The Chart Show: Alabama Shakes back at #1, avoid sophomore slump
by Mark Wheat
April 02, 2015
This week's #1, Brittany Howard of Alabama Shakes, was not the most forthcoming of interviewees when we had her and the band in The Current studio back in 2012. I put it down to being a young, nervous band, but perhaps it was all about her trying to keep in touch with the spirit world—where she goes when she performs—according to a new interview with The Guardian, given as she enjoys her first pint of British ale!
Submit your Chart Show ballot this week for a chance to win The Current's Noel Gallagher Flyaway Giveaway including tickets to his show in Chicago, airfare and hotel!
The trusty English newspaper that has great taste in music also liked Sleater-Kinney's return to the UK. The band are inducted into the Chart Show Hall of Fame this week and apparently delivered "a magnificent set" at the Roundhouse in London.
Mark Ronson is celebrating his 12th week in a row at the top of Billboard's Hot 100 with "Uptown Funk," only the 15th record ever to stay up there for that long. He has other less mainstream collaborations on the latest album including one with Tame Impala's Kevin Parker which is this week's highest new entry, with a perfect title for this time of year!
The Tallest Man on Earth is the performing name of Swedish songwriter Kristian Matsson who will play at the big Eaux Claires Music and Arts Festival this summer. His new album comes out in May and it looks like the cover art could have been shot in Minnesota? See it and a video trailer for Dark Bird Is Home.
Bjork seems to have won over all the music critics with the most personal album of her career. Unfortunately she hasn't been so well reviewed by the art press as the center of a new retrospective show at MOMA in New York City – some are calling it the museum's worst show ever!
Noel Gallagher is back after a week's hiatus. Quoted almost daily in NME, this week he says he's lost a ton of money being a solo artist and that he might stop touring soon. His most recent American tour doesn't include the Twin Cities, but when you submit your Chart Show ballot this week you have a chance to win a flyaway giveaway including airfare, hotel and tickets to see Noel perform at the Riviera Theatre in Chicago!
Past performers at Rock the Garden Calexico have not booked a date here this year yet either. They're in Europe touring right now and have two dates in Chicago at Lincoln Hall May 30 and 31. The first song from their forthcoming Edge of the Sun, out April 13, is new this week at #17.
Another past Rock the Garden group, My Morning Jacket, are new this week at #18 with the first song to be released from The Waterfall, which will be out in May. They just posted a psychedelic slo-mo visualizer for another appropriately titled track, "Spring (Among the Living)."
Death Cab for Cutie hang on at #20 after six weeks with the first single from their new Kintsugi which released on Tuesday and is The Current's Album of the Week.