History Highlight:

On this day in 2020, Taylor Swift releases her eighth album, folklore. Swift conceived the album during quarantine, describing it as a “collection of songs and stories that flowed like a stream of consciousness.” Aaron Dessner and Jack Antonoff produced the album virtually. Instead of leading into it with a big publicity campaign, it's announced just a day earlier. Like her previous six albums, it goes straight to #1 in America. 

Also, Today In: 

1964 - A riot broke out during a Rolling Stones gig at The Empress Ballroom in the seaside resort town of Blackpool after Keith Richards aimed a kick at a rude audience member who was spitting at the group. Two policemen and 30 fans were injured and damage was estimated at more than £4,000, about $6200. 

1964- Marvin Gaye records "How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You." Written by the Motown team of Holland-Dozier-Holland, the title comes from one of Jackie Gleason's catch phrases. 

1965 - Bob Dylan charts for the first time as an artist in the US when "Like A Rolling Stone" enters at #91. A handful of his songs have already been hits as covered by other artists, most notably the 1963 Peter, Paul and Mary version of "Blowin' In The Wind." 

1967 - The Beatles met Maharishi Mahesh Yogi after his lecture on Transcendental Meditation in London. The Maharishi invited The Beatles to travel with him to Bangor, in North Wales, to attend more lectures. They accepted his invitation. The same day, all four Beatles signed a petition in favor of the legalization of marijuana in Britain. 

1977 - The original Led Zeppelin lineup played their last-ever show in the United States. Two days after the concert, which was held at the Oakland Coliseum, Robert Plant learned that his five-year-old son, Karac, had died of a stomach infection and canceled the rest of their tour. 

1978 - The film Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band opened, and tanked — hard. Savaged by critics, it barely broke even at the box office and became a legendary Hollywood flop despite appearances by Peter Frampton, The Bee Gees, Aerosmith, Alice Cooper, Tina Turner and others. The movie did produce a handful of notable Beatles covers, however, such as Earth Wind and Fire's "Got To Get You Into My Life." 

1982 - Survivor started a six-week run at No. 1 on the U.S. singles chart with "Eye Of The Tiger," taken from the film Rocky III. The song was written by Survivor guitarist Frankie Sullivan and keyboardist Jim Peterik, and was recorded at the request of Sylvester Stallone, after Queen denied him permission to use "Another One Bites the Dust". Fun fact: "Eye of the Tiger" was originally made for the movie The Karate Kid, as the director of both Rocky and The Karate Kid, John G. Avildsen, planned to use the song for a fighting montage towards the end of the feature. Avildsen opted to use "You're the Best" by Joe Esposito for the montage instead. What a journey! 

1987 - The movie "La Bamba", a somewhat fictionalized biography of Latin rock star Ritchie Valens, opened in the US. It was generally well received, especially the soundtrack by Los Lobos. Lou Diamond Phillips starred as Valens, who died in the infamous plane crash that killed Buddy Holly and The Big Bopper; Marshall Crenshaw appeared as Buddy Holly and Brian Setzer as Eddie Cochran. 

1993 - U2 started a two-week run at No.1 on the US album chart with Zooropa, the Irish band's fourth U.S. No. 1. Meanwhile on the U.S. singles chart, UB40 started a seven-week run at No. 1 with their cover of "(I Can't Help) Falling In Love with You", a big day for "U" bands. 

1997 - Police gave Oasis singer Liam Gallagher a formal caution after he admitted criminal damage following an incident with a cyclist in Camden, north London. Gallagher had grabbed the rider from the window of his chauffeur-driven car and broken the man's sunglasses. 

2000 - *NSYNC had the U.S. No. 1 single with "It's Gonna Be Me." 

2001 - Bob Seger's boat "Lightning" (named because a previous boat was struck by lightning) won its division in the 291-mile race in Michigan with a time of 30 hours, 34 minutes, 42 seconds. Seger was one of 11 crew members on board. 

2001 - Jimmy Eat World release their fourth album, Bleed American, featuring the tracks "The Middle" and "Sweetness." The album is re-titled Jimmy Eat World after September 11. 

2003 - Johnny Cash picked up six nominations in the MTV Video Music Awards for his remake of Nine Inch Nails' 'Hurt' from his album, American IV: The Man Comes Around. The video, featuring images from Cash's life and directed by Mark Romanek, was also named the best video of the year by the Grammy Awards and CMA Awards, and the best video of all time by NME. 

2011 - Dan Peek (multi-instrumentalist and vocalist for America) died of fibrinous pericarditis in his sleep at age 60. 

2011 - At the Mod Club in Toronto, Abel Tesfaye performed as The Weeknd for the first time. 

2014 - Chubby Checker settled his lawsuit with Hewlett-Packard over their app "The Chubby Checker." The app, which sold for 99 cents, purported to estimate a man's "member size" based on his shoe size. 

2016 - Marni Nixon, a soprano singer who dubbed vocals for numerous stars of the silver screen including Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady and Natalie Wood in West Side Story, died at age 86. 

2019 - Queen's iconic 'Bohemian Rhapsody' video reached one billion views on YouTube, a new record for one of the band's videos. The milestone made it the first pre-1990s video to reach one billion views on the platform. 'Bohemian Rhapsody' was also named as the most Googled song of 2018. 

2022 - Joni Mitchell makes a surprise appearance at the Newport Folk Festival, performing a full set for the first time since 2000. Performing from a chair (Mitchell had a brain aneurism in 2015), she's joined by Brandi Carlile for most of the set. 

Birthday: 

Gary Shider of Parliament Funkadelic was born today in 1953. 

Lynval Golding of The Specials is 72.  

Mary Ann "Ladybug Mecca" Vieira, of the alt Hip-Hop group Digable Planets is 50. 

Guitarist Jim Armstrong, of Them, is 79. 

Jennifer Lopez is 54. 

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