History Highlight:

Today in 1993, Nirvana recorded their MTV Unplugged special at Sony Studios in New York. Nirvana played a setlist composed largely of lesser-known material and cover versions of songs by The Vaselines, David Bowie, Meat Puppets and Lead Belly. The resulting album would go on to win the Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album in 1996.

Also, Today In:

1956 - Fats Domino appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show performing "Blueberry Hill."

1972 - Cat Stevens started a three-week run at No. 1 on the U.S. album chart with Catch Bull At Four. The title was taken from one of the Ten Bulls of Zen a series of short poems and accompanying pictures that are intended to illustrate the stages of a Buddhist practitioner's progression towards enlightenment.

1974 - Genesis released the double concept album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, their sixth studio album and the last album by the group to feature the involvement of lead singer Peter Gabriel.

1976 - Richard Hell and the Voidoids made their debut at CBGB in New York. Hell was an innovator of punk music and fashion and was one of the first to spike his hair and wear torn, cut and drawn-on shirts, often held together with safety pins.

1978 - Billy Joel went to No. 1 on the U.S. album chart with his sixth studio album, 52nd Street. The album would go on to win Joel the 1979 Grammy for Album of the Year.

1983 - R.E.M. made their first appearance outside the U.S. when they appeared on U.K. Channel 4 TV show, The Tube.

1987 - At a Los Angeles concert, U2 opened for themselves, pretending to be a country-rock band called The Dalton Brothers. The band name is a reference to the gang of bandits who appear in the Lucky Luke comic books.

1989 - Songwriter Diane Warren had the No. 1 and No. 2 singles on the U.S. chart with "When I See You Smile" by Bad English followed by "Blame It On the Rain," by Milli Vanilli.

1994 - The Rolling Stones became the first major band to stream a live concert on the Web when they transmitted the first five songs from a concert in Dallas over the Internet: "Not Fade Away," "Tumbling Dice," "You Got Me Rocking," "Shattered" and "Rocks Off." The show was part of the Stones' Voodoo Lounge tour. Although the Stones were the first major band to webcast a show, the very first band to use the technology was Palo Alto, Calif., rock band Severe Tire Damage, who performed via Internet multicast on June 24, 1993 (all band members worked for Silicon Valley firms). As a hat-tip to their predecessors' innovation, the Rolling Stones invited Severe Tire Damage to open for their 1994 Web concert. Here is a video summary of how the Rolling Stones' Web concert was reported at the time:

2001 - R.E.M. made a guest appearance on The Simpsons performing "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" in Homer Simpson's garage.

Birthdays:

Songwriter Hank Ballard, who had a No. 1 for Chubby Checker with "The Twist," was born today in 1927.

Scorpions drummer Herman Rarebell is 67.

Highlights for Today in Music History are gathered from This Day in Music, Paul Shaffer's Day in Rock, Song Facts and Wikipedia.