This Week in Music History: October 25-31

It’s Halloween Week, but we’re more into treats than tricks. This week, we’re jamming to some “sweet” tunes from Avicii, Hinder, and Nelly Furtado.

October 26, 2013: Avicii Wakes Up

Photo by Jason Merritt / Getty Images

A mere two years ago, Avicii was waking up music fans across America. Yes, during this week of October back in 2013, the Swedish EDM DJ’s “Wake Me Up” displaced Lorde’s “Royals” atop the Mediabase Top 40 chart. The song, which features soul singer Aloe Blacc’s vocals and Incubus' Mike Einziger on the acoustic guitar, became the first EDM track to sell over four million copies in the US and has garnered over a million radio plays. Avicii’s signature style and remix of the song made it one of the biggest EDM records of the year, and earned the producer-DJ a number of awards and acknowledgements, including an iHeartRadio Music Award for EDM Song of The Year.

October 28, 2006: Hinder Has Angelic Lips

Photo by Steve Snowden / Getty Images

Seven years before “Wake Me Up” and before Avicii even made his debut on the music scene, a rock band was experiencing a heavenly rise to the top. Hinder’s “Lips Of An Angel” went to No. 1 on the Mediabase Top 40 at a time when country and urban acts were primarily the ones dominating the mainstream airwaves. Far and away the band’s biggest hit to date, the song was a multi-format hit and took over a variety of the charts, peaking at No. 2 on Active Rock, No. 3 on Mainstream Rock & Hot AC, No. 9 on Alternative, and No. 18 on AC. Almost a decade later, the band is still riding the success of this track as well as the rest of their catalogue, and are about to embark on another tour to finish out 2015.

October 28, 2000: Nelly Furtado Is Like a Bird, She’ll Only Fly Away

Photo by Gabe Palacio / ImageDirect

Going way back — six years before Hinder’s radio dominance, thirteen years before Avicii took the airwaves, fifteen years before today — Nelly Furtado would not be kept down. This week in the year 2000, the singer made her very first chart appearance with “I’m LIke a Bird” on Hot AC. This track marked a lot of firsts for the young artist as the first single off of her debut album Whoa Nelly!, and went on to become one of the most successful singles of 2001. In fact, the track won Furtado the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, the first time a female artist had won the award with a debut single since Mariah Carey took home the honor a full decade prior.

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