An oddball entry when it first hit the Twin Cities radio dial in 2005, the Current announced a very left-of-the-dial kind of song as the winner of its 20th anniversary “893 Essential Songs” voting contest.
“Chaise Longue” by quirky British indie-rock band Wet Leg was named the No. 1 tune of the past 20 years by the Current’s listeners. Part of an ambitious $1 million fundraising campaign at Minnesota Public Radio’s alternative-minded rock station — 89.3 on the FM dial — the list of 893 songs was counted down on air all week and finally wrapped Friday around 7 p.m.
Wet Leg’s 2022 ode to cool furniture beat out tunes by longtime Current favorites such as Jason Isbell, Brandi Carlile and Bon Iver, all of whom also had songs in the tally’s top 10.
Only one Minnesota act, Trampled by Turtles, made the top 20, but the Duluth-reared acoustic sextet came in near the top: Its hyper-strummed 2010 hit “Wait So Long” landed at No. 3 on the list (above another of its favorites, “Alone,” at No. 63).
The Current’s team said in a statement issued as the tally wound down: “The result of the listener-votes reflects the depth, diversity and discovery that our listeners expect, and that we strive to create every day.”
Indeed, there’s a lot more than just white-male indie-rock near the top of the list: New York hip-hop heroes A Tribe Called Quest at No. 5 (with “We the People…”); visionary rapper Childish Gambino at No. 6 (“This Is America”); folky sister duo First Aid Kit at No. 9 (“Emmylou); bluesy soul-rockers the Alabama Shakes at No. 10 (“Hold On”), and not one but two of Carlile’s tunes in the top 10 (“The Story” and “The Joke”).
A relative surprise at No. 1, Wet Leg’s “Chaise Longue” was largely a product of COVID-19 pandemic boredom, as the band’s co-leader Hester Chambers recounted to the Star Tribune in 2022 before their Twin Cities debut at First Avenue. She and the group will return to the club on Sept. 9 to tout their second album.
“We hadn’t even formally started a band yet when we made it up,” Chambers recounted of the hit. “We just started freestyling the lyrics over the groove. … The next morning, we listened back, we thought, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s a weird song that will never see the light of day.’”
