5 JUNE
Featured Events
2012 Tom Cruise stars as rocker Stacee Jaxx in the film adaptation of the Broadway hit Rock of Ages, an homage to '80s rock and glam metal that features songs from Bon Jovi, Twisted Sister, Pat Benatar, and Journey. More
2004 Jennifer Lopez marries Marc Anthony. The union lasts 10 years and produces two children: twins Max and Emme.
1993 Mariah Carey marries Tommy Mottola, the music executive who signed her to Columbia Records. The marriage, her first, lasts four years.
1983 U2 play the Red Rocks amphitheater in Colorado. Despite rain, the concert is intimate and energetic; it is later released as a concert film called Under a Blood Red Sky.
1968 Senator Robert Kennedy is shot three times while exiting through a kitchen at a hotel where he delivered a speech after winning the Democratic nomination for president of the United States. This event prompts David Crosby to write "Long Time Gone" and The Rolling Stones to insert the lyrics, "Who killed the Kennedys?" to their new song "Sympathy For The Devil."
1959 Robert Zimmerman graduates from Hibbing High School in Minnesota. He moves on to the University of Minnesota, but soon leaves for New York City to become the full-time folk singer, Bob Dylan.
5 JUNE
In Music History
2019 Miley Cyrus plays an exploited pop star in the "Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too" episode of Black Mirror. Her character's hit song is a reworking of "Head Like A Hole" as an empowerment anthem called "On A Roll," which is released as a single in real life with a video that gets over 20 million views on YouTube.
2017 Kesha is rebuffed when she tries to hug Jerry Seinfeld at a red carpet event - turns out he's not a hugger. The video quickly goes viral.More
2015 Shania Twain begins her Rock This Country Tour with a show in Seattle. Billed as her farewell tour, it's her first trek since her 2003-2004 Up! tour.
2013 Doo-wop singer Marshall Sewell (of The Edsels) dies of esophageal cancer at age 75.
2013 Rob Halford announces that Judas Priest will be re-forming after their retirement two years earlier.
2012 Blues singer-songwriter Lou Pride, known for the compositions "Long Arm Of The Blues" and "Love From A Stone," dies after a bout of illness at age 68.
2012 Herb Reed (founding member of The Platters) dies of heart disease, among other ailments, at age 83 in Boston, Massachusetts.
2008 James Taylor sings the US national anthem at Game 1 of the NBA finals in Boston.
2007 Rihanna, 19, releases her third album, Good Girl Gone Bad, with top producers like Stargate and Timbaland on board. The first single is "Umbrella," which comes with an intro from her Def Jam label boss, Jay-Z.
2007 Bruce Springsteen releases Live In Dublin.
2006 Elliot Easton of The Cars breaks his clavicle when the band's tour bus swerves to avoid an accident, and Easton falls out of the bunk. Performing with "The New Cars" fronted by Todd Rundgren, he plays four shows in a brace before getting surgery, which ends the tour.
2006 "Hard Rock Hallelujah" by Lordi is released in the UK.
2004 Usher becomes the first artist since The Bee Gees in 1978 to place three song in the US Top 10: "Burn" - #1 "Yeah!" - #4 "Confessions, Pt. 2" - #9
2003 Metallica unleash their album St. Anger, with no guitar solos and one of the harshest drum tones ever committed to tape.
2002 Eleven weeks after being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Dee Dee Ramone, a founding member of the Ramones, dies of a heroin overdose at age 50.
AI Band Drops Debut Album, Earns Millions of Streams
2025The Velvet Sundown release their debut album, Floating On Echoes. Their songs quickly populate algorithm-driven playlists and amass millions of streams, even though nobody has heard of the band or any of its members. They're later revealed to be an AI-generated act, the first to garner big streaming numbers.
There are some telling clues that this band is not human: They haven't done any interviews, have never played live, and have no mentions in any publications. Their songs are soulless but palatable, and made very quickly: two weeks later they release a second album. Soon the internet catches on to the ruse and the "band" comes clean, updating their bio on streaming services to say, "The Velvet Sundown is a synthetic music project guided by human creative direction, and composed, voiced, and visualized with the support of artificial intelligence." It shows how in a world where algorithms determine what songs are discoverable, the machines have an advantage. It also forces the industry to create policies that deal with AI acts, which are getting increasingly difficult to detect.
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