Review: Why the Current still matters in its 20th year — even if radio doesn't

It was a dark time when FM radio wallowed in narrow, whitewashed, corporate-mandated playlists.

Pop music stations rotated the same dozen force-fed hits and nothing but. Country music outlets played only songs about drinking, driving or men's manliness. "Don't Stop Believin'" and "Pour Some Sugar on Me" could be heard on any of a half-dozen stations at any given moment. Forget hip-hop. Forget anything released on an independent record label.

Yes, such was the sad state of the local FM dial when Minnesota Public Radio launched 89.3 the Current on Jan. 24, 2005. That's not the dark era I'm talking about, though.

I'm actually referring to the state of things so far this month, January 2025.

Of all the 20th-century media struggling to stay relevant in the 21st century, is there one medium more unchanged and mired in corporate nitwittery than FM radio? Even stodgy old newspapers have done more to freshen up their product.

The more things have stayed the same on the Twin Cities radio dial, the more the Current deserves credit for making a difference — even if some of its own changes in recent years have not been for the better.

MPR's cool-leaning, alternative-minded music station is celebrating its 20th birthday with two concerts at First Avenue this weekend, and it's still an occasion worth celebrating.

The nonprofit station hasn't saved radio, whose audience has dwindled amid the rise of streaming and podcasting. But for many of us — those of us who go see live music often, who buy physical albums, who can name more than three current local bands — it's the biggest reason we still know how to pre-save a station on our car stereo.

Still largely dependent on membership support, the Current also still pays that support forward by playing more new or undiscovered artists in one week than all of the corporate-owned FM outlets do in a year. Combined.

The Current also still plays more local artists in a day than you would find from a full day of combing playlists on Spotify or TikTok. Twenty years later, there's still no better resource to regularly hear homegrown talent.

Are the Current gatekeepers finding all the good, new music out there? Of course not. Could they dig deeper and represent more corners of the local scene? I know about 4,000 musicians who would give that one an emphatic yes (many of them have also emailed me asking for coverage).

Still, the Current has been a major player for a relatively wide swath of lesser-played underground and/or homegrown artists.

An evergreen example from its first year: Literally the day after the station debuted in 2005, a then-very-underground band from Duluth, Low, released a transformative record called "The Great Destroyer." The Current played it to the hilt, in part simply because the station had not yet assembled much of a song library.

Low was able to fill First Ave for the first time a couple of months later. A quarter-century later, that record has been heralded by the likes of Robert Plant and Chrissie Hynde and holds up as the greatest Minnesota record of the 21st century. Imagine if it had gone unheard in the band's home state.

The Current still makes a difference 20 years later.

I was reminded of this in October when Americana songwriter MJ Lenderman played the biggest show on his tour at First Ave. I wish I could say all the good press is why he packed the club, but clearly it had more to do with the Current's heavy rotation of his record.

Other artists who've drawn sizable crowds over the past year after heavy airplay on the Current: Fontaines D.C., Faye Webster, Adrianne Lenker, Brigitte Calls Me Baby, Royel Otis and — just last week — Joy Oladokun.

All those were great concerts, by the way. All were relatively inexpensive, too. One clear benefit of paying attention to the rising acts being championed on the Current is you can see more concerts for under $50 that I can promise you are often as electrifying as the $250 shows.

And then there's the support for the local scene. Ber sold out First Ave two weeks ago. Kiss the Tiger and Ondara both filled Icehouse four weeks in a row over the past two months. At the inaugural Minnesota Yacht Club festival in St. Paul last summer, fans could be heard singing along to songs by homegrown bands Gully Boys, Hippo Campus and Durry. All of them are favorites on the Current.

Rock and pop acts benefit the most from Current love, but it extends to hip-hop and R&B, too.

When Kendrick Lamar and SZA come to U.S. Bank Stadium in April, they could both thank the Current for giving them more airtime than any other station in town except maybe lower-watt community station KMOJ-FM. That hardly accounts for their popularity, of course. But how could artists this popular (and stellar!) not get more airplay on the commercial stations?

Of course, haters are always gonna hate on the Current, even — or especially — its most avid listeners. Too much of certain artists, not enough of certain genres, etc.

The one critique that has held up all too well over the past decade is how heavily the station relies on a heavy-rotation formula, i.e., playing the same "hits" over and over. That's a trademark of the commercial stations. It's not something other NPR-affiliated stations around the country do as much.

Even if it didn't sound like a fourth-grade poetry contest entry, that flowery new Billy Strings track about singing with birds doesn't need to be played as often as "Espresso" on KDWB-FM. Just because it's LCD Soundsystem doesn't mean the phoned-in "X-Ray Eyes" deserves to be heard more than once. I loved Waxahatchee's "Right Back to It," too, but how about another song from that record?

Another problem at the Current in more recent years has been management's inability to retain some of its best on-air talent, including Jade Tittle, Sean McPherson and, of course Mary Lucia — the Current's unequivocal star for 18 years — who quit the station in April 2022 after criticizing the Current's treatment of women during her last on-air shift.

(Lucia is now doing noble radio work behind the scenes as an adviser at the University of Minnesota student station Radio K, another great lower-watt community station contrasting the corporate dreck, along with KFAI, Jazz88 and the aforementioned KMOJ.)

There have been plenty of knowledgeable music buffs and radio professionals added to the station in recent years, but the "personality" side of the on-air personalities has largely gone the way of Ryan Adams' comeback career. Relatable characters like Lucia were one thing separating the Current from Spotify, TikTok and other mechanical playlists. Fortunately, that's not all that sets it apart.

The Current's 20th

When: 7:30 p.m. Fri. & Sat. With: Frank Black, She's Green, DJ Jake Rudh (Fri.); Beach Bunny, Bad Bad Hats, Makr An Eris (Sat.). Where: First Avenue, 701 1st Av. N., Mpls. Tickets: $40, resale only Sat., axs.com.