Brandon's Buzz

Summer’s most highly anticipated record — at least for the Buzz’s money — arrives in stores this week, and if the first single is any indication, we’re about to drown in a cascade of fabulousness. Read on:

One of the finest female voices in the history of country music, the incredible and endlessly fascinating Tanya Tucker, makes a long-awaited comeback this week with My Turn, her first album in eight years. Turn finds Tucker — who has never sounded better, and that’s saying something! — turning the tables on the music men she has long admired by covering some of their best-known tunes. Among the highlights: a playful take on Charley Pride’s classic “Is Anybody Going to San Antone?” and a slightly mellow version of Merle Haggard’s “Ramblin’ Fever,” as well as what is quite possibly the best cover of Eddy Arnold’s “You Don’t Know Me” since Jann Arden’s devastating one twelve years ago.

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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!

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Election Day is playing hell with this week’s new music slate: Hilary Duff and Dido have already blinked — their new projects, originally scheduled to be released this Tuesday, have been shuffled to Novembers 11 and 18, respectively — and the few stars who are taking the leap this week will have to do battle with strong holdovers AC/DC (whose new album has already soared past the million-sold mark) and those pesky High School Musical churren. In other words: chin up out there. It’s a slow one this week.

In the immediate wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, the arrogant pricks who run radio behemoth Clear Channel Communications (which owns and operates well over one thousand stations nationwide) sent to all its outlets a memorandum which strongly suggested they strike from their playlists 166 songs that the company had deemed “lyrically questionable.” Even in such an irrational, knee-jerk climate, the inclusion of more than a few of these songs — the Bangles’ “Walk Like an Egyptian,” for instance, which is as harmless as a soda jingle — seemed entirely nonsensical, but none more so than that of John Lennon’s touchstone “Imagine,” one of the most powerful prayers for everlasting peace and unity that has ever been written.

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A certain mismatch on paper, yet a striking triumph in practice, modern troubadour M. Ward (best known for his work with Beth Orton, Norah Jones, and Bright Eyes) and rising actress Zooey Deschanel (whose biggest claim to fame is almost certainly her bitterly raw turn opposite Paul Schneider in 2002’s gut-wrenching love story All the Real Girls, and who is still slated to portray the iconic Janis Joplin in Penelope Spheeris’ oft-delayed biopic) have joined forces to create the duo She & Him. Having first collaborated on an end-credits tune for the 2007 independent film The Go-Getter, Ward and Deschanel enjoyed the experience so much that they decided to tackle a full-length project, and She & Him, Volume 1 was born.

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A Buzz-centric conversation with A a couple of nights ago led to a positively stellar idea, the fruits of which you are mere moments from enjoying.

I asked A if this blog lacked something, or if there was an additional feature he wanted to see, and he told me that, although he relishes the longer new album posts, the one thing he misses from the Tips is an overview of each week’s major music releases. (Which totally cracks me the hell up, because he doesn’t buy records!) To help rectify this issue, A suggested that I begin composing a regular bullet-points column to direct my readers’ attention toward each Tuesday’s worthy new music. (Sherry Ann has given me similar feedback.)

I found this idea to be a fabulous one, and something that seemed easy enough to construct. So, to that end, I offer you Tuesdays in the Record Store with Brandon, Vol. 1. Herewith, a handy pocket guide to the music that requires your attention this week:

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