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40 Music History Moments That Slap Hard

Slap da bass! Then slap these music history moments into your brain space

40 Music History Moments That Slap Hard

December 04, 2023

The cool thing about music history is that it’s happening all around us as we speak. Well, as we’ve heard. Whatever! Music’s finest are out there right now doing some wild and interesting stuff that fans will look back on 20 years from now. Somebody document it please, so that we can have new facts to find for years to come! Thank you.

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40

John Lennon

WHEN JOHN LENNON SAID WE'RE MORE POPULAR THAN JESUS. CRACKED Dubbed the Beatles Boycott, his offhand remark led to protests, album burnings, death threats, and since they feared for their safety, it effectively ended their touring career. What hasn't been said about Jesus since then? Lookin' at you, South Park. — Source

39

COMEDIANS WERE ARRESTED FOR A FART SONG IN 1981. CRACKED Dallas police arrested comedy team Bowley & Wilson on stage after a woman complained that her 16 year old daughter was exposed to vulgarity. Comedy historian Kliph Nesteroff said, They were facing a year in prison for doing 'The Fart Song. — Source

38

RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE HUNG AMERICAN FLAGS UPSIDE DOWN ON SNL. SUERRILLA CRACKED They did this before performing, but the flags were quickly taken down, and they were asked to leave before performing a 2nd song. This was in 1996, and things have gotten a lot more political on the show since then. — Source

37

THE DIXIE CHICKS SLAM GEORGE W. BUSH. GRACKED In 2003, radio stations pulled their music and fans were outraged after they said We do not want this war, this violence, and we're ashamed that the president is from Texas. Much worse is said about the current and recent presidents daily. — Source

36

THE BREEDERS CRACKED.COM Bassist Kim Deal hated her lack of creative input in The Pixies, and started The Breeders in 1989. Their 2nd album, The Last Splash, went platinum thanks to Cannonball reaching #2 on Billboard, and they opened on Nirvana's In Utero tour after Kurt Cobain called their first album, Pod, one of his all-time favorite albums. — Source

35

A Perfect Circle

A PERFECT CIRCLE CRACKED.COM While working as a guitar tech for Tool in 1999, Billy Howerdel convinced Maynard James Keenan to front his new band. While definitely the main gig for Howerdel, A Perfect Circle became a very successful side project for Keenan, selling 4 million albums from 2000-2004 in and around Tool projects. — Source

34

Gnarls Barkley

GNARLS BARKLEY CRACKED.COM Maybe every project needs Danger Mouse. After Goodie Mob, CeeLo Green had 2 solo albums while Danger Mouse created The Grey Album in 2004. Their side project, Gnarls Barkley, began with platinum album St. Elsewhere, thanks to Crazy reaching top 5 in 20 countries. The song remains a bigger hit than each artist has had individually. — Source

33

The Traveling Wilburys

THE TRAVELING WILBURYS CRACKED.COM Side Project to Supergroup. George Harrison brought in Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison, Tom Petty, and Bob Dylan to record the track, Handle with Care. Having a blast in the studio, they formed The Traveling Wilburys, and took time away from solo work to record 2 full-length albums, tour, and win a grammy for Best Rock Performance in 1990. — Source

32

Noel and Liam Gallagher After 20 years of creative differences, drug use, and backstage brawls, their final breakup came in 2009 before a Parisian festival. In this physical fight, Liam smashed Noel's guitar, and Noel shared that he officially quit the band. They haven't spoken since. CRACKED — Source

31

Sonic Youth FILING In 2011, after 27 years of marriage, Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore divorced when Moore cheated on her with Eva Prinz. Moore stated that he intended to keep the band together, but Gordon (and the rest of the band) clearly thought that was ridiculous. CRACKED — Source

30

Wham! George Michael wanted to grow out of the teen pop phase and write more honest music. In 1986, even though their latest hit The Edge of Heaven hit No. 1 in the U.K., they played a farewell show at Wembley called The Final, and called it quits. CRACKED — Source

29

Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker of Cream. Bruce once played bass during Baker's drum solo, and Baker attacked him, claiming he had a knife and would kill him. Eric Clapton said they each played so loudly (in order to drown the other out), that Clapton would stop playing and they wouldn't even notice. Their 1969 album Goodbye was indeed their goodbye. CRACKED — Source

28

The Everly Brothers After 20 successful years, Don Everly got so drunk at a show in 1973, that he couldn't remember the lyrics to their most popular songs. Phil Everly broke his guitar over his brother's head, stormed out of the venue, and they didn't speak again until their father died years later. CRACKED — Source

27

Axl Rose And Slash Glick Slash claimed that before a show, Axl refused to go onstage until the band agreed to sign away their rights to the band's name. After their 1993 tour, Axl referred to Slash as a cancer, the band broke up, and Axl didn't even attend their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction. CRACKED — Source

26

Pharrell's 24-hour music video. ISE 08:57AM AM 08 SHARE THIS MOMENT Directed by We Are from LA, the full length version of Pharrell's 2014 hit Happy is 24 hours long. It filmed hundreds of regular people and celebrities dancing to the song overll days of shooting and 42 separate locations around L.A. CRACKED — Source

25

OK Go was a pioneer in viral music videos. Their treadmill choreography in 2009's Here It Goes Again was a massive hit that led to their rube goldberg machine video for This Too Shall Pass. With a crew of 60 people, the machine synced up with the song itself and took roughly 60 takes to complete. CRACKED — Source

24

Elvis Costello had the first fully animated music video. Released in 1979, Accidents Will Happen was made by Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton, who created a cartoon version of the band using 35mm stills as reference. CRACKED — Source

