Brandon's Buzz

I’m still positively reeling over CBS’ announcement today that they are yanking “Guiding Light” off the air after 72 continuous years, and I’ll have my thoughts on that news just as soon as I’ve fully gathered them. In the meantime, there’s another full slate of new releases to close out the month of March in high style, kids. Waste no time digging in:

I’m not sure whose ridiculous idea this was: that fabulous trumpeter extraordinaire Chris Botti schedules a two-night stand last fall at the world-famous Boston Symphony Hall, invites a who’s-who of his all-star pals — among them Sting, Josh Groban, and Aerosmith’s fearless leader Steven Tyler — to play along, and fails to include his gorgeous muse Paula Cole, with whom he has created so much terrific, passionately brilliant music over the past four years? (Worse yet, he invites that pitiful fourth-rate “American Idol” runner-up Katharine McPhee to take her place! Is he kidding me with this?!) I’m trying to hard not to pass judgment on Live in Boston before I’ve even heard a note of it, but what an unspeakable outrage is the setlist of this concert recording on the face of it! Color me physically offended by this blatant foolishness!

 

Recorded last year during an appearance on PBS’ famed music series “Soundstage,” a pair of new releases highlight the legendary Stevie Nicks‘ continued mastery of her incredible creativity and art. Both in audio form (as The Soundstage Sessions) and in video form (as Live in Chicago), Nicks fearlessly takes on a handful of her own classics, both as part of the inviolable Fleetwood Mac oeuvre (“Sara,” “Rhiannon,” and a lush, orchestral arrangement of “Landslide” which threatens to usurp The Dance‘s version of same as the definitive take on that landmark tune) as well as from her own famed solo career (“Stand Back,” “If Anyone Falls,” and the little-known heartbreaker “Beauty and the Beast”); in addition, she also dares to put her own inimitable spin on Dave Matthews Band’s biggest and best-loved smash “Crash Into Me” and Led Zeppelin’s stomping “Rock and Roll.” According to Nicks, she’s as proud of this project as anything she’s ever done in her storied career. And considering the enormous quality of her output heretofore, that’s a pretty bold proclamation.

Is he turning into Ryan Adams? It hasn’t even been a full year since he released his self-titled sophomore smash album, but Gavin DeGraw is already up with his latest effort, the radically stripped-down Free. Recorded on the fly with a simple four-piece band — as DeGraw himself told Billboard earlier this week, he wanted to make “a legitimate record, [without] overdubs and flying guitars and unicorns and shit” — Free includes a reworked version of “Young Love,” one of the highlights of DeGraw’s most recent album, as well as a cover of Chris Whitley’s “Indian Summer,” one of DeGraw’s favorite tracks. If anyone has the raw talent to forgo all the studio trickery and still emerge holding all aces, it’s this kid, who, at his very best, evokes (a far less tragic) Jeff Buckley. (That’s a compliment of the highest order!)

 

 

A massive new wave of Sony Legacy’s brilliant Playlist retrospective series rolls out this week, and while some of the setlists included therein are less than impressive — discs from Michael Bolton (which tends to favor the artist’s hideously subpar later output — “Go the Distance”? “Only a Woman Like You”? That ridiculous, unnecessary cover of “Sexual Healing”? — over his more striking early material) and Gloria Estefan (who owns way too vast a trove of inspired material to choose from — “Here We Are,” or “Coming Out of the Dark,” or “I’m Not Giving You Up,” or even a blast of pure fun like “1-2-3” — to end up with a disc this flat and uninvolving) — three in particular grabbed my attention and made me take notice. The first of them, a celebration of The Very Best of Toto, reveals nothing particularly new or noteworthy about one of the signature bands of the ’80s, but that doesn’t really matter much: seeing all the highlights of their discography — “Africa,” “Rosanna,” “I Won’t Hold You Back,” as if you can’t name them by rote! — on one shiny disc is still quite a sight. The second might be a tad confounding; seeing as he only has two studio albums and one set of baffling covers to his name, it might seem a scotch too soon to run across The Very Best of Clay Aiken at your local record store, but there you have it, and it’s a better than average reminder of his raw talent as a vocalist. (“Invisible” is included, praise Jesus, as well as his funky (and strangely haunting) reworking of Dolly Parton’s “Here You Come Again,” but, sadly, not his ferocious remake of Foreigner’s “I Want to Know What Love Is,” done as a duet with Rock Star: INXS contestant Suzie McNeil.) And last, but most definitely not least, comes the fourteen-carat gem of the bunch, The Very Best of Cyndi Lauper, which, for as much of a seemingly random grab bag of her music as it ultimately becomes, represents a stunningly strong cross-section of her incredible career. (There’s a fairly simple explanation for that: Lauper has been lucky to have recorded all but one of her albums for the same record company, which gives whomever is in charge of compiling a retrospective like this an infinitely broader palette from which to pick and choose.) And from her 1984 breakthrough smash “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” right up through her brilliant 2008 dancefloor jam “Into the Nightlife,” the entirety of Lauper’s catalog is well-represented here, and for a breathtaking budget price. You’d be an utter fool not to seek this out.

