Thanks for listening and participating in this year’s countdown. Click on the official Woodstock poster (below) for everything you ever wanted to know about this historic festival — chosen by XPN listeners as the #1 Most Memorable Musical Moment!

Gary Friedman from Lancaster, PA remembers Woodstock
Byron Mellinger, Wyomissing, PA recalls Hendrix at Woodstock
Donna Greenberg from Bensalem, PA remembers almost going to Woodstock
George Paterson of Lincroft, NJ remembers Woodstock’s last moments

Where were you when The Beatles debuted on The Ed Sullivan on Feburary 9th, 1964?

Why was this such a memorable moment in rock history? Writing in an article for Slate.com, Fred Kaplan put it succinctly: “The Beatles took hold of our country and shook it to a different place because they were young, because their music had a young, fresh feel, and because—this is the crucial thing—our parents didn’t get it.”

An estimated 73 million people were watching that night in ‘64. John Lennon was so nervous he taped song lyrics to the back of his guitar. And Ringo didn’t really understand the impact the Beatles had on America until they walked out on the stage that night.

It was mass hysteria – Beatlemania took over the country.

In preparation for their appearance, the CBS Television office on West-Fifty-Third Street in New York was overwhelmed by more than 50,000 requests for tickets to a studio that held 703. During their appearance, the Beatles sang five songs in the following order: All My Loving, Till There Was You, She Loves You, I Saw Her Standing There, and I Want To Hold Your Hand. For their first historical visit, and the next two, The Beatles received $10,000.00 plus pay for their expenses. Some of you may remember that during their second song, the camera had solo shots in which the Beatles’ names were superimposed on the screen. When John’s name came on the screen it said: “Sorry girls, he’s married.”

And Elvis Presley, watching with his manager Colonel Tom Parker, wired in to the show their congratulations.

The Beatles appeared live on the Ed Sullivan show four times; the three Sundays in a row in February ‘64 (Feb. 9, 16, and 23) and their return on Sept. 12, 1965.

Bernard Minarik of Quakertown, NJ recalls the show
Pat Mancuso from Trappe, PA remembers screaming

CNN – When The Beatles Hit America
Slate.com – Remembering The Beatles On Ed Sullivan

John Lennon was shot and killed by Mark David Chapman on December 8, 1980. Lennon was shot as he entered the Dakota, his luxury apartment building on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, opposite Central Park, at approximately 11PM Eastern Time. He was rushed in a police car to St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital Center, where he died. Only hours before, Chapman asked Lennon for his autograph and waited for him to return to his apartment. Lennon was shot four times in the back.

Chapman pleaded guilty to gunning down Lennon and is currently serving life in Attica prison near New York. In October 2004 he failed for the third time to secure his release. Chapman claimed he had heard voices in his head telling him to kill the world-famous musician.

On the morning of December 8, photographer Annie Leibovitz went to the Dakota to do a photo shoot for Rolling Stone. She had promised Lennon it would make the cover, but she initially tried to get a picture with just Lennon alone. When Lennon insisted that both he and Yoko be on the cover, Leibovitz then tried to recreate the kissing scene from the Double Fantasy album cover, a picture that she loved.

In the early evening John and Yoko went to the Record Plant to supervise the transfer of songs from Double Fantasy to singles. They left at around 10:30, and instead of going out to get something to eat, John wanted to go home to say goodnight to his five year old son, Sean.

Kathy O’Connell, Host of Kids Corner for WXPN, was working in New York when it happened
Tess Coffey, Assistant to the GM at XPN, remembers this day
Bob McMahon from Lansdowne, PA was in college in 1980
Mark from New Castle, DE heard the news during Monday Night Football
BBC – On This Day – John Lennon shot dead
The Day Lennon died

Reality TV has killed the video star - on MTV, at least. But once upon a time the network changed the face of pop culture - many times over. During its first decade MTV ruled the pop landscape. Today, its legacy – good and bad – is everywhere. The evolution of music videos radically altered other visual mediums from commercials to cinema. MTV’s fast and loose editing style, uncomplicated visual shorthand and sarcastic postmodernism have permeated our consciousness. Several subcultures such as grunge, hip-hop and metal made a rapid transition from underground to mainstream through late 80s-early 90s MTV exposure. The cult of celebrity has conquered the American public to a level unimaginable in 1981, the year the network launched. MTV’s first foray into reality TV gave us “The Real World”, which during its first few seasons gave a compelling, groundbreaking glimpse of twentysomethings struggling with real issues - notably living with the AIDS epidemic when the disease equated a death sentence.

