3 October

Pick a Day

3 OCTOBER

In Music History

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2016 Nickelodeon premieres the animated series Kuu Kuu Harajuku, produced by Gwen Stefani, about a group of girls who make music and fight evil. Stefani introduced her "Harajuku Girls," inspired by the neighborhood in Tokyo, on her solo debut, Love. Angel. Music. Baby. and has integrated her love of the culture in her clothing and perfume lines.

2014 Thirty-seven years after its release, Fleetwood Mac's Rumours album is certified Double Diamond by the RIAA for sales of over 20 million in the US. It is the ninth album to achieve the certification.

2006 "Listen to Your Heart," the power-ballad written by Per Gessle and Mats Persson, scoops a raft of prestigious honors at the 2006 BMI London Awards, presented at the Dorchester Hotel. Among other honors, the track receives the organization's highest accolade, the Robert S. Musel Award, for the most-performed song of the year.

2006 Skillet releases their sixth studio album, Comatose. It's the Christian rock band's first gold-certified album, selling half a million copies. By 2016, sales reach one million, which earns the album platinum status.

2005 Fiona Apple releases her third album, Extraordinary Machine, her first since When The Pawn... in 1999. The album was finished and slated for release in 2003, but Apple had second thoughts and put it on hold. After a leaked version appeared on the Internet in 2005, she re-recorded the songs and finally released the album.More

2004 Tom Waits releases Real Gone, his fifteenth studio album. Featuring several political songs, including an "elliptical" protest against the Vietnam War titled "Day After Tomorrow," it's voted best album of 2004 by Harp Magazine.

2004 VH1 holds its first Hip-Hop Honors, giving awards to DJ Hollywood, DJ Kool Herc, KRS-One, Public Enemy (who also perform), Rock Steady Crew, Run-D.M.C., Tupac and The Sugarhill Gang.

2003 The film of the benefit concert The Concert For George, an all-star tribute to the recently deceased ex-Beatle George Harrison, opens in US theaters.

2001 Keith Urban goes home to Australia to accept a special Aria Award - roughly the equivalent to a Grammy in the US. Urban receives the Outstanding Achievement Award in recognition of sales and chart success in the US.

2001 Rock band Powderfinger dominates the 15th annual Australian Record Industry Association awards with six victories at Sydney's Capitol Theatre.

2000 45-year-old Mark David Chapman, the man who twenty years earlier fired five shots into John Lennon's back, faces the parole board. Parole for John Lennon's murderer is denied, with the board stating that letting him free would "deprecate the seriousness of the crime."

1999 Tom Jones charts a UK #1 album for the first time in 25 years when his set Reload hits the top spot. Joining the 59-year-old Jones on the album are Robbie Williams, Stereophonics, Barenaked Ladies and the Pretenders.

1997 Sugar Ray are grounded when lead singer Mark McGrath hurts his leg in Bologna, Italy on the first date of their European tour, which is postponed.

1995 The Youngbloods frontman Jesse Colin Young's house in Port Reyes, California burns to the ground in the Mount Vision wildfires. His song "Ridgetop" is about the house.

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Taylor Swift Releases The Life Of A Showgirl

2025

Taylor Swift hypes her latest album, The Life Of A Showgirl, with an extreme marketing campaign that entices fans to unlock musical clues hidden behind orange doors in 12 cities around the world.


The first challenge is to figure out which cities contain the mysterious doors. Google provides the first clue when a search of Swift's name produces a burning-heart emoji that throws out a random scrabble of letters, ultimately revealing the dozen locales ranging from Berlin to Las Vegas. Each door contains a QR code that links to a YouTube short with a hidden word: All 12 words piece together the phrase, "You must remember everything but mostly this: the crowd is your king." Googling the phrase leads to a final orange door that, when clicked 12 million times, unlocks the video to "The Fate Of Ophelia," the album's lead single. The global hunt is just one piece of the marketing blitz, which includes a behind-the-scenes film about the making of the album and loads of merchandise. Multiple physical and digital versions of the album are released, with each of the eight vinyl variants containing individual poems by Swift that make up the album's prologue. Usually, Swifties can't get enough of exploring the singer's musical landscape, but the marketing gimmicks come off as being exploitative. Fans even wonder if they have that much in common with the billionaire songstress anymore. Written during her smash Eras Tour, The Life Of A Showgirl finds Swift exploring the highs and lows of being famous while gushing over her fairytale romance with a football star - not exactly relatable topics for the average listener. Even the soft, retro-pop vibe of the tracks disappoints ears that were primed for pop-rock bangers. But none of the criticism puts a dent in the album sales. The Life Of A Showgirl debuts at #1 on the all-genre Billboard 200 albums chart and its songs dominate the top 12 spots of the Billboard Hot 100. As for Swift, she takes the harsh opinions in stride, telling Apple Music 1 host Zane Lowe: "The rule of show business is if it's the first week of my album release and you are saying either my name or my album title, you're helping."

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