Chapter 01 — Today in music
On a day like today October 8
1948
Johnny Ramone is born, the iron sergeant who disciplined punk
John Cummings, the future Johnny Ramone, is born on Long Island. His all-downstroke barre-chord guitar was the Ramones' engine and punk's founding technique: speed, precision and zero solos. He ran the band with military discipline for 22 years and proved that extreme simplicity also demands absolute rigor.
Johnny Ramone
Ramones
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1950
Robert “Kool” Bell is born, the bassist who made half a century dance
Robert “Kool” Bell, founder and bassist of Kool & the Gang, is born in Youngstown, Ohio. They started as a jazz band and ended up signing universal celebration anthems like “Celebration”, “Ladies' Night” and “Jungle Boogie”. Their catalogue is among hip-hop's most sampled: few bass lines have worked so hard and so well.
Robert "Kool" Bell
Kool & the Gang
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1957
Jerry Lee Lewis cuts Great Balls of Fire while arguing whether rock damns him
On 8 October 1957, at Sun Studio in Memphis, Jerry Lee Lewis recorded "Great Balls of Fire", written by Otis Blackwell and Jack Hammer. The tape from that day holds more than the song: the fight with Sam Phillips over whether playing this music condemned him. He cut it anyway, went to number two, and wrecked his career seven months later by marrying his thirteen-year-old cousin.
Jerry Lee Lewis
Sam Phillips
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1964
Oh, Pretty Woman hits the British number one and climbs back a month later
The British chart beginning 8 October 1964 put "Oh, Pretty Woman" on top, Roy Orbison's third UK number one. Recorded in Nashville that August, it opens with a drum roll and a guitar riff anyone recognises from the first note. It returned to the summit in November. It was his last great hit before two decades of neglect.
Roy Orbison
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1976
EMI sign the Sex Pistols and take eighty-eight days to regret it
On 8 October 1976 the Sex Pistols signed a two-year contract with EMI. December brought the Bill Grundy interview, the swearing on early-evening television and the fury of the British press; on 4 January, using an incident at Heathrow as pretext, the label let them go. They kept the advance and the legend.
Sex Pistols
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1980
Talking Heads stop writing songs and build them on top of a loop
On 8 October 1980 Remain in Light came out, produced by Brian Eno and recorded between the Bahamas and New York. Instead of composing, the band played hours of improvisation, cut out the best fragments and repeated them to the end: African music read by four nervous New Yorkers, with Adrian Belew on top. Byrne, blocked, wrote the lyrics in a rush.
Talking Heads
Brian Eno
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1980
Prince cuts Dirty Mind in his own basement and closes half of radio to himself
That same 8 October 1980 Dirty Mind appeared, Prince's third album, made almost single-handed in a sixteen-track studio rigged up in the basement of his Lake Minnetonka house. Funk, new wave and lyrics no station would play: it barely reached number forty-five. This is the record where he invented the character who would rule the next decade.
Prince
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1985
Bruno Mars is born, who was impersonating Elvis on stage at four
On October 8, 1985, Peter Gene Hernandez was born in Honolulu, son of a Puerto Rican percussionist and a Filipina dancer. From the age of four he worked in the family show impersonating Elvis and Michael Jackson for tourists. They called him Bruno after a wrestler. He started out writing songs for other people because labels had no idea what box to put him in, and ended up with fifteen Grammy awards.
Bruno Mars
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1988
The last time Freddie Mercury stood on a stage he was singing opera
On 8 October 1988, at Barcelona's La Nit festival — staged to welcome the Olympic flag arriving from Seoul — Freddie Mercury appeared alongside Montserrat Caballé for "Barcelona", "How Can I Go On" and "The Golden Boy". Nobody knew it that night, but it was his last appearance on a stage. He had three years left.
Freddie Mercury
Montserrat Caballé
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1996
Antichrist Superstar hands America the moral panic it was asking for
On 8 October 1996 Antichrist Superstar appeared, co-produced with Trent Reznor and debuting at number three on the Billboard 200 with 132,000 copies sold. By December senators were holding press conferences asking how Interscope could profit from it, and the tour was picketed church by church. Manson understood before anyone that the scandal was the product.