MTV’s pre-history began in 1977 when Warner Cable launched the first two-way interactive cable TV system, Qube, in Columbus, Ohio. Qube offered a small number of specialized channels, notably Pinwheel – an early version of Nickelodeon – as well as Sight on Sound, a music channel similar to primitive MTV. MTV’s programming format was developed by visionary media executive Bob Pittman, eventual CEO of the network. Pittman was inspired by former Warner Cable boss John Lack, who shepherded “PopClips”, a late 70s music video program created by ex-Monkee-turned video enthusiast Mike Nesmith (later the recipient of the first Grammy awarded to a music video, with 1981’s “Elephant Parts”).

On August 1, 1981, at 12:01 a.m., MTV launched with Lack’s announcement “Ladies and gentlemen, rock and roll.” Those words kicked off the original MTV theme song, a crunching guitar riff written by Jonathan Elias and John Petersen, accompanying a montage of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Appropriately, the first music video shown was “Video Killed the Radio Star” by The Buggles. The second video aired was Pat Benatar’s “You Better Run”. Early MTV was still struggling with the most basic of technical details. Sporadically, the screen would go black when someone at MTV’s headquarters hurriedly switched video tapes. Then tapping a relatively undeveloped field, early MTV aired a limited selection of crude promotional clips and concert footage in order to populate its schedule. This relative void gave voice to unknown bands with art school backgrounds – primarily new wave acts with video savvy. It would take a little while for most major artists to grasp the new medium. With this in mind, MTV’s early format was still loosely modeled after Top 40 radio with their own set of on air jocks termed VJs. The original five VJs in 1981 were Nina Blackwood, Mark Goodman, Alan Hunter, J. J. Jackson and Martha Quinn. As the network’s popularity increased, “I want my MTV” became a rallying cry in promotional spots, echoing the network’s youthful demographic.

Gradually the music industry got an elementary handle on the medium. Some videos were nothing more that basic commercials for the band. Other segments – such as Herbie Hancock’s “Rock-It” – pioneered an art form. Regardless of a video’s end quality, popular acts had to adapt… and fast. Even the least photogenic rock dinosaurs tried their hand at videos to mixed success. In this new era, the more visually striking and inventive the marketing was, the more powerful an act became. Madonna would be little more than a pop footnote without MTV’s outlet for her characteristic visual savvy. Established directors soon entered the fray. John Landis was responsible for Michael Jackson’s 14 minute “Thriller”, which marked a number of firsts for the network, most notably the first video showcasing a black artist. Tobe Hooper directed Billy Idol’s “Dancing with Myself”. William Friedkin and Julian Temple were among other successful film directors dabbling in the field. Over the next decade, budding auteurs such as Spike Jonze, David Fincher and Michel Gondry made their names directing videos. In 1984, MTV launched its own awards show, the Video Music Awards. At the time, the VMAs were largely perceived as masturbatory self-indulgence, but the annual event quickly established a hip alternative to the Grammy awards.

By the end of the 80s, MTV had expanded beyond videos into niche programming. Alternative rock-centric “120 Minutes”, metal’s “Headbangers Ball” and its first hip-hop showcase “Yo! MTV Raps” all made groundbreaking debuts during this era. MTV’s news show The Week in Rock, dance show Club MTV, game show Remote Control, and performance specials such as MTV Unplugged soon followed. These new shows would be just the beginning of new genres to impact MTV and pop culture at large. As the format of the network continued to evolve in the early 1990s, MTV embarked on reality programming with “The Real World” and animation with BBC acquisition “Liquid Television”, then monster hit “Beavis and Butthead”. In 1992, MTV started a public service campaign called “Choose or Lose”, to encourage increased voter turnout from the underrepresented young demographic and hosted a landmark town hall forum for Bill Clinton.

