On this day today:
1721 - Johann Sebastian Bach dedicates his Brandenburg Concertos to Christian Ludwig, the margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt. Bach wrote the pieces for the margrave to gain extra support for his work.
1786 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart completes his Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K. 491. Beethoven hears the work in rehearsal and remarks in admiration to a colleague that "[we] shall never be able to do anything like that."
1945 - Billboard publishes its first albums chart, with just 10 positions. The first #1 is Nat King Cole's A Collection Of Favorites. The chart is published irregularly until 1956, when it becomes a weekly feature.
1949 - Nick Lowe is born in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, England.
1956 - Billboard makes their periodic albums chart a weekly feature, with Belafonte by Harry Belafonte. at #1 The chart lists anywhere from 15-30 spots, but is gradually expanded, and in 1967 it grows to 200. The chart goes through several name changes before settling on The Billboard 200 in 1992.
1958 - Elvis Presley goes to the Memphis Draft Board and enters the United States Army.
1960 - Nena is born in Hagen, North Rhine-Westphalia, West Germany.
1962 - Mick Jagger and Keith Richards perform their first paid gig when they appear as Little Boy Blue & the Blue Boys at a club in Ealing, England.
1972 -The Godfather opens in theaters. Musically significant because the character Johnny Fontane is supposedly based on Frank Sinatra, and because "Godfather of..." becomes a common musical honorific.
1973 - A fan shouting "Leather!" jumps on stage and bites Lou Reed in the butt during a concert in Buffalo. The fan is ejected and Reed is left with a sore posterior.
1975 - Rush are named Most Promising Group at the Juno Awards. They fulfill that promise, winning Group Of The Year in 1978 and 1979.
1975 - Paul McCartney throws a party on the Queen Mary to celebrate the release of the Wings album Venus And Mars. Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell are among the guests; their conversation about painting leads to Dylan's song "One More Cup of Coffee (Valley Below)" and Mitchell's "Paprika Plains."
1979 - Disco is still going strong as the Bee Gees' "Tragedy" hits #1 in the US.
1986 - At the 58th Academy Awards in Los Angeles, Lionel Richie wins the Oscar for Best Original Song for his track "Say You, Say Me" from the film White Nights. The song topped three different Billboard charts but didn't appear on the soundtrack album for the movie. It was finally released on Lionel's 1986 album, Dancing on the Ceiling.
1990 - Sinead O’Connor went to No.1 on the UK album chart with 'I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got', featuring the single 'Nothing Compares To You. Also No.1 in 13 other countries and six weeks at No.1 in the US.
1992 - A Chicago court settled the Milli Vanilli class action suit by approving cash rebates of up to $3 (£1.76) to anyone proving they bought the group’s music before November 27 1990, the date the lip synching scandal broke. Milli Vanilli won the 1989 best new artist Grammy after hits like 'Blame it on the Rain' and 'Girl, You Know It's True,' selling 30 million singles and 14 million albums. But in late 1990, the performers were stripped of the award after it was revealed that neither actually sang on the Milli Vanilli album.
1992 - Arrested Development release their debut album, 3 Years, 5 Months and 2 Days in the Life of... It sells four million copies thanks to the hits "Tennessee," "People Everyday" and "Mr. Wendal."
1992 - A Tribe Called Quest release "Scenario," with a guest verse by little-known 19-year-old rapper Busta Rhymes.
2000 - MTV debuts the reality series Making the Band, with the first season spawning the boy band O-Town. Lou Pearlman, the creator of Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC, manages the group.
2001 - After being dubbed Worst Actress of the Century a year earlier, Madonna lands her fifth Razzie for Worst Actress, for her role as Abbie Reynolds in The Next Best Thing, at the 21st Golden Raspberry Awards.
2005 - After Carrie Underwood performs "Alone" on American Idol, Simon Cowell, by far the harshest critic on the panel, predicts she will win the competition and sell more records than any previous Idol winner. He's right: She becomes the first country singer to win and ends up surpassing Kelly Clarkson as the best-selling alum of the show.
2008 - Britney Spears makes the first of two appearances on How I Met Your Mother, playing a receptionist smitten with Josh Radnor's character, Ted.
2009 - Prince launches Lotusflow3r.com, which for $77 subscriptions, offers access to his videos and music. It shuts down after a year.
2020 - Producers Swizz Beatz and Timbaland face off in the first Verzuz battle, where songwriters, producers and artists take turns performing their hits and are judged by an online audience. The series quickly becomes very popular, regularly drawing virtual audiences in the six figures. Popular battles include Gladys Knight vs Patti LaBelle, Teddy Riley vs Babyface, and Erykah Badu vs Jill Scott.
2022 - It was reported that Spotify paid $7bn to music industry rights holders in 2021, accounting for almost 25% of the industry's total revenues. The streaming giant said 52,600 artists earned more than $10,000 (£7,500) from Spotify in 2021. Of those, 130 were paid more than $5m (£3.8m) over the last 12 months. Spotify didn't name any of the artists involved, but its most-streamed acts last year were Bad Bunny, Taylor Swift, BTS, Drake and Justin Bieber; while the most streamed-song was Olivia Rodrigo's 'Drivers License'.