(P.S. Also receiving their own discs in the Playlist series this week are
Etta James and Brad Paisley. That’s a pair to draw to if I ever saw one!)

Also noteworthy this week:

• Husky-voiced chanteuse Diana Krall returns with her latest album, Quiet Nights.

 

• Acclaimed Swedish trio Peter Bjorn & John try to follow up their 2007 breakthrough smash “Young Folks” with their latest album, Living Thing.

 

• Country megastar Keith Urban is up with his fifth studio album,
  Defying Gravity.

 

• One of the all-time great underappreciated singer/songwriters
  A.J. Croce (yeah, Jim’s son!) is back with Cage of Muses, his seventh record.

 

• “Grey’s Anatomy” fave Maria Taylor is up with her latest, LadyLuck.

 

• Finally following up their earth-shattering 1996 collaboration
  Dance Hall at Louse Point, PJ Harvey & John Parish come together anew on A Woman A Man Walked By.

 

• Their still-brilliant 1999 smash “Take a Picture” heads up
  The Very Best Things (1995-2008), the first career retrospective
  from rock band Filter.

 

• It’s a fair bet that nothing on it will be as magnificent as their
  ravishing 2002 breakthrough single “Maps,” but Karen O and
  Yeah Yeah Yeahs are giving it a shot anyway with It’s Blitz!

 

• Prince teams with Target for a triple-disc exclusive set, LotusFlow3r, which includes the debut recording from his latest protege, Bria Valente.

 

• And finally, a pair of DVD sets that may or may not be of interest to you: seasons one and two of that underrated Saturday morning NBC classic “California Dreams” — imagine, if you can, a low-budget “Fame” — finally make their long-awaited home video premiere, as does season one of Kelly Ripa’s goofy sitcom “Hope and Faith,” whose uneven first run was saved by a hilarious two-part finale which featured cameos by some fifteen or so real soap stars (among others, Finola Hughes, Cameron Mathison, Rebecca Budig, and Susans Flannery and Lucci) sending themselves brilliantly up in one of the most spot-on soap-related spoofs ever seen on television.

names dropped with reckless abandon: "American Idol", "California Dreams", "Grey's Anatomy", "Guiding Light", Aerosmith, AJ Croce, Brad Paisley, Bria Valente, Cameron Mathison, Chris Botti, Chris Whitley, Clay Aiken, Cyndi Lauper, Dave Matthews Band, Diana Krall, Dolly Parton, Etta James, Filter, Finola Hughes, Fleetwood Mac, Foreigner, Gavin DeGraw, Gloria Estefan, INXS, Jeff Buckley, Jim Croce, John Parish, Josh Groban, Karen O, Katharine McPhee, Keith Urban, Kelly Ripa, Led Zeppelin, Maria Taylor, Michael Bolton, Paula Cole, Peter Bjorn & John, PJ Harvey, Prince, Rebecca Budig, Ryan Adams, Steven Tyler, Stevie Nicks, Sting, Susan Flannery, Susan Lucci, Suzie McNeil, the soaps, Toto, Yeah Yeah Yeahs