Today in Rock Music History

June 25th

1988 Van Halen’s “OU812” is #1 on the Billboard 200. 

The set features the tracks “When It’s Love” and “Finish What Ya Started.” 

1994 Stone Temple Pilots’ second album “Purple” is #1 on the Billboard 200. 

The album sells 252,000 copies in its first week, eventually moving over six-million copies.

2013 Queensryche release their first album with vocalist Todd La Torre.

The self-titled album contains the single “Redemption.”

La Torre. replaced Geoff Tate.

MORE TODAY IN ROCK…

1946 Keyboardist/guitarist Allen Lanier (Blue Oyster Cult) enters the world.

1946 Multi-instrumentalist Ian McDonald is born in Osterley, Middlesex, England. He is known for his work with Foreigner and King Crimson.

1954 David Paich starts his life in L.A. The son of Jazz composer, Marty Paich, David works as a session musician (keyboards) prior to fronting Toto.

1955 Bo Diddley’s two-sided hit, “Bo Diddley” and “I’m A Man,” tops the R&B chart. Both songs become Rock N’ Roll staples.

1966 Paul McCartney’s “Paperback Writer” is yet another #1 song for The Beatles.

1967 Four-hundred million people watch The Beatles perform “All You Need is Love” on Our World, the first international satellite television program. The BBC commissioned The Beatles to write a song for the program and requested that it contain a message that would easily translate across the globe.

1972 Michael Douglas Henry Kroeger, bassist for Nickelback, is born in Hanna, Alberta. He is the half-brother of frontman Chad Kroeger.

1982 Robert Plant’s solo career gets off to a solid start with the arrival of “Pictures At Eleven.”  The album by the former Led Zeppelin vocalist subsequently peaks at #5 on the Billboard 200.

1988 Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist and co-founding member, Hillel Slovak, dies from a heroin overdose at age 26.  

2004 David Bowie collapses backstage at the Hurricane Festival in Germany.  He immediately undergoes surgery for a blocked artery that requires emergency angioplasty.

2005 “X&Y,” Coldplay’s third album, tops, the Billboard 200. 

2005 “Rockin’ The Corps,” an all-star concert film, premieres in Washington D.C. Filmed at Camp Pendleton (Oceanside, CA) it features performances by Godsmack, KISS, Ted Nugent and Bon Jovi’s Richie Sambora before an audience of military personnel and their families. Proceeds from the screening benefit the Support The Corps charity.

2009 Sky Saxon (born Robert Marsh), leader of the ’60’s Garage-Rock group the Seeds, dies in Austin TX. The Seeds are best known for their proto-Punk “Pushin’ Too Hard,” a Top 40 hit in ’67.

2009 The outlandish Sacha Baron Cohen comedy “Bruno” premieres in L.A. The film closes with a parody of “We Are The World” that features Bono (U2), Sting and Elton John.

2009 Michael Jackson dies after suffering a heart attack. The King of Pop had one of the most successful yet downright weird careers in music history. He was 50.

2013 Atlantic City mayor Lorenzo Langford supports James Hetfield’s criticism of area hotel prices that resulted in moving the Metallica curated Orion Festival to Detroit. “I thought Atlantic City was going to be a lot better than it was,” says Metallica’s frontman. “There was some gouging going on in hotels, ripping people off, crap like that.”

2015 Disturbed singer David Draiman says that he is “done with social media” after dealing with Twitter (now X) trolls who bait him about his views. Draiman, the son of Israelis and the grandson of Holocaust survivors, often speaks out against anti-Semitism.

2016 Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “The Getaway” lands at #2 on the Billboard 200. It’s kept out of the top spot by Drake’s “Views” which is #1 for the eighth consecutive week.

2016 An electric guitar owned by Prince and a lock of David Bowie’s hair are sold at Heritage Auctions in Beverly Hills. Prince’s Yellow Cloud guitar is bought for $137,500 by Jim Irsay, the owner of the Indianapolis Colts. Bowie’s hair, which sells for $18,750, came from a former employee of Madame Tussauds in London.

2022 The day after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Coheed & Cambria state they will donate all profits (a minimum of $25,000) from its upcoming concert in Oklahoma City to the Center For Reproductive Rights, a legal advocacy group that represented the clinic at the center of the case.  

2023 Elton John performs at the Glastonbury Festival in England.  He tells the massive audience that he never believed that he would play Glastonbury, adding that this “may” be his final ever show in the U.K. 

2024 Lamb Of God guitarist Mark Morton releases his memoir, “Desolation: A Heavy Metal Memoir” (co-written with Ben Opiari). The book covers his musical career and journey from addiction to recovery.   

2024 Metallica’s official X account is hacked.  A flurry of Tweets promote a token “on the Solana blockchain” that promises to revolutionize event experiences and online shopping.