On April 8, 1994, rock star Kurt Cobain was found dead in his home outside Seattle, Washington, with fresh injection marks in both arms and a fatal wound to the head from the 20-gauge shotgun found between his knees. Cobain’s suicide brought an end to a life marked by far more suffering than is generally […]

On this day in 1993, the band Fleetwood Mac reunites to perform at the recently elected U.S. President Bill Clinton’s first inaugural gala. Fleetwood Mac had faced much intra-band squabbling since their 1970s heyday, why they released one of the biggest albums of all time—Rumours—and a string of decade-defining hits like “Landslide,” “Rhiannon,” “Say You […]

In 1985, singer-songwriter Paul Simon made a controversial nine-day visit to South Africa—a visit that some felt was in violation of a United Nations cultural boycott, but a visit that dramatically increased worldwide awareness of black South Africa’s rich musical traditions. Seven years later, with the U.N. boycott lifted, Simon returned to South Africa to […]

Fifteen years and five #1 hits after breaking into the music industry by working in a style completely different from her famous father’s, Natalie Cole stopped distancing herself from Nat King Cole’s musical legacy and instead embraced it, recording an entire album of standards from her father’s old repertoire. Though it exposed her to charges […]

Though the First Amendment to the Constitution clearly states that the U.S. Congress “shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech,” free speech is widely understood to have its limits. It is dangerous and potentially criminal, for instance, to yell, “Fire!” in a crowded theater. But what about yelling “$&%#@!!” in a crowded nightclub? Lenny […]

While hairstyles and fashions may come and go, and while musical styles may evolve over time, one thing that repeats itself in music history with great regularity is the ascendancy of boy bands as a pop-cultural force. In the late 1980s, this cyclical process yielded New Kids on the Block—another in a long line of […]

In the 1980s, Los Angeles was a mecca for so-called “glam rock” bands and the “sex, drugs and rock and roll” lifestyle with which they came to be associated. On any given night inside clubs like the Troubadour and the Whisky a Go Go, you could not only hear bands like Hanoi Rocks and Mötley […]

Contrary to what some critics of teen pop might imagine, pop sensation Debbie Gibson saw herself not as the next Madonna, but as the next Carole King. And when her single “Foolish Beat” reached the top of the Biilboard Hot 100 on this day in 1988, she achieved something very much in keeping with that […]