Pick a Day

8 OCTOBER

In Music History

2024 Taylor Swift, with net worth estimated at $1.6 billion, becomes the richest female musician, according to Forbes, passing Rihanna on their list. Swift got a big bump from her Eras Tour, the first in history to gross over $1 billion.

2019 Pitbull trademarks his famous "grito" yell, making it one of the few sounds protected by trademark, and likely the first by a musical artist.

2016 Robert Plant and St. Vincent play the Festival of Disruption in Los Angeles, an event staged by the director David Lynch that includes film screenings and meditation.

2013 Novelty song singer Larry Verne dies of heart failure in Sylmar, California, at age 77.

2012 Green Day is forced to cancel their appearance at the New Orleans' Voodoo Music Festival, citing Billie Joe Armstrong's problems with substance abuse. Armstrong had an onstage outburst mid-show in Las Vegas a few weeks earlier that prompted him to get treatment.

2011 Pianist Roger Williams dies of pancreatic cancer in Encino, California, at age 87. Known for his 1955 chart-topping instrumental version of "Autumn Leaves."

2011 Weezer bass player Mikey Welsh dies of an overdose-induced heart attack at a hotel in Chicago, Illinois, at age 40.

2008 Foo Fighters make a villain out of John McCain after the GOP candidate uses "My Hero" without permission. "'My Hero' was written as a celebration of the common man and his extraordinary potential. To have it appropriated without our knowledge and used in a manner that perverts the original sentiment of the lyric just tarnishes the song," Dave Grohl writes in a statement.

2004 Melissa Etheridge announces that she has breast cancer. She cuts her tour short to undergo treatment but makes a full recovery. In February 2005 she performs at the Grammy Awards while still bald from chemotherapy.

2002 Jennifer Love Hewitt releases her fourth studio album, BareNaked.

1998 Bruce Springsteen gives evidence in London's High Court in his case against Masquerade Music over that company's attempt to release some of his early '70s recordings in the UK. The artist says that he was living hand-to-mouth at the time the songs in question were written, relying on handouts from Mike Appel, his co-manager at the time.

1997 Jonas "Jo" Bruce (keyboardist Afro Celt Sound System) dies suddenly of an asthma attack at age 27. He was the son of Cream bass player Jack Bruce.

1996 Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne play a benefit show for environmental groups at the Britt Pavilion in Jacksonville, Oregon. They are greeted by the roar of chainsaws wielded by loggers upset at their efforts to stifle their livelihood.

1996 Jimmy Chamberlin, charged with drug possession, pleads guilty to a lesser charge of disorderly conduct. The Smashing Pumpkins drummer was shooting heroin with touring keyboard player Jonathan Melvoin in July when Melvoin overdosed and died. Chamberlin was fired from the band, but returns in 1999.

1991 Soundgarden's second album for A&M Records, Badmotorfinger, is released. Its arrival neatly coincides with the uprising of grunge (Nirvana's Nevermind was released two weeks earlier, and Pearl Jam's Ten was issued on August 27) and serves as the group's commercial breakthrough.More