If you’ve been around for the past one or two decades, chances are you’ve stumbled upon This Day in Music at least once in your life. The site offers music history, facts and trivia “366 days of the year”. It brings together all the significant events in the history of rock and pop, the facts, the figures, the dates, the times and the places, and most of all the stars that made rock and pop the most vibrant art form of the 20th and 21st centuries.This Day in Music is also a book and a series of smartphone apps. The website was launched in 1999, making it one of the longest-running music sites on the net.

We did a quick blitz interview with This Day in Music creator Neil Cossar and here’s what he told us:

Hey Neil, please tell us a bit about yourself.

Hey. Before I launched This Day in Music I was in an 80’s band called The Cheaters who signed to Parlophone and made 3 albums but never troubled the charts! Spent 7 years in the world of retail at HMV, and was part of the team who launched KFM Radio in Manchester, presenting a nightly music show that featured debut sessions from Radiohead, Blur, The Charlatans and Lenny Kravitz.

Neil holding the hardcover book “This Day in Music”

Tell us about This Day and Music.

I launched This Day in Music in 1999. Since then, it’s grown and grown into its own brand! There isn’t another site like it. It has now been published as a book for the third time. The brand has also released a series of iPhone Apps including Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and others.

How did you come up with the idea?

When I was working in radio, I needed to fill some space in my show, so started looking at events that had happened in ‘This day in music’.

Did you believe from the very beginning that your page will become that big and famous?

No!

What do you think of the music industry nowadays compared to the “good old days”?

Its changed so much, but that isn’t a bad thing. When you think back to the days of Elvis and The Beatles, you could only hear them on the radio and now and then on TV.
These days thanks to the internet, if you hear a new song, you can see the video, read about the act, listen for free!

Listen to Transviolet’s ‘Girls Your Age’, as suggested by Neil 😉

What do you think of Drooble?
Seems like a very good way for new artists to get their music out to the world.Social Media is all around is. It helps many business and organizations reach.

Listen to ‘Miss Me’ from The Cheaters – Neil’s former band! 😉

Social Media is all around is. It helps many business and organizations reach a broader audience. How can musicians benefit from social activity – please share some advice?

First, try and do something original, don’t follow the current trend. Be brave and do what you really believe in.

Neil and his Dog 🙂

What does music mean to you?

Everything. Couldn’t live without it. Music is timeless and means different things to different people. Music is the soundtrack to our lives.

Do you play an instrument yourself?

I play the guitar, every day.

Name a new band that has impressed you recently? (or musicians that we should be looking out for in 2016)

Transviolet.

Shout out!

See what song was No.1 on the day you were born!

Thank you, Neil Cossar from This Day in Music!