The Chart Show: Kendrick Lamar back on after electrifying GRAMMY performance
by Mark Wheat
February 18, 2016
Kendrick Lamar is back at No.19 after a two week hiatus. He was a big winner at the GRAMMYs, walking away with five awards and mega kudos for his amazing live performance, which started with a prison on stage and ended with a huge bonfire!
Submit your Chart Show ballot this week for a chance to win passes to The Current's private #MicroShow featuring Frank Turner at the Turf Club on Friday, Feb. 26.
Ra Ra Riot got to work with Rostam Batmanglij, the newly departed member of Vampire Weekend, as their producer for Need Your Light, their fourth album, released this Friday. They'll be at the Triple Rock April 7 and are new at No.14.
No joke, the new Yeasayer album will be out on April 1! As past performers at Rock the Garden, these New Yorkers have another Minnesota connection now, having recorded the new album, Amen & Goodbye, with Joey Waronker a founding member of Walt Mink while at Macalaster. Watch the brilliantly weird video for "I Am Chemistry," new at No.11.
Tame Impala, the highest new entry at No.9 with the fourth song from Currents to chart, were losers at GRAMMY Awards, but weren't there to witness it. Instead they were playing two massive sold out shows at London's Ally Pally (Alexandra Palace, which holds 10,000)! The NME report seems to suggest that they did a good job justifying their new found status as stadium fillers.
Dr. Dog are back at No.8 just a week after dropping off the chart completely. Although in the past they have expressed a love for playing the Twin Cities, we're not on the itinerary yet for this year's tour which last week was in Boulder, which is another fave, apparently.
Cage the Elephant are inducted into the Chart Hall of Fame for the second time. They too don't have a Twin Cities gig booked and are now in the U.K. where, according to their Twitter feed, the audiences are a tad nuts!
The Cactus Blossoms just got some Twitter love from Leon Bridges, a friend of JD McPherson, who produced the new You're Dreaming album. The band told Bill DeVille what they think of him during a recent session just before their two sold out shows at the Turf Club last weekend. Watch them perform "Powder Blue" in our studio.
The legendary Iggy Pop makes his debut on our charts with the first track released from his new super-group: Matt Helders of Arctic Monkeys on drums, and Dean and Josh of Queens of the Stone Age. They play Northrop on April 4. NME recently compiled a video list, which is a bevy of beautiful nuttiness spanning Iggy's wild career. Looch's chat with Iggy and Josh is entertaining, too.
Bad Bad Hats are back at the top after one week away, care of a Jason Isbell surge! They're away playing shows in Nashville, Indianapolis and St. Louis this week, before returning March 5 to play at the Red Herring in Duluth, our new second home!