For this year’s 893-song countdown, The Current is asking you to vote for songs that bring us together — whatever that means to you. What does that mean? To help you think it through, here are five lists of songs that, in various ways, bring people together. Top karaoke tracks What songs are the top picks…

If you have a music video you’d like to be considered for an upcoming feature, send it my way at fridayfive@mpr.org! Local musicians – “Lean On Me (The Quarantine Version)” Local media group KAJ Productions rallied a group of nearly 20 local musicians — including J.D. Steele and Prince drummer Kirk Johnson — for a…

If you’re looking for a way to support First Avenue while it’s closed due to the public health crisis, and you, coincidentally, also need a new pair of sneakers for all the social distance walks you might be going on, this is the deal for you. First Avenue is now participating in Vans’ Foot the…

On an especially windy and barren Minnesota weekend this past winter, late-night traffic puttered along the frosty intersections. Even in the densely populated neighborhoods of Minneapolis, there was a shuttered expression to the residential avenues. The bars seemed sparsely patronized for a Friday, and foot traffic was limited to the occasional shadow shuffling across plowed…

If there’s one winner of the COVID-19 pandemic (aside from Zoom), it’s Nintendo. Their low-stakes social simulator game Animal Crossing: New Horizons came out on March 20, just as Americans’ lives started to radically change, and it has scored the third-highest launch sales of any Nintendo game ever. Animal Crossing, with its customizable islands and…

In the latest episode of the podcast Tuesdays with Lazerbeak, the Doomtree producer and his co-host Jeyca Maldonado-Medina talk with Justin Vernon (Bon Iver, Big Red Machine, GAYNGS). Here are 14 things we learned from their wide-ranging hour-and-a-half conversation, recorded in January and posted this week. Lazerbeak is an awesome wedding DJ “It was probably…

Today marks the four-year anniversary of Prince’s death. Fans all over have paid tribute in many ways since then, from attending Prince-themed all-night dance parties to traveling to Minnesota to take photos with his star outside of First Avenue to simply wearing the color purple. This year, we’ve been provided a way to pay tribute…

During prolonged winters, people will often use light therapy as a means of warding off the adverse effects of seasonal affective disorder. The intensity of the lux from these lights invigorates our retinal cells — which are connected to the hypothalamus. This region of the brain releases critical hormones and helps regulate body temperature; stimulating…

Morning Show host Jill Riley has been spending her mornings chatting with various musicians about what they have been up to while the music industry has been essentially put on pause to slow the spread of COVID-19. She connected with Minnesota singer-songwriter Mason Jennings to discuss what he’s been doing to keep busy during this…

After playing guitar in Radiohead for 35 years, since 1985, Ed O’Brien has now released his debut solo record called Earth under the moniker EOB. Morning Show host Jill Riley got a chance to catch up with O’Brien and discuss the inspiration for his new record, how his process was both influenced by and greatly differed…