Born on October 17, 1971, in Hartford, Connecticut, Blues Saraceno picked up guitar at nine and was releasing instrumental solo albums as a teenage prodigy, starting with 1989's Never Look Back, before he was old enough to legally drink. He later won an audition to tour with Cream alumni Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker, earning him the nickname "the kid who replaced Eric Clapton." In 1993 he joined Poison as lead guitarist and songwriter, replacing Richie Kotzen, and recorded the album Crack a Smile, which Capitol Records shelved for years before finally releasing it in 2000. After leaving Poison amicably, he became an in-demand session player and composer, scoring music for television and film, and his instrumental track "Evil Ways" later became wrestler AJ Styles's entrance theme.

On October 17, 1977, Lynyrd Skynyrd released Street Survivors, an album that would become inseparable from tragedy just three days later when the band's chartered plane crashed near Gillsburg, Mississippi, killing frontman Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, backing vocalist Cassie Gaines, and others aboard. The record's original cover, showing the band engulfed in flames, was pulled from shelves at the request of Steve Gaines's widow and replaced with a plain black background. "That Smell," written about the band's own drug and alcohol struggles, took on a haunting new weight after the crash, while "What's Your Name" became a top-20 hit and "You Got That Right" showcased Gaines and Van Zant trading co-lead vocals. Street Survivors went on to reach platinum status. Produced by Tom Dowd.

On October 17, 1989, KISS released Hot in the Shade, a sprawling 15 track album, the longest in the band's catalog, built from polished demos rather than full re-recordings to keep costs down. The power ballad "Forever," co-written by Paul Stanley and Michael Bolton, became the band's biggest hit in over a decade, reaching No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100, their highest charting single since "Beth" thirteen years earlier. Drummer Eric Carr took his only lead vocal on an original KISS song with "Little Caesar," which he co-wrote, in what turned out to be his final full album with the band before his death in 1991. The "Rise to It" video marked the band's first appearance in makeup since their 1983 unmasking. Hot in the Shade went gold. Produced by Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley.