14 APRIL
Featured Events
2018 Beyoncé, who had to cancel the previous year because of her pregnancy, headlines Coachella in lavish fashion, with over 70 performers and a reunion of Destiny's Child. She becomes the first black woman to headline the festival.More
2016 At the Fox Theatre in Atlanta, Prince plays his last concert, as he dies a week later. His last song is "Purple Rain."
2012 Red Hot Chili Peppers, Beastie Boys, Guns N' Roses and Faces are inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.More
1998 The very first VH1 Divas special debuts on the music channel as a benefit concert for VH1's Save The Music Foundation. Headliners are Aretha Franklin, Mariah Carey, Celine Dion, Gloria Estefan, and Shania Twain, with a guest appearance by Carole King.More
1988 Public Enemy's sophomore album, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, is released. Often cited as one of the greatest hip-hop albums of all-time, the album spawns such PE classics as "Don't Believe the Hype," "Night of the Living Baseheads," and "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos," as well as the original version of "Bring the Noise."
1980 Judas Priest release British Steel, a metal landmark containing the tracks "Living After Midnight" and "Breaking the Law."
1935 Loretta Lynn, a coal miner's daughter, is born in Butcher Hollow, Kentucky. She overcomes poverty to become one of the most beloved and influential women in country music. "She blazed so many trails for all of us girls in country music," Miranda Lambert says.
14 APRIL
In Music History
2019 Logic (Bobby Hall) becomes the first rapper with a New York Times best seller when his novel Supermarket tops the Paperback Trade Fiction list.
2018 Dire Straits is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but with frontman Mark Knopfler skipping the ceremony, nobody inducts them and they do not perform.More
2016 In an interview with the Mormon Stories podcast, Neon Trees lead singer Tyler Glenn reveals that he is leaving the Mormon church in response to its ruling that gay marriage is apostasy. Glenn came out as gay in 2014.
2015 Percy Sledge, who had a #1 hit with "When A Man Loves A Woman" and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, dies at age 74.
2014 Sam Smith releases "Stay With Me," his breakthrough hit in America. It's a song about yearning and loneliness that Smith later reveals is about guy.
2010 Blues musician Mississippi Slim, real name Walter Horn Jr., dies at age 66 after suffering a heart attack.
2010 Type O Negative frontman Peter Steele dies of heart failure at 48.
2009 Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, Paul McCartney, Olivia Harrison and Dhani Harrison hit the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles to take part in the ceremony honoring George Harrison with his very own star in Hollywood.
2007 Hawaii-born pop singer Don Ho, known for the 1966 hit "Tiny Bubbles," dies at age 75 of heart failure, two years after being diagnosed with cardiomyopathy.
2005 John Fred Gourrier, who with John Fred and His Playboy Band had a #1 hit with "Judy in Disguise (with Glasses)," dies at age 63.
2003 R&B singer Angie Stone makes her Broadway debut when she joins the cast of Chicago.
2000 At a show at The Garage in London, the all-girl punk rockers L7 raffle off a chance to "meet intimately" with their drummer, Dee Plakas, claiming they "want their fans to get more bang for their buck." Whether or not they go through with the stunt is unclear, but it drums up plenty of publicity for the show.
1999 Anthony Newley - British actor and singer-songwriter - dies at age 67 of renal cancer. In addition to his numerous Top 40 hits on the UK chart in the early-'60s, Newley, along with his songwriting partner Leslie Bricusse, earned an Academy Award nomination for the film score to Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971).
1998 Clutch's third full-length album, The Elephant Riders, is issued, spawning such classics as the title track, "The Soapmakers," "The Yeti," and "The Dragonfly."
1997 Depeche Mode release their ninth album, Ultra, in the UK. Work on the album had to be stopped in 1996 when lead singer Dave Gahan nearly died of a drug overdose; he spent a lot of time making court appointments and trying to get sober when operations resumed. The band is in no condition to tour to support the album, but it still makes #1 in the UK and sells over 500,000 copies in America.
Katy Perry Goes to Space
2025Katy Perry does some space tourism, joining five other women (including journalist Gayle King) on a 10-minute suborbital flight aboard a Blue Origin rocket. "Space is going to finally be glam," she says before liftoff. "We are going to put the 'ass' in astronaut."
Perry, who had a cosmic hit in 2010 with "E.T.," brings a daisy on board in honor of her four-year-old daughter, Daisy Bloom (whose dad is Perry's husband, the actor Orlando Bloom). And she sings the Louis Armstrong classic "What A Wonderful World," declining requests for her hit "Firework." When the capsule lands, Perry kisses the ground and says, "I feel super connected to love." Reaction in the media - particularly the social media - is harsh, largely deriding the flight as a vanity project and marketing stunt (Perry has a tour coming up). The fast food chain Wendy's is among the detractors, posting, "Can we send her back?" Blue Origin is owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. His fiancée, Lauren Sánchez, was one of the women on board. photo: Blue Origin
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