History Highlight:

Today in 1991, Pearl Jam released their debut album Ten. Produced by Rick Parashar and recorded at London Bridge Studios in Seattle, most of the songs began as instrumental jams, to which Eddie Vedder added lyrics about topics such as depression, homelessness and abuse. The album would prove the group's most commercially successful to date, selling more than 13 million copies. It contains the hit singles "Alive," "Even Flow" and "Jeremy." In his review of the album, AllMusic staff writer Steve Huey called Ten a "flawlessly crafted hard rock masterpiece."

Also, Today In:

1965 - Elvis Presley played host to The Beatles, the "successors to the throne," in a reportedly awkward four-hour meeting at Presley's Bel Air, Calif., mansion.

1966, The Beach Boys 'God Only Knows' peaked at No.2 on the UK singles chart. The song broke new ground in many ways. It was one of the first commercial songs to use the word 'God' in its title and Brian Wilson used many unorthodox instruments, including the French horns that are heard in the song's famous introduction.

1967 - Brian Epstein, the music entrepreneur and the manager of the Beatles, was found dead in a bedroom at his London home. A coroner's inquest concluded that Epstein died from an overdose of the sleeping pill Carbitrol.

1988 - "Monkey" gave George Michael his eighth U.S. No. 1 single of the 1980s; only Michael Jackson had more U.S. No. 1 hits in the '80s.

1988 Tracy Chapman's self-titled debut album hits #1 in the US as her song "Fast Car" peaks at #6.

1990 - Stevie Ray Vaughan perished when the helicopter in which he was flying crashed in East Troy, Wis., during a dense fog. In 2003, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Stevie Ray Vaughan No. 7 in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of all time.

1994 - Boyz II Men started a 14-week run at No. 1 on the U.S. singles chart with "I'll Make Love To You." Ultimately, they knocked themselves out of the No. 1 slot with their follow-up hit, "On Bended Knee."

2013 - A risqué performance at the MTV Video Music Awards drew a formal grievance from the Parents Television Council (PTC), which issued a complaint against MTV in response to Miley Cyrus and Robin Thicke dancing suggestively to the song, "Blurred Lines," two days earlier. Reacting to the controversy, Cyrus responded to her critics, saying, "They're overthinking it."

Birthdays:

Chip Douglas of The Turtles is 77.

Daryl Dragon of The Captain and Tennille was born today in 1942.

Guitarist Alex Lifeson of Rush is 66.

No Doubt bassist Tony Kanal is 49.

Rapper Mase is 42.

Sarah Neufeld, the violinist for Arcade Fire, is 40.

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