Some aspects of MTV’s golden age of programming endure to this today, but the quality has declined. Reality TV has spawned a voyeuristic nation in love with its own idiotic image. Rather than leading the music vanguard, MTV ineptly tries to reflect it. As MTV approaches an uncomfortable third decade, we all want our MTV – back.

More Classic Early Videos:
Pat Benatar - “You Better Run” (the second video aired on MTV)
Duran Duran - “Hungry Like the Wolf”
Herbie Hancock - “Rock-It”
A-ha - “Take on Me”
Peter Gabriel - “Sledgehammer”

885 Blog:
Guest Blogger: The Infancy of MTV
The first airing of MTV (By Lauren Edelstein Henry, Exton, PA)

Related Links:
MTV.com
The 100 Best TV Shows of All-TIME: MTV 1981-1992
How TV Started Getting Real: MTV’s ‘Real World’ launched a revolution, USA Today
I Want My A.D.D.: How 25 years of MTV have changed the world (for better and worse), New York Magazine
25 Years Down the Tube, Washington Post
Entertainment Weekly Gallery: MTV turns 25

Apple, once a force in business and technology, was usurped by the PC in the 90s, becoming the Betamax to the PC’s VHS. Their products became popular only among graphic designers, enthusiasts, and Mac snobs. But in 2001, with the release of iTunes and the iPod, Apple reclaimed its standing a business innovator and, in doing so, revolutionized the way people distribute, buy and consume music.

iTunes was actually released nine months prior to the iPod, at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco, January 2001. Since its introduction as the iTunes Music Store, iTunes has evolved from a simple music store and player into a control center for many types of media, dropping the “music” in its name along the way. You can now download TV shows, movies, podcasts and more, though its music application is still the company’s primary focus: Over 1 billion songs have been downloaded from iTunes since it was introduced to the public.

The iPod was introduced in December 2001, and instantly became the new millennium’s answer to the clunky Sony Walkman. This new device was wholly portable and, even in its V.1 incarnation, could store much of a user’s music collection. The music didn’t skip when you walked (or ran). You could create playlists based on your collection. You could easily change the music stored on the device. For anyone who was lucky enough to own an iPod, it changed listening habits radically.

There were bumps along the way — Digital Rights Management issues, musicians who didn’t want to make their catalog available online, complaints about short battery life and difficult repair and maintenance — but the problems were relatively minor. Apple’s share of the market stayed strong as new versions — including the Nano and the Video iPod — were released. iPod accessories became a multi-million dollar business. Even the mighty Microsoft couldn’t compete with its Zune, seen by many as a cheap imitation, a rush-to-market device that wasn’t nearly as “cool” as the iPod.

Apple entered the mobile phone market this year with its revolutionary iPhone. Time will tell if it will have the same effect on phones that iTunes/iPod has had on music and portable devices.

Dan the List Guy: The iPod Shuffle
iTunes Store

The following is from Rolling Stone Magazine’s 50 Moments That Changed The History of Rock & Roll:

The most notorious live performance in rock & roll lasted about fifteen minutes: three songs played at assaultive volume by a plugged-in blues band fronted by the young poet-king of American folk music, at the sacred annual congress of acoustic purists, the Newport Folk Festival. In that quarter-hour, on the warm Sunday evening of July 25th, 1965, at Freebody Park in Newport, Rhode Island, Bob Dylan, 24 — backed by the electric-Chicago charge of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band — declared his independence from the orthodoxy of the folk scene and publicly unveiled his rock & roll heart.

