Born John Charles Barrett on October 28, 1953, Desmond Child became one of rock's most successful behind-the-scenes songwriters, a hitmaker whose fingerprints are on some of the genre's biggest anthems. He first made his mark fronting the band Desmond Child & Rouge before pivoting to songwriting, teaming with Paul Stanley to co-write Kiss's "I Was Made for Lovin' You." His biggest run came alongside Bon Jovi, co-writing "You Give Love a Bad Name" and "Livin' on a Prayer" with Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora, songs that defined the band's rise. He also helped pen Aerosmith's "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)" and Alice Cooper's "Poison." Inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2008, Child's catalog spans decades of arena rock staples most fans sing along to without ever knowing his name.

Jerry Lee Lewis, the self-proclaimed "Killer" of rock and roll's first generation, died on October 28, 2022, at age 87, just two days after TMZ had wrongly reported his death. Lewis exploded out of Sun Records in the mid 1950s with the pounding piano and wild stage antics of "Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On" and "Great Balls of Fire," rivaling Elvis as rock's most dangerous new star. His career nearly collapsed in 1958 when news broke that he had married his thirteen year old cousin Myra Gale Brown, sparking a scandal that got him blacklisted from radio and nearly erased him from the business. He clawed his way back in the late 1960s as a country star, scoring hits like "Another Place, Another Time," and in 1986 became part of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's very first induction class.

On October 28, 1977, Sex Pistols released their only studio album, Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols, on Virgin Records, a record that detonated inside the British music establishment. Johnny Rotten's sneering vocals rode over Steve Jones's buzzsaw guitar and Paul Cook's drums, with bassist Sid Vicious credited on the sleeve though Glen Matlock had written most of the actual bass parts before his ouster. The album collected the band's already explosive run of singles, "Anarchy in the UK," "God Save the Queen," "Pretty Vacant," and "Holidays in the Sun," into one furious, eleven track statement that effectively wrote the rulebook for punk rock. Banned by chain stores and denounced in Parliament, it still reached No. 1 on the UK Albums Chart. Produced by Chris Thomas and Bill Price.

On October 28, 1977, Queen released News of the World, an album that answered punk's backlash against arena rock with sharper, stripped down songwriting rather than retreat. Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor, and John Deacon opened the record with a one two punch built for stadiums, "We Will Rock You" and "We Are the Champions," twin anthems that became permanent fixtures of sporting events worldwide. The cover, a giant robot clutching the band's bloodied, lifeless bodies, came from illustrator Frank Kelly Freas and was Roger Taylor's idea, lifted from a 1953 issue of Astounding Science Fiction he had owned as a kid. Coincidentally, Queen recorded much of the album at Wessex Sound Studios in London around the same time the Sex Pistols were there finishing their own landmark record. Produced by Queen and Mike Stone.