23

Madonna

The world first saw an empowered female artist through Madonna's videos She is cited by Encyclopedia Britannica as the first female artist to fully exploit the potential of the music video. Her '80s videos for Like a Virgin and Material Girl paved the way for every female artist to follow. CRACKED — Source

22

Michael Jackson's THRILLER is so much more than a music video. In December 1983, the 13-minute short film was solely responsible for increasing MTV's ratings tenfold. It is the only music video to be inducted into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress for being culturally, historically or aesthetically significant. CRACKED — Source

21

Rolling Stone said that Queen's BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY invented the music video. It only took four hours and £3,500 to make, but its success in 1975 had every record company thinking about video! Director Bruce Gowers became a star, and went on to make videos for the Bee Gees, Rod Stewart, Michael Jackson, and Prince. CRACKED — Source

20

ASHES TO ASHES by David Bowie is the music video's first art piece. Bowie co-directed his 1980 video, which cost £250,000 to make (a massive price tag at the time). It was a prime example of how music videos can be interpreted as art, and allowed artists to do more than just film themselves playing their instruments. CRACKED — Source

19

Bob Dylan was an early pioneer of the music video. In 1965, 16 years before MTV, Dylan filmed a video for his song Subterranean Homesick Blues, where he held cue cards with lyrics. Several bands have used the cue card approach since, most notably INXS with 1987's Mediate. GET BORN CRACKED — Source

18

Video Killed the Radio Star

MTV had a very fitting first music video. At 12:01a.m. on August 1st, 1981, Video Killed the Radio Star by The Buggles became the very first music video on MTV. The video was released in 1979, so the band definitely saw the changing of the guard and capitalized. CRACKED — Source

17

Manic Monday was actually written by Prince. GRACKED.COM — Source

16

Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah became big because of Shrek. The song went mostly underappreciated for years, even as other artists kept covering it, until a version of it was used in a movie about an ogre, a princess, and a donkey. Then it started popping up everywhere. CRACKED.COM — Source

15

CRACKED.COM Celine Dion's 1998 Christmas album features the heartfelt ballad The Magic of Christmas Day (God Bless Us Everyone). The song was written by Twisted Sister frontman and hair metal icon Dee Snider. — Source

14

CRACKED.COM TOOL'S UNSETTLING SONG 'DIER VON SATANI FROM THE ALBUM AENIMA IS SPOKEN IN GERMAN. BUT WHEN TRANSLATED IT REVEALS... ...A cookie recipe. http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=2900 — Source

13

Harder to Breathe by Maroon 5 It may seem like a relationship song, but it's actually about the band feeling suffocated by their record label who was making them write more songs. It paid off. CRACKED.COM — Source

12

Billie Jean

CRACKED.COM Billie Jean almost got Michael Jackson killed. Jackson was so absorbed in the song, working on it in his head while driving, that he didn't notice his car was on fire. Someone on a bike had to point it out to him. — Source

11

Shot in Prague for $2.3 million by Nigel Dick, the video for It's All Coming Back to Me is a masterpiece of melodrama, all giant four-poster beds and transparent spectral lovers. There's a bit where it looks like a guy's head's fallen off that is very silly. CRACKED — Source

10

Limp Bizkit have always had a complicated relationship with irony - their $3.5 million video for Rollin', helmed by Fred Durst himself and shot atop the World Trade Center, is meant to be self-parody, but can you really spend millions satirizing your own excesses? CRACKED — Source

9

The morphing technology used in John Landis's $4 million epic was totally cutting-edge stuff at the time, which could probably be done fairly well on an iPhone these days. Plus, a cameo from Macaulay goddamn Culkin. CRACKED — Source

8

You'll have gathered by now, Madonna really, really liked spending money on music videos. Mark Romanek's $5 million surreal masterpiece featured innovative CGI, morphing landscapes, flying witch hats and Madonna in maybe 15 different wigs. CRACKED — Source

7

Erykah Badu is a doula CRACKED.COM The Grammy-winning R&B star quit the biz to become a highly-trained birthing coach after hanging out with a pregnant pal of hers: I just continued to be present at different people's births, and I started studying on my own. — Source

6

Al Green is an ordained pastor CRACKED.COM After his girlfriend assaulted him with a pot of boiling grits in 1974, he was inspired to become a reverend, and continues to preach weekly at the Memphis church he established. — Source

5

Brian May is an astrophysicist QUEEN CRACKED COM May had to choose between astrophysics and ROCK early in his career: When I was about to finish my thesis, it was just the beginnings of Queen, and I had to make a choice. And my choice was made on the assumption that I wasn't very good at physics and I might be quite good at music. Не completed his thesis 30 years later, and has since consulted with NASA. — Source

4

Vanilla Ice flips houses the CRACKED.COM Ice started studying real estate in the 90's, and became surprisingly adept at investing in and remodeling homes. Не now owns Vanilla Ice Real Estate, and has a show on the DIY Network. — Source

3

Dan Spitz is a watchmaker ANTHRAX CRACKED.COM The heavy metal guitarist said touring with Anthrax became mundane, and more like a job. So he quit the band to pursue his lifelong love of tinkering with timepieces. — Source

2

Bruce Dickinson is my copilot IRON MAIDEN CRACKED.COM Dickinson has flown the band's jet while on tour on multiple occasions. Не even became a pilot (and marketing director!?) of an airline that, bewilderingly, no longer exists. — Source

1

David Lee Roth dabbled in emergency medicine CRACKED.COM During his 20-year hiatus from Van Halen, he mostly pursued a solo career. But he carved out 2 full years to serve as an EMT in New York City. Не reportedly went on over 200 emergency ambulance calls. — Source

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