Musician Joshua Carrafa’s epic Tumblr project Music History In Gifs is nothing short of amazing… if you like music, GIFs, and bit art. We’re literally torn between which amazing animated moment to spotlight here. The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show? Prince’s famous transformation into a symbol? The Nirvana Nevermind baby? Metallica vs. Napster? Tupac against the world? See our favorite GIFs in the slideshow below!
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“1964. The Beatles play The Ed Sullivan Show. Everyone is all Aaaaah.'”
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“1991. Nirvana releases Nevermind. Grunge is in full swing and Nirvana is the master. This album has timeless hooks and incredible songwriting on every single song.”
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1977. Pink Floyd releases Animals,. They sang about pigs. And dogs. And sheep. But they mostly liked pigs. So much that they used giant inflatable ones both on their album art, and in real life at their shows during their In The Flesh tour that year.
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“1974. Ramones play their first show. Oldie hooks. Classic chord changes. Punk guitar. Punk attitude. Punk hyperspeed.”
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“1984. Talking Heads release the concert movie Stop Making Sense. David Byrne wears a hilariously oversized suit and does some of the raddest dance moves ever invented.”
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“1995. Tupac releases his most sensitive record, Me Against the World. Subsequently he becomes the first artist to have a record reach number one on the charts while serving a prison sentence. Also, he wrote a screenplay and got married while imprisoned.”
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“1981. MTV is launched. At first, it’s cool. But then we all know what happened. Ozzy Osbourne was one of the first to realize this. Immediately after MTV launched, he had visions of its fate, and he got so angry he bit the head off of a dove.”
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“1999. Napster is launched. Vast amounts of music had never been closer to peoples’ fingertips. Also it had never been free-er. This made many bands very angry, especially Metallica, who filed a lawsuit against Napster.”
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“1972. T. Rex plays Empire Pool in Wembley. Ringo Starr films it for his documentary, Born to Boogie.”
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“1987. Rick Astley pulls the biggest prank in the history of the world by inventing rickrolling, and scoring a number one hit at the same time.”