It’s November 30th and these are some of the things that happened on this day in pop music history:
- In 1982, Michael Jackson released Thriller, his sixth studio album. It went on to become one of the best-selling albums in music history, producing seven Top 10 hits. It won eight Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
- In 1994, Tupac Shakur was shot five times as he walked into a recording studio in Manhattan during what police said was a robbery. The rapper was hit twice in the head, twice in the groin and once in a hand. He survived – but was killed two years later.
- In 1955, William Michael Albert Broad was born in England. In the mid-‘70s he played guitar with Chelsea and then co-founded the band Generation X. In the ‘80s, as Billy Idol, he became a solo artist and found success with hits like “Eyes Without a Face,” “Rebel Yell,” “White Wedding,” “Dancing With Myself” and “Mony Mony.”
- In 2017, Westbury New Road in the Barbados town of St. Michael was formally renamed Rihanna Drive. A plaque on the street quotes the pop star as saying: “My whole life was shaped on this very road.”
- In 2000, Winnipeg-born Scott Smith, bassist for band Loverboy, died at 45. He was sailing with two friends off the coast of San Francisco when he was swept overboard by a wave.
- In 1997, a Cher-themed episode of the B.C.-shot series The X-Files aired. It featured three of her songs but not the singer herself. Instead, Canadian impersonator Tracey Bell appeared as Cher.
And that’s what popped on this day.