in 1990, and a 1992 appearance by Bill Clinton, who uses his airtime to win over young voters on this way to the White House.
November 17, 1988 Guns N' Roses get the cover of Rolling Stone with the headline, "Hard-Rock Heroes." The magazine compiled the story that summer when the band was on tour as the opening act for Aerosmith. Aerosmith assumed they were getting the cover, but by the end of the tour, their opening act had become much more popular.More
November 15, 1988 After hitting it huge with their 1986 debut album, Licensed to Ill, Beastie Boys leave the label and sign with Capitol Records.More
September 24, 1988 The Hollies go to the top of the UK singles chart with "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother" after the song was used in a UK TV beer commercial. The record was originally a hit for them in 1969.
September 7, 1988 INXS, the new sensation from Australia, are the big winners at the MTV Video Music Awards, taking five trophies, including Video Of The Year, for "Need You Tonight/Mediate." The songs are separate tracks on the album but combined for the video; the "Mediate" part is an homage to Bob Dylan's 1965 "Subterranean Homesick Blues" film.
August 6, 1988 Yo! MTV Raps premieres on MTV, with Run-DMC hosting the pilot episode.
July 6, 1988 MTV refuses to play Neil Young's video for "This Note's For You," citing a policy against videos that mention products. The video is a parody of various ad campaigns, with lyrics mentioning Coke, Pepsi, Miller and Bud.More
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