Nov 21st in Pop History
On this day, November 21st, in…
(1987 • 34 years ago today)
Billy Idol knocked Tiffany from the # 1 single position on the US singles chart with his version of Tommy James Mony Mony.
Tiffany had been at # 1 with another Tommy James song I Think We're Alone Now.
Billy Idol, is an English musician, singer, songwriter, and actor who holds dual British and American citizenship. He first achieved fame in the 1970s emerging from the London punk rock scene as a member of Generation X. Subsequently, he embarked on a solo career which led to international recognition and made Idol a lead artist during the MTV-driven “Second British Invasion” in the United States. The name "Billy Idol" was inspired by a schoolteacher's description of him as "idle.”
Here, in his own words (from his 2014 New York Times bestselling autobiography, “Dancing With Myself”), a few words about how he became Billy Idol....
“I came to New York in the spring of 1981, my Country Gentleman guitar in one hand, a suitcase in the other, the trunk with my pink Elvis ’50s-style jacket and the sum of my effects on my back. Surely this city, with its skyscrapers reaching into the ozone, touching hitherto unknown heights, might welcome yet another stranger in a strange land, one more explorer doing his damndest to act unafraid in the face of his exceedingly uncertain future. The heavens blazed my coming to America that first night with shooting stars and a strange halo effect that may well have been the man in the moon laughing at my audacity.
“Some thirty-three years later, I come to you again, with a story to tell. You know me as Billy Idol, the hell-raising rebel who’s lived life to the full — sometimes fuller than life would allow. But I am also William Michael Albert Broad, a working-class kid from the suburbs of London: a dreamer with his nose forever in a book, cursed with feeling too much, dreaming too big, and suffering slights too deeply. Life gave me a golden key when I fell in love with rock ’n’ roll (thanks to the music in my Irish mum’s blood), and a whole new world opened up to me. With this world came every opportunity, and every temptation under the sun; around-the-clock excess.
“I am hopelessly divided between the dark and the good, the rebel and the saint, the sex maniac and the monk, the poet and the priest, the demagogue and the populist. Pen to paper, I am putting it all down, every bit from the heart. I am going out on a limb here, so watch my back.”
Billy Idol has sold 40 million albums while scoring numerous platinum albums worldwide, nine top forty singles in the U.S. and 10 in the U.K. including Dancing With Myself, White Wedding, Rebel Yell, Mony Mony, Eyes Without A Face, Flesh For Fantasy, and Cradle Of Love. Idol is a serious rocker, who takes no prisoners. He came to the scene to reinvigorate rock and roll, and made his mark on pop/rock history. You be the judge - check out his music for yourself. Attached below:
Mony Mony
Vital Idol Revitalized (Greatest Hits)
Attached below are a couple of videos of Billy Idol classics:
Here is Billy Idol’s official music video for the great song Mony Mony
Here is Billy Idol’s official music video for his hit record Dancing With Myself
——————————————————————————
Also, on this day, November 21st, in…
• 1983 - Michael Jackson’s 14-minute video for Thriller was premiered in Los Angeles. Directed by John Landis and co-starring former Playboy centerfold Ola Ray. The video (like the song) contains a spoken word performance by horror film veteran Vincent Price. The video was filmed at the Palace Theatre in downtown Los Angeles, the zombie dance sequence at the junction of Union Pacific Avenue and South Calzona Street in East Los Angeles and the final house scene in the Angeleno Heights neighborhood at 1345 Carroll Avenue
Thriller
• 1981 - Queen and David Bowie were at No. 1 in the UK with Under Pressure. They recorded the song together when both acts were working in a German recording studio. It was David Bowie's first released collaboration with another recording artist
Under Pressure
• 1981 - Olivia Newton-John started the first of 10 weeks at the top of the US singles chart with Physical. It was her fourth US # 1 and went on to sell over 2 million copies
Physical
• 2012 - Canadian singer, songwriter, and actress, Carly Rae Jepsen. Her 2012 single Call Me Maybe reached # 1 in 18 countries and culminated as the year's best-selling single globally
Call Me Maybe
• 1995 - The Beatles Anthology I set a first-day sales record, selling 450,000 units
Beatles Anthology I
In courtrooms on this date in 2003:
• 2003 - In Los Angeles, record producer Phil Spector was charged with the murder of Lana Clarkson at his home the previous February. Spector pled innocent.
• 2003 - In Santa Barbara, California, Michael Jackson was booked on suspicion of child molestation. Jackson immediately posted $3 million bail and then flew back to Las Vegas where he had been filming a video. He was given an arraignment date of January 9, 2004.
