The Black Keys' Delta Kream Debuts At #6 On Billboard 200 Album Chart

The Black Keys tenth studio album, Delta Kream, was released on May 14, 2021, and debuts at #6 on the Billboard 200 chart. The album, which features eleven Mississippi hill country blues songs by artists including R. L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough, also debuted at #1 on the Billboard and Mediabase Triple A Radio Charts. A feature about the band, written by Hanif Abdurraqib, is in this Sunday's New York Time Magazine.

He says of The Black Keys: "Recording blues covers in a small room, with just as much freedom and exuberance as they had when there were no expectations beyond the ones they set for themselves. Because they know that saving history or keeping it alive is beyond their control; they're simply playing the songs they love with the people they respect while they can still do it ...gratitude comes through in the joyful returns and homages on 'Delta Kream.' Each song on the record puts the listener in the room with the band, watching smiles spread across their faces as the music they have studied and loved flickers into life through them, effortlessly." Read the full New York Time Magazine feature here.

Delta Kream album is also #2 on the Billboard Top Albums chart, and #1 on the Current Alternative Albums, Blues Albums, LP Vinyl Albums, Current Rock Albums, Americana/Folk Albums, and Billboard Tastemaker Albums charts. Internationally, Delta Kream is the band's fourth consecutive top 10 album in the UK, debuting at No.5, as well as top 10 in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland, among others, and scoring career peaks in several countries.

The Black Keys recently performed "Crawling Kingsnake" & "Going Down South" from Delta Kream on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert. The videos feature musicians Kenny Brown and Eric Deaton, long-time members of the bands of blues legends including Burnside and Kimbrough, with Sam Bacco on auxiliary percussion.

The Black Keys are the first band to be featured in Spotify's live stream series and will perform a night of new songs at The Blue Front Café in Mississippi, the oldest operating juke joint in the country, on Thursday, May 27 at 8pm ET. Tickets for the event are available here.

Photo Credit: Gioncarlo Valentine, Courtesy of The New York Times

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