The Chart Show: Beck goes out on top
by Mark Wheat
September 01, 2016
Beck is inducted into the Chart Show Hall of Fame for the third time, going out at the top! He's come a long way since being the quintessential "loser" but this week he's transported back to those times by the Garbage Pail Kids sticker series depicting festival headliners. Beck is the "Bedecked Loser," along with "Meaty Morrissey" and "Over Worked Axl?!?
Submit your Chart Show ballot this week for a chance to win tickets to Ween at Roy Wilkins Auditorium on Thursday, Sept. 15!
Bon Iver only just lost out to the loser for top spot, with one of the first of two tracks to premiere off 22, A Million, coming Sept. 30, and a third was featured on NPR this week.
Lucius, one of the many acts who joined Justin and the gang at Eaux Claires a few weekends ago, are back as the highest new entry with the third song from Good Grief to chart. If you haven't experienced the wonderful visuals of their live show, they just added a bunch of fall dates starting on the East Coast.
Glass Animals slip a few places this week but are poised to be inducted for the first time next week with a song from The Current's Album of the Week. Composed of stories of people they met on tour, How to Be a Human Being suggests itself as an audio guide about how to live. As Jade put it in her review, it "translates specific human hopes and fears into universally relatable vignettes."
While "City Lights" was released as the White Stripes, appearing new at No.11 this week, it's actually just Jack White playing on the song meant for 2005's Get Behind Me Satan. It will appear on a double archival album, Jack White Acoustic Recordings 1998-2016, to be released on Sept. 9.
Brand new at No.14 this week is our old friend Sharon Jones, with a song from the soundtrack to the movie of her life.
Celebrating the Grateful Dead seems to have become the thing to do for contemporary artists, begging the question, have we under-estimated the influence of the band?! The Avett brothers, back at No.18, will do their part in October at Maryland's historic Merriweather Post Pavilion as part of a tribute to Jerry Garcia returning to the stage thirty years ago.
And in the basement position we have another first: a Black Sabbath cover! And perhaps Charles Bradley was the most unlikely candidate to be sing that song, but he makes it sound like one of his own!
Have a great Labor Day weekend, everyone. Can you believe summer's over again?!?! I'll be wrapping up The Current's Minnesota State Fair shenanigans on Monday, Sept. 5 with Dem Atlas as my guest. Thanks to all of you who have stopped by our booth!