The Chart Show: First Aid Kit back on top, alt-J and Spoon inducted to Hall of Fame
by Mark Wheat
December 18, 2014
This is the final Chart Show of the year as the last two Wednesdays of the year are big holiday eves. Fittingly, it is First Aid Kit who jump back to the top. They were the most favored album of the year by The Current staff collectively and it will be interesting to see where they land in the listener curated Top 89 poll. Get ya votes in before Sunday, Dec. 28 then sit back on New Year's Eve from 4 p.m. to midnight and New Year's Day from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. to hear the results.
alt-J are inducted into the Chart Show Hall of Fame for the fifth time and Spoon for the third. Because the Chart Show is taking a brief break, we also have five more artists who will be inducted after spending the last 10 weeks on the Chart: TV on The Radio, Vance Joy, Jenny Lewis, Chastity Brown and Trampled By Turtles. That makes 55 total inductees for the year, three inductees short of the 2012 record and two more inductees than last year. Check out the bumper edition of this week's Vita.MN for a special section featuring some archival stories about the station and including a Chart Show Hall of Fame All-Time Top 30 ('09-'14) list. Then pick up the New Year's Eve edition of Vita.MN where there will be a Best of 2014 Hall of Fame Chart!
Ryan Adams is one of two new entries on the Chart with "Trouble." Last week he announced a new 7" to be release in 2015 featuring two collaborations with Johnny Depp, who is also on the New Basement Tapes recording that we've been playing on The Current. Nice to know that Depp can fall back on the music gig if his film career doesn't pan out?!
Weezer bounce back with "Lonely Girl" in at #20. They played the big KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas show in Los Angeles over the weekend but have no more tour plans for '15 ... yet.
The Rural Alberta Advantage's Mended With Gold is The Current's Album of The Week. You can also learn about Kintsugi—where's the's title's phrase comes from—in Assistant Program Director Lindsay Kimball's review of the record. It's an idea that runs as a theme throughout the album: "All of these themes—anxiety, love, place—point to going through some painful or difficult experience, and in the end, coming out a better person. Kintsugi."
Lorde climbs seven places this week, buoyed perhaps by the news that her name was the seventh most searched for globally on Google this year! Jennifer Lawrence was #1?!
The Decemberists dropped a lyric video this week for "The Wrong Year," another new song from their forthcoming album What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World, which will release on Jan. 20, 2015.
Happy Holidays to everyone and special thanks to those of you who vote every week. You've made it another great year for The Current's Chart Show!