Dylan paid for his daring. Some witnesses claimed that he left the stage in tears — shocked by the shouting and heckling from several members of the Newport audience — before going back out to do penance: two acoustic numbers. Butterfield guitarist Mike Bloomfield said Dylan “looked real shook up.” But Al Kooper, who joined the Butterfield Band that fateful night as guest organist, insists that the catcalls are a myth: “It wasn’t ‘Boo, boo, boo.’ It was ‘More, more, more.’ “

When Dylan walked on stage at Newport, dressed in black pants and a green shirt, and armed with a Fender Stratocaster, it was the first time he had appeared in public with an electric guitar since his days with his Minnesota high school combo the Golden Chords. A month before Newport, on June 16, Dylan cut his first Top Five hit, “Like a Rolling Stone,” in New York with a group that included Kooper and Bloomfield. Yet Dylan’s first performance that weekend, at a Newport workshop on Saturday, was a pair of older folk songs, “All I Really Want to Do” and “Mr. Tambourine Man.” Afterward, Kooper, who was hanging out at the festival, was approached by Dylan’s manager, Albert Grossman. “He said that Bob was looking for me,” Kooper recalls. “I went backstage, and Bob told me, ‘I wanna play electric on Sunday.’ “

Dylan, Kooper, Bloomfield and the rest of the Butterfield Band — booked to play their own set on Sunday — rehearsed in a nearby mansion all Saturday night, with pianist Barry Goldberg. “The Butterfield Band didn’t have the best chemistry to back Dylan,” Kooper notes. “It was a tough night - complicated and ugly.” The ad hoc group mastered only three songs: the caustic “Maggie’s Farm,” from the electric side of Dylan’s March ‘65 album, Bringing It All Back Home; “Like a Rolling Stone”; and a new song, “It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry,” which would be on Dylan’s next LP, Highway 61 Revisited. The lack of preparation was evident as soon as Dylan’s set started on Sunday: Drummer Sam Lay turned the beat around in “Maggie’s Farm,” confusing the whole band.

There is no apparent booing on the surviving soundboard tape of the show. There is yelling. It has been suggested that the audience was complaining about the PA mix. Folk icon Pete Seeger admitted he was so enraged by Dylan’s set he wanted to “chop the microphone cord,” but only because Dylan’s voice was so distorted. (On the tape, Dylan is front, center and bitingly clear.) The crowd was mostly upset because Dylan, the top god on the Newport bill, was on- and offstage in less time than it took some folkies to sing a murder ballad. He was so rattled when he returned alone (at the urging of Peter Yarrow, of Peter, Paul and Mary) to sing “It’s All Over Now Baby Blue” and “Mr. Tambourine Man,” that he had the wrong harmonica for the latter song. “Does anybody have an E harmonica — an E harmonica, anybody?” Dylan asked the crowd. “Just throw ‘em all up.” He got one.

The folk scene never recovered, rock & roll was never the same, and Dylan knew he was responsible. In Eric Von Schmidt’s Sixties-folk memoir, Baby, Let Me Follow You Down, Maria Muldaur recalls seeing Dylan sitting in a corner, alone, at a post-Newport party. She asked him if he wanted to dance. “I would,” he said, “but my hands are on fire.”

BBC – Dylan Goes Electric
The Myth of Newport – It Wasn’t Bob Dylan They Were Booing

The Dark Side of the Moon is widely hailed by many critics and fans as Pink Floyd’s definitive album. Exploring the nature of the human experience, the lyrics deal with topics such as aging and the overwhelmingly fast approach of death, materialism, and the belief that a person’s self is “always in the right.”

Recorded by the band and engineer Alan Parsons at Abbey Road Studios between June 1972 and January 1973, the album sessions made use of the most advanced techniques available for recording instruments and sound effects in music at that time. Along with the conventional rock band instrumentation, Pink Floyd added prominent synthesizers to their sound as well as some unconventional noises: an assistant engineer running around the studio’s echo chamber (during “On the Run”), myriad antique clocks chiming simultaneously (as the intro to “Time”), and a specially-treated bass drum made to sound like a human heartbeat. The heartbeat is most audible as the intro and the outro to the album, but it can also be heard underneath most of the album—the songs “Time” and “On the Run” have the low thudding underneath the rest.

