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The Chart Show: AC/DC inspire Hall of Famers

Queens of the Stone Age
Queens of the Stone AgeAndres Neumann / Courtesy the Artist

by Mark Wheat

November 23, 2017

Queens of the Stone Age are inducted into our Chart Hall of Fame for the second time and leader Josh Homme was one of the many musicians to pay tribute recently to the AC/DC guitarist Malcolm Young. Queens have, for me, made the best rock album of the year and it's interesting to see his reference to German bands Can and Neu! at the end of this piece as also having a round about influence too.

The National finish their run on the chart at the top, also being inducted to the Hall of Fame. It's their 7th induction putting them at #10 on the All Time Chart. Last week Arcade Fire went to #2 on this chart which we'll update for you on this site at the end of the year. The National also scored their first Number One in the UK with this album and apparently have enough material ready for another album which might follow sooner than normal.

Grizzly Bear are the highest new entry. They're on a successful tour right now with sold out shows in Portland, Seattle and Los Angeles, so you might want to grab tickets to their Dec 1st date at The Palace.

Hopefully you'll have some down time in the long holiday weekend to start thinking about compiling your Top Tens for the year. We'll start to post ours and ask for yours in early December. It's been such a good year for me that I'm breaking from my own tradition and putting together a list of 10 Albums, 10 Singles 10 live moments and 5 In-studio sessions. Beck is definitely on the Albums list and might make the live list too, although that's packed! He is back on the chart with the 4th song from 'Colors', that hardly ever happens! Remember back in August we got a chance to broadcast from his show at The Palace and he talked about the new album, a little, before it came out.

Beth Ditto is back at #15, and I think some of our staff might have her on their list of best live events of the year too. She played a Micro-Show at The Turf in July. This week we announced that the next Micro Show will feature Britt and Alex from Spoon!

Wolf Alice return at #19 and their well received sophomore effort is our Album of the Week. Strangely enough, after Charles Manson died this week, one of the songs we're playing, "Formidable Cool" is explained by Jade as being created after singer Ellie had read a book called The Girls by Emma Cline. It details the story of a young girl falling into a Mansonesque cult.

The Rural Albert Advantage return with their 4th album The Wild and shoot straight into the basement of our chart this week. They have a huge local fan base, in fact they even seem to treat us as part of Canada, where they're from, as their tour route goes; Winnipeg, to First Ave on December 3, then back up to Toronto!

Submit your Chart Show ballot this week for a chance to win a getaway weekend package to the GNDWIRE Records Ski Party at Lutsen Mountains!