The Chart Show: Being Virtually Live Is Important
by Mark Wheat
May 07, 2020
Refreshing to see some of the artists who are opening themselves to the new virtual session experience... Success! Solidifies the idea that artists who can perform and pull it off will still thrive in any situation. I.e... It's the second time that Nathaniel Rateliff has been at the top with a song from his first solo record. He never made it there with the Night Sweats!? Late February he did a riveting version of this song on Chris Thile's "Live From Here".
Although he 'sings' about Anne Frank, The Rolling Stones and Indiana Jones in this new song, up fourteen places to #4 Bob Dylan was more interested in Jesus and the Devil back in 'Blonde on Blonde' days, according to handwritten lyric sheets. Sotheby's have some up for on-line auction through May 12th.
'Making A Door Less Open', the album from Car Seat Headrest, at six this week, came out last Friday. Poised to be their big step up Pitchfork sees it as a little bit of a mis-step, giving it only a 6.6, calling it "odd and ambitious"... what's wrong with that?!
Katie Crutchfield, aka Waxahatchee lives in Kansas City, Kansas with her partner Kevin Morby, who's also a songwriter. He was literally one of the first artists to do a virtual session, apparently after watching the film 'Contagion'! He joined Katie at the end of our session on Monday. Waxahatchee is still supposed to be coming to the Cedar Cultural Center on October 15th, and I got her to promise to do a big show in St. Cloud, as that's the name of her new album!
Although Slug from Atmosphere is one of the best lyricists in the business, he described himself as not having, "enough words in my vocabulary to type out the influence this establishment had on me" about Muddy Waters. An Uptown institution since 1987, they announced their closure at the weekend producing another outpouring of grief.
Slipping four places this week are the legendary Psychedelic Furs who were featured on a very special edition of Teenage Kicks at the weekend, catch up with some of their early work and hear more about my musical journey.
Gorillaz are back in at eighteen with a colab with one of their African friends, but another passed away last week Tony Allen who was Fela Kuti's drummer and played with Damon in 'The Good, The Bad and The Queen'. He did "How Far?" another song rush released from the Song Machine last week in his honor, just before he died.
Brand new at nineteen is Flo and the Mac, with a special single released in response to the times we find ourselves in. And Florence was part of an unusual, virtual Met Gala performance on Monday night.
He's getting a reputation for covering Nirvana, The Cure and Depeche Mode in regular Thursday night virtual sessions, but Benjamin Gibbard has penned at least one new song directly referencing the pandemic and he's new in at Number Twenty.
Submit your Chart Show ballot this week for a chance to win a Zoom invite to the TEMPLE listening party and Q&A hosted by Thao Nguyen of Thao & The Get Down Stay Down and Hrishikesh Hirway of Song Exploder on May 14 at 6 pm CT, plus a vinyl copy of Thao & The Get Down Stay Down's TEMPLE.