Pink Floyd’s executive road manager Peter Watts (father of actress Naomi Watts) contributed the repeated laughter during “Brain Damage” and “Speak to Me.” The monologue about “geezers” who were “cruisin’ for a bruisin’” and the often-misheard “I never said I was frightened of dying” (during the middle of “The Great Gig in the Sky”) came from Peter’s wife, Myfanwy Watts.

Although The Dark Side of the Moon was the planned title of the album, upon the discovery that the band Medicine Head was to release an album of the same name in 1972, the year prior to The Dark Side of the Moon’s release, the band changed the album’s title to “Eclipse: A Piece for Assorted Lunatics”. However, the Medicine Head album flopped, so Pink Floyd was able to revert to the original title without trouble.

The Dark Side of the Moon spent 741 consecutive weeks on the USA-based Billboard 200 album chart, the longest duration in history. It is also the fifth-highest selling album globally of all time, selling more than 40 million copies.

Though it held the #1 spot in America for only one week, it spent a total of 741 consecutive weeks, approximately 14 years, on the list until April 23, 1988 only to be removed by a rule change. To this day, it occupies a prominent spot on Billboard’s Pop Catalog Chart. On the week of May 5, 2006, The Dark Side of the Moon achieved a combined total of 1,500 weeks on the Billboard 200 and Pop Catalog charts.

Sales of the album worldwide total over 40 million as of 2004, with an average of 8,000 copies sold per week and a total of 400,000 in the year of 2002 — making it the 200th best-selling album of that year nearly three decades after its initial release. It is estimated that one in every fourteen people in the U.S. under the age of fifty owns or owned a copy of this album.

Some of the profits from The Dark Side of the Moon were invested in the making of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The members of Pink Floyd were reportedly huge Monty Python fans, to the point of interrupting recording sessions to watch the Flying Circus.

On August 13, 1975, two weeks before the release of Born To Run, Springsteen and the E Street Band began a five-night, 10-show stand at New York’s Bottom Line club; it attracted major media attention, was broadcast live on WNEW-FM, and convinced many skeptics that Springsteen was for real.

But on August 25th hundreds of thousands of people finally got to hear the classic record Bruce had been working on in the studio. Born To Run, Bruce’s third album, was his breakthrough hit in the States and around the world. His first album to feature Roy Bittan and Max Weinberg, Born to Run cemented Springsteen’s reputation among critics and established his first mainstream fan base. The album’s iconic cover was the gateway in to rock and roll greatness. Bruce, The Big Man, and the future E Street Band delivered on the promise of a great record in the making with songs like Thunder Road, She’s The One, Backstreets, Jungleland, Meeting Across The River, Tenth Avenue Freeze Out, Night and the still anthemic title track. Eight songs. Less than 40 minutes. Sheer brilliance.

With its panoramic imagery, thundering production and desperate optimism, some fans consider this among the best rock & roll albums of all time and Springsteen’s finest work. It established him as a sincere and dynamic rock & roll personality who spoke for and in the voice of a large part of the rock audience. To cap off the triumph, Springsteen appeared on the covers of both Time and Newsweek in the same week, on October 27 of that year.

Music critic Greil Marcus summarizes the soul of Born To Run in a lengthy review of the album in which he writes:
“Oh-o, come on, take my hand,” Springsteen sings, “Riding out to case the promised land.” And there, in a line, is Born to Run. You take what you find, but you never give up your demand for something better because you know, in your heart, that you deserve it. That contradiction is what keeps Springsteen’s story, and the promised land’s, alive. Springsteen took what he found and made something better himself. This album is it.”

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was released on June 1, 1967. It was the eighth album by The Beatles and was recorded by the Beatles over a four month period beginning on December 6, 1966.

