January 4th has been quite an interesting day in the music calendar through the years. In this episode of This Day in Music History, we bring to you some of the events that have easily topped the list even in the melee of others that have gone down in their hundreds.
This day in 1936 witnessed the launch of Billboard Magazine’s foremost pop music chart. This chart was initiated in order to rank records based on criteria such as national sales. The first ever artist top this chart was the celebrated Jazz violinist Joe Venuti.
This day celebrates the birth of R.E.M.’s lead vocalist, Michael Stripe, who was born in 1960. R.E.M. was a successful band with more than 20 Top 40 singles, both in the U.S. and in the U.K. Their eighth studio album Automatic For The People released in October 1992, soared to the No.1 position in the U.K. and No.2 in the U.S.
On January 4th 1977, The Sex Pistols boarded an airplane at the London Heathrow Airport to travel to Amsterdam. When on board, the band members stunned passengers and the airline staff by vomiting and spitting on each other.
On this day in 2001, Madam Tussaud’s London museum revealed that Oasis’ lead vocalist Liam Gallagher was third among their ‘Most Hated Characters’ exhibits; while Adolf Hitler and Slobodan Milosevic bagged the first and second places respectively.
On January 4th 2006, Johnny Cash’s house was purchased by Bee Gees member, Barry Gibb for an amount of $2.9 million. Gibb stated to have bought the house to honor and safeguard the memory of the legendary singer. But the following year, in April 2007, the house was completely damaged in a fire. At the time of the incident, Gibb was getting the house renovated and during the construction, some flammable spray sealer started the fire that burned the house.