History Highlight:

Today in 1985, Scottish band The Jesus and Mary Chain released their debut album, Psychocandy. Anchored by the sibling partnership of William and Jim Reid, The Jesus and Mary Chain developed a sound characterized by loud, heavily distorted guitars. The Reids’ insistence on getting the right sound meant Psychocandy took a bit more than six weeks to record. The painstaking process paid off, however, as The Jesus and Mary Chain’s Psychocandy laid the foundation for the genre known as shoegaze, so named for the way guitar players look down when activating effects pedals. The album includes the songs “Never Understand,” “You Trip Me Up,” and “Just Like Honey.”

Also, Today In:

1956 - Fats Domino appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show performing "Blueberry Hill."

1972 - Cat Stevens started a three-week run at No. 1 on the U.S. album chart with Catch Bull At Four. The title was taken from one of the Ten Bulls of Zen a series of short poems and accompanying pictures that are intended to illustrate the stages of a Buddhist practitioner's progression towards enlightenment.

1974 - Genesis released the double concept album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, their sixth studio album and the last album by the group to feature the involvement of lead singer Peter Gabriel.

1976 - Richard Hell and the Voidoids made their debut at CBGB in New York. Hell was an innovator of punk music and fashion and was one of the first to spike his hair and wear torn, cut and drawn-on shirts, often held together with safety pins.

1978 - Billy Joel went to No. 1 on the U.S. album chart with his sixth studio album, 52nd Street. The album would go on to win Joel the 1979 Grammy for Album of the Year.

1983 - R.E.M. made their first appearance outside the U.S. when they appeared on U.K. Channel 4 TV show, The Tube.

1985 - LL Cool J released his debut album, Radio, the first album ever issued on Def Jam Records. It goes Platinum and makes LL the first solo act on par with reigning rap kings Run-D.M.C. A significant sales success for a hip hop record at the time, Radio became a Billboard chart hit and sold over 500,000 copies within its first five months of release. By 1989, it had been certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. It has since been recognized by critics as LL Cool J's best album. Radio belonged to a pivotal moment in hip hop's culture and history, reflecting the new school and ghettoblaster subculture in the U.S. during the mid-’80s.

1987 - At a Los Angeles concert, U2 opened for themselves, pretending to be a country-rock band called The Dalton Brothers. The band name is a reference to the gang of bandits who appear in the Lucky Luke comic books.

1987 - Sony reaches an agreement to buy CBS Records, which includes Columbia, Portrait and Epic, for $2 billion. Artists on these labels include Michael Jackson, Barbra Streisand, Bob Dylan, Billy Joel, and Bruce Springsteen

1989 - Songwriter Diane Warren had the No. 1 and No. 2 singles on the U.S. chart with "When I See You Smile" by Bad English followed by "Blame It On the Rain," by Milli Vanilli.

1991 - U2 released their seventh studio album, Achtung Baby, on Island Records. It was produced by Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno. The band was frustrated with each other during the recording of this album and arguing about the direction the sound should go - until an improvised writing of “One” lead to a breakthrough. The album debuted at No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard 200 Top Albums, while topping the charts in many other countries. Singles included "One", "Mysterious Ways", and "The Fly".

1993 - Nirvana recorded their MTV Unplugged special at Sony Studios in New York. Nirvana played a setlist composed largely of lesser-known material and cover versions of songs by The Vaselines, David Bowie, Meat Puppets and Lead Belly. The resulting album would go on to win the Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album in 1996.

1994 – Cab Calloway, American singer-songwriter and bandleader (The Cab Calloway Orchestra), passed away at the age of 86.

1994 - The Rolling Stones became the first major band to stream a live concert on the Web when they transmitted the first five songs from a concert in Dallas over the Internet: "Not Fade Away," "Tumbling Dice," "You Got Me Rocking," "Shattered" and "Rocks Off." The show was part of the Stones' Voodoo Lounge tour. Although the Stones were the first major band to webcast a show, the very first band to use the technology was Palo Alto, Calif., rock band Severe Tire Damage, who performed via Internet multicast on June 24, 1993 (all band members worked for Silicon Valley firms). As a hat-tip to their predecessors' innovation, the Rolling Stones invited Severe Tire Damage to open for their 1994 Web concert. Here is a video summary of how the Rolling Stones' Web concert was reported at the time:

1997 - Metallica release ReLoad, their seventh studio album.

1997 - The Titanic soundtrack is released. It contains just one song with vocals - Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" - but sells well over 10 million copies and goes to No. 1 in most countries thanks to the runaway success of the film. 

1999 - Doug Sahm (frontman for Sir Douglas Quintet) dies of a heart attack in Taos, New Mexico, at age 58.

2001 - R.E.M. made a guest appearance on The Simpsons performing "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" in Homer Simpson's garage.

2002 - Bill Wyman, former Rolling Stones bassist, sends a cease-and-desist letter to a writer for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution bearing the same name, which the writer was born under in 1961, on grounds that it violates the copyright of the bassist Wyman, who legally took the name at age 28 in 1964. No lawsuit is ever filed.

2005 - The movie Walk The Line, based on the life of Johnny Cash and starring Joaquin Phoenix as the singer, opens in U.S. theaters.

2006 - With the aid of a private jet, Jay-Z plays seven 30-minute sets across the U.S. in one day to promote his comeback album, Kingdom Come.

2009 - Lady Gaga released The Fame Monster, a reissue of her debut album paired with an EP of eight new songs. It features “Bad Romance,” “Telephone,” “Alejandro,” and “Dance in the Dark”

2014 - TV on the Radio released their fifth studio album, Seeds. It features “Happy Idiot.”

2016 - Sharon Jones, who spearheaded a soul revival movement with her band the Dap-Kings, died in a New York hospital after a battle with pancreatic cancer at the age of 60. Her life and career embodied heart and soul and determination and her artistry, strength, and spirit were inspirational. After a lifetime of singing, in 2014, Jones was nominated for her first Grammy in the category Best R&B Album, for Give the People What They Want.

2017 - Australian musician and songwriter Malcolm Young died at age 64. He was best-known as a co-founder, rhythm guitarist, backing vocalist and songwriter for AC/DC. Except for a brief absence in 1988, he was with the band from its November 1973 beginning until retiring permanently in 2014.

Birthdays:

Johnny Mercer — Tim Pan Alley lyricist, recording artist (“Moon River”), and co-founder of Capitol Records — was born today in 1909.

Songwriter Hank Ballard, who had a No. 1 for Chubby Checker with "The Twist," was born today in 1927.

Don Cherry, jazz musician and father of Neneh and Eagle Eye Cherry, was born on this day in 1936.

Herman Rarebell, drummer for Scorpions, is 75.

Graham Parker of The Rumour is 74.

Rudy Sarzo — bassist for Quiet Riot, Ozzy Osbourne, and Whitesnake — is 74.

John Parr, English singer-songwriter and guitarist best known for “St. Elmo’s Fire”, is 72.

Jan Kuehnemund, guitarist for the all-female metal band Vixen, was born today in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1953.

Kim Wilde (“Kids in America”) is 64.

Kirk Hammett of Metallica is 62.

Tim DeLaughter, frontman of the Polyphonic Spree and Tripping Daisy, is 59.

Duncan Sheik is 55.

Pastor Troy is 49.

Sage Francis is 48.

Fabolous is 47.

Highlights for Today in Music History are gathered from This Day in Music, Song Facts, The Guardian and Wikipedia.