The Allmusic Guide review pretty summarizes the essence of Sgt. Pepper’s:

“It’s possible to argue that there are better Beatles albums, yet no album is as historically important as this. After Sgt. Pepper, there were no rules to follow — rock and pop bands could try anything, for better or worse. Ironically, few tried to achieve the sweeping, all-encompassing embrace of music as the Beatles did here.”

Paul Altobelli of Cherry Hill, NJ writes in about Sgt. Pepper’s
Guest Blogger I Am Fuel remembers Sgt. Pepper’s
Rolling Stone Review
Allmusic Guide Review
BBC’s 40th Anniversary of Sgt. Peppers

Live Aid, a multi-venue concert held on July 13, 1985, was organized by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure as a continued fundraising effort for Ethiopian famine relief following the success of their previous charity endeavor, Band Aid’s benefit single “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” Billed as the “global jukebox”, its two main locations were London’s Wembley Stadium (with 72,000 people in attendance) and JFK Stadium in Philadelphia (with 90,000 people in attendance). Other venues included Sydney and Moscow. As of 1985, Live Aid was the most ambitious international satellite venture ever attempted – reaching an estimated 1.5 billion viewers across 100 countries. The concert rapidly grew in scope as more and more acts on both sides of the Atlantic signed on to lend their fame to the cause. The concert commenced 7am Eastern time with Wembley opener Status Quo performing “Rockin’ All Over the World”. JFK kicked off at 8:51am, and soon after Joan Baez announced to the audience, “This is your Woodstock, and it’s long overdue.”

The overall event continued for sixteen hours. No previous concert had assembled as many famous yet singularly diverse performers. Memorable Live Aid moments are legion. Several bands reunited for the event – Black Sabbath, Crosby Stills & Nash and Led Zeppelin (with Phil Collins filling in for the late John Bonham, arriving in Philadelphia after a Transatlantic flight from his Wembley appearance). Despite technical glitches, both The Who and Paul McCartney performed sets. Mick Jagger and David Bowie dueted on video, hamming it up for a cover of Motown classic “Dancing in the Streets”. However, their original intention was to showcase the cover as a live intercontinental duet. Jagger also dueted with Tina Turner in Philadelphia. Their set notably boasted the original (though obviously staged) “wardrobe malfunction” when he tore off Turner’s breakaway leather skirt during “It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll”. A few celebs appeared post-scandal – Madonna following her unauthorized Playboy and Penthouse pictorials as well as Teddy Pendergrass, making his first public appearance after a devastating car accident rendered him paralyzed. Two of the single most electrifying performances were U2’s starmaking turn and Queen’s confident, dazzling showmanship. During U2’s set, in addition to establishing themselves as the preminent live band of the era, Bono actually rescued a young girl being crushed by throngs of concertgoers excitedly pushing towards the stage. Queen’s set didn’t save lives in a literal sense but was arguably the strongest set of the entire concert - declared one of the best live gigs of all time in polls decades later. Each of the two main portions of the concert ended with their particular continental all-star anti-hunger anthems, with “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” closing Wembley, and USA for Africa’s “We Are the World” closing the U.S. concert.

Live Aid far exceeded its financial goals. Organizers initially hoped to raise £1 million, but the final figure was an astonishing £150 million (approx. $283.6 million). During the concert, the Republic of Ireland gave the most donations per capita, despite being in the throes of a serious economic depression. The single largest donation came from the ruling family of Dubai, donating £1m in a phone conversation with Geldof.

Geldof received an honorary knighthood for his efforts.

Paula Rogers, Assistant to the Associate General Manager at XPN

Connie Kreischer Slingbuam of Havertown, PA

Paul Altobelli, Cherry Hill, NJ

Trish Giordano, Haddonfield, NJ

Allen Goodrich, Ardmore, PA

James McWilliams, Drexel Hill, PA

Len Goldsmith, Haverford, PA

Katherine, Berwyn, PA

Tara Hughes, Marlton, NJ

Robert Magyar, Glenside, PA

Eric D, Wilmington, DE

Fran Daly, Pennsauken, NJ

Tricia, Redwood City, CA