Marilyn Manson
Trent Reznor
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2000
Kid A reaches number one with no singles, no videos and barely any guitars
The British chart of 8 October 2000 put Kid A on top after 55,000 copies sold on its first day, the best opening of the year. Radiohead had answered OK Computer with synthesisers, jazz and a voice processed past recognition, and released not a single. It topped the American chart too, which not even they had expected.
Radiohead
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2002
The last song Nirvana ever recorded comes out, eight years and a lawsuit later
On 8 October 2002 "You Know You're Right" was released, recorded on 30 January 1994 in Seattle: Nirvana's final session, a little over two months before Kurt Cobain's death. Courtney Love, Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic spent years fighting in court over where it should appear. A leak in September settled the matter for them.
Nirvana
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1893
Clarence Williams is born: the publisher who staged the first jazz summits
On October 8, 1893, Clarence Williams was born in Louisiana — a pianist and, above all, the first Black music publisher with a genuinely independent business. From his New York office he organised the sessions where Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bechet first recorded together, in 1924. He accompanied Bessie Smith at the piano and published hundreds of songs at a time when almost nobody protected Black musicians' rights.
Clarence Williams
Louis Armstrong
Bessie Smith
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1949
Hamish Stuart is born: of the Scottish funk band that fooled Black American radio
On October 8, 1949, Hamish Stuart was born in Glasgow, guitarist and voice of the Average White Band. The group's name was a joke at their own expense: six Scots playing funk. In 1975 "Pick Up the Pieces" reached number one in the United States and many stations programmed it assuming the band was Black. Decades later Stuart spent five years playing in Paul McCartney's group.
Hamish Stuart
Average White Band
Paul McCartney
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1959
Gavin Friday is born, Bono's neighbour who chose the awkward road
Dublin, 8 October 1959. Fionán Hanvey grew up on Cedarwood Road, the same street as Bono, and with the same childhood friends founded the Virgin Prunes: theatre, noise and provocation while the band next door conquered stadiums. As Gavin Friday he ended up writing music for Jim Sheridan's films. He is godfather to Bono's eldest daughter.
Gavin Friday
Virgin Prunes
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1964
CeCe Winans is born: the most decorated woman in gospel history
On October 8, 1964, Priscilla Winans was born in Detroit, eighth of ten siblings in a family entirely devoted to gospel. With her brother BeBe she formed a duo that in the late eighties took the genre onto the rhythm and blues charts without diluting the message. Solo she accumulated more than a dozen Grammy awards and became the most decorated female artist American religious music has produced.
CeCe Winans
BeBe Winans
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1965
Manfred Mann release Mann Made, the last record with Paul Jones singing
On 8 October 1965 Mann Made came out in Britain, Manfred Mann's second UK album, cut at Abbey Road between January and June. Thirteen songs of well-dressed rhythm and blues and the last time the original line-up played together: singer Paul Jones and guitarist Mike Vickers would soon leave, and with them the band that made "Do Wah Diddy Diddy".
Manfred Mann
Paul Jones
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1965
C. J. Ramone is born, sharing a birthday with his own band's guitarist
On October 8, 1965, Christopher Ward was born on Long Island. In 1989 he joined the Ramones to replace Dee Dee, the founding bassist. He was twenty-three and had been a fan of the group since childhood. The coincidence is hard to credit: he was born on the same day of the year as Johnny Ramone, the band's guitarist and undisputed boss. He held the job for seven years, until the final concert in 1996.
C. J. Ramone
Johnny Ramone
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1969
Bowie opens with an acoustic guitar as Space Oddity finally climbs
On 8 October 1969, at the Coventry Theatre, Humble Pie's British tour opened with a twenty-two-year-old support act: David Bowie, alone with his guitar, in front of an audience that had paid to see heavy rock. "Space Oddity" had been out three months and was only now climbing the charts. Ziggy Stardust was three years away.
