Artist · chart history
Big Red Machine
Band Eau Claire United States Formed 2008 Bon Iver's Justin Vernon and The National's Aaron Dessner
Big Red Machine formed in 2008 in Eau Claire, United States. Big Red Machine has 10 chart appearances on 9 radio countdowns from 6 stations on RockLists, spanning 2018–2025. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Phoenix”, which appears on 7 lists with a best position of #29. The station that charted Big Red Machine most often is The Current (Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN), with 4 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 2021.
Big Red Machine is what happens when two indie-rock craftsmen clear a space to see what they make together. Aaron Dessner and Justin Vernon started trading ideas in 2008, and the project grew out of that collaboration, named after the nickname of the dominant 1970s Cincinnati Reds, who won the World Series in 1976, the year Dessner was born.
The self-titled debut came out on Jagjaguwar in 2018, a set of loose, experimental indie folk built from shimmering loops, hazy keys and fragile, many-layered vocals. "Hymnostic" is exactly what its title suggests: a gospel-tinged sing-along that feels like it was recorded around a campfire at dawn.
How Long Do You Think It's Gonna Last?, from 2021, opens the doors wider and warmer. "Phoenix" builds from a quiet folk strum into a sweeping, gorgeous crescendo, and "Renegade" is as close as the project has come to a straight-ahead pop song, bright and gliding, without losing the ache.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Big Red Machine on radio countdowns
Albums with charting songs
Where each song was first released, from MusicBrainz.
Year-end chart timeline
Combined year-end countdown points per year. Taller bars mean more songs placing higher across more stations.
Every countdown appearance
| Year | # | Song | Countdown |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 704 | Phoenix | 893 Essential Songs of The Current: 2005 to Now |
| 2021 | 29 | Phoenix | WFUV Top 90 Songs of 2021 |
| 2021 | 31 | Phoenix | The Current Top 89 Songs of 2021 |
| 2021 | 42 | Phoenix | WYEP Top 91 Songs of 2021 |
| 2021 | 52 | Renegade | The Current Top 89 Songs of 2021 |
| 2021 | 82 | Phoenix | WEXT Top 97 of 2021 |
| 2021 | 94 | Phoenix | Lightning 100 Top 200 Songs of 2021 |
| 2021 | 96 | Phoenix | WXPK Top 107 Songs of 2021 |
| 2018 | 87 | Hymnostic | WFUV Top 90 Songs of 2018 |
| 2018 | 89 | Hymnostic | The Current Top 89 Songs of 2018 |
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