It’s June 1st and these are some of the things that happened on this day in pop music history:
- In 1974, Alanis Nadine Morissette and twin brother Wade were born in Ottawa. At 16, she released her debut album, a dance-pop collection titled Alanis. Its singles “Too Hot,” “Walk Away” and “Feel Your Love” were hits in Canada. A year later she released Now Is The Time, which included the hit “An Emotion Away.” After moving to the U.S., Morissette reinvented herself and released Jagged Little Pill in 1995. It became one of the top-selling albums by a female artist ever, with global hits like “You Oughta Know,” “Ironic” and “Hand in My Pocket.” Morissette has collected seven Grammys.
- In 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono recorded “Give Peace a Chance" in room 1742 at Montreal’s Queen Elizabeth Hotel with Tommy Smothers on guitar and Timothy Leary and Petula Clark providing backing vocals.
- In 1987, George Michael released “I Want Your Sex,” the first single from his album Faith. The controversial song reached No. 2 on the Canadian chart and peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100.
- In 2017, numerous media outlets erroneously reported that the titular character of Eminem’s 2000 song “Stan” has been added to the Oxford English Dictionary. In fact, “stan” (defined as “an overzealous or obsessive fan of a particular celebrity") was added to Oxford’s online dictionary in early 2016, and not to the official Oxford English Dictionary until June 2018.
- In 1985, Prince & The Revolution started a three-week run at No.1 on the Billboard 200 album chart with Around The World In A Day. It included “Raspberry Beret.”
- In 1985, Norwegian band A-ha released its debut album, Hunting High and Low, which included the smash hit “Take On Me.”
And that’s what popped on this day.