16 JULY
Featured Events
2022 Two songs from the '80s land in the US Top 40: "Master Of Puppets" by Metallica (#40) and "Running Up That Hill" by Kate Bush (#4). Both songs were revived by season 4 of Stranger Things, where they're used in battle against the evil Vecna.
2008 Billy Joel bids goodbye to Flushing, New York's iconic Shea Stadium with the first of two star-studded concerts. Sadly, this is the highlight of the Mets' season.
1996 The Sultan of Brunei, the world's richest man, marks his 50th birthday with a Michael Jackson concert on the Borneo Island. Jackson earns about $15 million for the performance, which is free to the 60,000 in attendance.
1981 Harry Chapin dies in a car crash at age 38.
1967 Arlo Guthrie debuts "Alice's Restaurant Massacree" at the 1967 Newport Folk Festival. The song runs 18 minutes long and tells a true (but greatly exaggerated) story about how he was arrested one Thanksgiving morning for illegal dumping. The ticket later made him ineligible for the draft, keeping him out of the Vietnam War. Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Judy Collins, Janis Ian, and Tom Paxton also play the festival this day.
1966 A supergroup is born as former Yardbirds guitarist Eric Clapton teams up with bassist Jack Bruce and drummer Ginger Baker of the Graham Bond Organization to form Cream. They break up just three years later, but leave a lasting impact that earns them induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993.
16 JULY
In Music History
2025 Lady Gaga kicks off her Mayhem Ball tour with a show in Las Vegas. The set resembles an opera house, and the show is infused with that dramatic energy as Gaga battles her alter-ego, the troublemaking "Mistress of Mayhem," throughout. Hailed as a creative triumph, every show on the tour sells out.
2025 Coldplay do a jumbotron segment at their concert in Foxborough, Massachusetts, that lands on a couple with a very guilty reaction. "Either they're having an affair or they're just really shy," frontman Chris Martin quips. That night the footage shows up on social media and goes viral. The couple are quickly identified as a tech company CEO and one of his employees, both married... to other people.
2025 Connie Francis, one of the most popular singers of the late '50s and early '60s, dies at 87. Her hits include "Who's Sorry Now" and "My Heart Has a Mind of Its Own," but Gen Z knows her for "Pretty Little Baby," a B-side from 1962 that went viral in 2025.
2023 French fashion icon Jane Birkin, who sang with Serge Gainsbourg on the racy number "Je T'aime... Moi Non Plus," dies at 76. She's the namesake of the Birkin Bag, a symbol of luxury mentioned in many rap songs, most famously "'03 Bonnie And Clyde" by Jay-Z.
2022 Jennifer Lopez marries Ben Affleck at a quickie wedding in Las Vegas. The couple were engaged in 2002 and had a lavish ceremony planned, but they called it off. They started dating again in 2021 after Lopez' marriage to Marc Anthony and Affleck's marriage to Jennifer Garner ended.
2021 Biz Markie, the "clown prince of hip-hop," dies at 57. He's best known for his 1989 hit "Just a Friend."
2015 Maroon 5 cancel shows in Beijing and Shanghai after their keyboard player, Jesse Carmichael, participates in celebrations for the Dalai Lama's 80th birthday and tweets birthday wishes to His Holiness. This puts the band in the company of Bjork and Oasis as acts that have been banned from China for supporting Tibet, where the Dalai Lama is the spiritual leader.
2014 Blues rocker Johnny Winter dies at age 70.
2012 Jon Lord, a founding member of Deep Purple, dies at age 71 of a pulmonary embolism while suffering from pancreatic cancer.
2009 At the Latitude Festival, held every year in Henham Park in Suffolk, England, Noah and the Whale debut their feature-length film The First Days of Spring. The film accompanies their new record of the same name due out in August. Written and directed by lead singer Charlie Fink, the film stars model Daisy Lowe, the daughter of fashion designer Pearl Lowe and Gavin Rossdale, lead singer for the alt-rock band Bush.
2008 Jo Stafford, whose "You Belong To Me" made her the first female artist to hit #1 on the UK Chart, dies of congestive heart failure at age 90.
2003 Cuban singer Celia Cruz dies of brain cancer at age 77.
2002 After unfinished tracks from their shelved project The Lillywhite Sessions are leaked on the internet, Dave Matthews Band reworks the songs and release them as Busted Stuff.More
2001 Kid Rock's album Devil Without A Cause goes Diamond, selling over 10 million albums in America. His previous three albums sold maybe 50,000 copies combined, mostly in the Detroit area.
1996 Styx drummer John Panozzo dies at age 47 when his liver fails after years of drinking.
Party Rock Is In the House
2011"Party Rock Anthem" by LMFAO hits #1 after first appearing on the Hot 100 on February 12 at #78. Thanks to a captivating video, the song starts the "shufflin'" dance craze and spends a staggering 68 weeks on the chart (six at #1), which is longer than any other chart-topper.
Party rock is in the house tonight Everybody just have a good time Lyrics might not seem like a big deal for a club banger intended to get people dancing rather than thinking, but LMFAO couldn't disagree more. Redfoo, half of the electro-pop duo who also happens to be the son of legendary Motown founder Berry Gordy, grew up in the presence of master lyricists like Smokey Robinson, who taught him that every word counts. "The 'Just' was key," said Redfoo of the song's chorus. "I made it a command, to focus people on what to do now that we're here together. Our lyrics are very calculated, even if they appear simple." Redfoo was inspired to write the tune when he got into shuffling, an '80s-inspired dance style that incorporates retro moves like the running man with fast footwork, and thought it would be perfect for Flo Rida. But as he got to work on the anthem with his old friend GoonRock, it was clear they were writing an LMFAO single. "Party Rock Anthem" becomes the centerpiece of the duo's Sorry For Party Rocking album and is their first #1 on the Hot 100, surpassing Adele's "Rolling In The Deep" and Pitbull's "Give Me Everything (Tonight)." With a whopping 68-week chart run, the song breaks the record for longest run on the Hot 100, previously held by Jewel's 1998 hit "Foolish Games" at 65 weeks (a feat matched by "Rolling in the Deep").
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