David Bowie
Humble Pie
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1977
Steve Hackett leaves Genesis in the middle of mixing a live album
On 8 October 1977 it was announced that Steve Hackett had left Genesis: he walked out during the mixing of the live album Seconds Out, tired of fighting to get his own material onto records. The band hired no replacement and carried on as a trio, with Mike Rutherford overdubbing guitars. That trio would outsell everything that came before.
Steve Hackett
Genesis
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1988
Def Leppard reach the American number one with a ballad and a one-armed drummer
The Billboard chart dated 8 October 1988 crowned "Love Bites", Def Leppard's only US number one. It came from Hysteria, a record that took three years and a fortune to finish while Rick Allen learned to play the drums with one arm. The ballad gave them what a dozen riff-heavy singles never had.
Def Leppard
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1988
Desire gives U2 their first British number one on a borrowed beat
The British chart of 8 October 1988 put "Desire" on top: U2's first number one in their own market, after a decade of enormous records. The trick is old and shameless — the Bo Diddley beat and a harmonica — and it was the trailer for Rattle and Hum, the album where the Irish band dressed up as Americans.
U2
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1991
Eric Clapton turns twenty-four nights at the Albert Hall into a double album
On 8 October 1991 24 Nights was released in the United States, assembled from forty-two Royal Albert Hall concerts spread over two years. Clapton had turned the London residency into an annual ritual and changed line-ups from night to night: rock quartet, blues band, full orchestra. The record splits all three faces across the same stage.
Eric Clapton
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1994
R.E.M. swap the mandolin for fuzz and go straight to the British number one
The British chart of 8 October 1994 crowned Monster, the record on which R.E.M. abandoned the acoustics of Automatic for the People for glam and feedback. It sold 131,000 copies in four days in the UK, ten times its nearest rival, and topped the US chart too. The tour that followed came close to breaking the band apart.
R.E.M.
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1996
Chris Isaak records his Mexican beach album without leaving San Francisco
On 8 October 1996 Baja Sessions came out, Chris Isaak's sixth album: acoustic arrangements, plenty of old covers and the idea of a cheap holiday in Baja California. He cut it in San Francisco, where he lived. After the vast success of "Wicked Game" he could have repeated the formula; instead he made the record you put on once the party is over.
Chris Isaak
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2001
Starsailor debut with Love Is Here carrying the name of a Tim Buckley album
On 8 October 2001 Love Is Here came out, Starsailor's first album. It sold more than 58,000 copies in its opening week and reached number two in Britain, with a press determined to compare them to the Verve while they named themselves after Tim Buckley's most difficult record. It went platinum in the UK and remains their high point.
Starsailor
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2001
Paul Weller goes out alone with an acoustic and runs through twenty-five years
On 8 October 2001 Days of Speed was released, the live album Paul Weller recorded between March and July touring Europe without a band: just him, an acoustic guitar and a set that crosses the Jam, the Style Council and his solo years. With no arrangements to hide behind, the songs either hold up or fall apart. Almost all hold.
Paul Weller
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2002
Tom Petty devotes a whole album to insulting the industry and radio makes him pay
On 8 October 2002 The Last DJ came out, a concept album about greed in the music business: the DJ who still chooses what plays, money in charge, the artist turned into product. Several stations refused to programme it, which was exactly what Petty had predicted in the songs. It reached number nine on the Billboard 200 anyway.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
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2002
Pearl Jam release the song Vedder wrote to get himself back on a stage
On 8 October 2002 "I Am Mine" came out, the first single from Riot Act. Vedder wrote it in a hotel near Virginia Beach before the band's first concert after the Roskilde tragedy, where nine people were crushed to death in front of the stage in 2000. He wrote it, he said, to convince himself it was going to be all right.
Pearl Jam
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2006
The Killers trade Las Vegas for Springsteen's desert and sell a quarter of a million
The British chart of 8 October 2006 crowned Sam's Town with 268,946 copies in its first week. Brandon Flowers had announced it would be one of the best albums of the last twenty years, and the record sounds like Springsteen from the first bar; critics tore it apart for exactly that, and the British public took it to a million and a half copies.
The Killers
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