Brandon's Buzz

This coming Tuesday is my thirty-third birthday, and outside of having a nice dinner (and perhaps a soupcon of post-meal canoodling) with A, I intend to spend it doing my favorite activity on this planet: music shopping. Live it up, y’all — there’s some terrific stuff hitting stores this week:

Admire this gal’s gumption if nothing else: Brooke White, the angelic young lady who eternally captured the hearts of most of us “Idol” freaks with her ethereal, ebullient musical stylings during season seven — YouTube her astonishing take on “I Am… I Said” during Neil Diamond week from last year, and just try to convince me you don’t ache for her with every fiber of your existence — has chosen to include on
High Hopes and Heartbreak, her hotly-anticipated post-”Idol” debut, a sweetly mellow (and utterly fascinating) cover of Kings of Leon’s transcendent epic smash “Use Somebody,” a decision that has Sherry Ann utterly aghast. (And she doesn’t even like KOL that much!) As a well-documented fan of that album (and of that song), I wouldn’t normally advocate this kind of thing, but I think the fact that White — whose easy, effortless lilt is about a hundred million miles away from Caleb Followill’s pained (if undeniably compelling) yowl — can put her own spin on an instantly iconic rock tune and hold her own doing so proves that a truly great song can withstand whatever the hell you throw at it. The Buzz loves ya, Brooke baby.

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As the world continues snapping up Michael Jackson recordings of any stripe — a fact which stands as heartening evidence that people can still be compelled to purchase actual records given the right circumstance — there’s not much happening on the new release wall this week. Chalk it up to the July doldrums:

The “Idol” cabal is certainly having itself a kick-ass summer to here: Miss Kelly’s back with a spectacular album that has entirely eradicated the stench of the leaden effort which immediately precedes it in her discography; spunky li’l Jordan Sparks has blasted back to the foreground with her fabulous smash “Battlefield,” a brilliantly bombastic Ryan Tedder tune about which not nearly enough Buzz ink has been spilled (a situation that I’ll set about rectifying next week, when the full album drops); and my beloved Brooke White offers me the greatest birthday present fathomable next week with the release of her long-awaited post-”Idol” effort High Hopes and Heartbreak, which is teased by the bouncy sing-along track “Radio Radio.” And then there’s Chris and the boys from Daughtry, who have set top 40 radio ablaze all over again this summer with the fiercely melodic “No Surprise,” the terrific lead single from the band’s sophomore record Leave This Town. Even though he can be a tad too pompous for his own good, and his sideburns more often than not tend toward the bizarre, there’s no denying that Chris is one hell of an engaging performer, and because his debut was such a masterfully executed commercial triumph, there’s little reason to believe that album number two will deviate radically from such a winning formula. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. (If you’re so inclined, pick Town up at Target, whose edition comes bundled with a bonus DVD containing the band’s six videos, including the new clip for “No Surprise.”)

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Not so much happening out there in musicland this week, so please forgive the short and sweet record store report. (And don’t forget: with new stuff on the horizon from Daughtry, Reba, my beloved Brooke White, and Sweet & Hoffs 2.0, summer ‘09 is far from over, kids, so enjoy this relative breather.)

• One of the great underrated American bands of the past
  decade receives a gorgeous career retrospective this week with
  Music from the North Country: The Jayhawks Anthology. (And, yes, their classic singles “I’m Gonna Make You Love Me” and
  “Save It for a Rainy Day” are most definitely front and center.)

 

• Hot on the heels of a big screen smash, which has spawned the
  surprise soundtrack hit “The Climb,” cute li’l Miley Cyrus is back already with Hannah Montana, Volume 3, the latest collection of songs from the Disney Channel’s cash cow.

 

• And finally, this week brings another visit from Jay Farrar
  and the brilliant boys of Son Volt, who drop their sixth album,
  American Central Dust. Methinks it’ll be quite hard to top their terrific 2006 effort The Search, which featured a spine-tingling cameo from the dynamite Shannon McNally, but if anyone’s up to the task, it’s the very gentlemen who gave us the scorching 1996 rock radio classic “Drown,” which remains one of the best songs in the history of ever. Count me in.

Regular readers of this blog may or may not know that once upon a time, I was writing a novel.  (I say was because, even though I often refer back to it in my mind’s eye — twenty or thirty times a day, easy — and have come to quite enjoy torturing myself by toying with the notion of revisiting it in a serious way — an idea that I’ll one day make a concrete reality — I haven’t set finger one upon it in years.)  The book is about a hundred different things — and is driven by and populated with every bit as byzantine a constellation of backstories and bystanders as you’d reasonably expect from an author who is also a soap fan of nearly three decades — but, primarily, the book is about a guy.  Jeremy.  Early 30s.  Recovering alcoholic.  Hasn’t spoken to his brother in a decade over a ridiculously lopsided family inheritance which failed to break in his favor.  Doesn’t know how to admit it, but is still madly, hopelessly, irrevocably in love with the very first object — a flaxen-haired, brutally forthright gem of a gal — of his intensely loyal affection.

It may not make a hell of a lot of sense here in the boiled-down synopsis (and, truth be told, it may not make much more sense in the actual book), but Jeremy was once a successful trial lawyer in Boston, and is now a warbling piano player in a smoky Florida nightclub.  (It’s a long road from there to here, that seemingly wonky transition, and the minutiae therein aren’t terribly relevant to the particular yarn I’m spinning for you now, so let’s just go with this:  as increasingly detached as the repetitive tedium of his daily existence as an attorney made him feel, that’s how increasingly fulfilled Jeremy is by the fresh thrill of plugging his mind and heart and hands into the concrete joy of creation, and of imagination, as a piano man.)

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6:50 pm: OK, this is more like it. Hey guys, are we ready for two bloated hours of movie previews, pitchy performances from has-been former stars, and the coronation of a new American god? Yup, me too. Can’t wait!

6:54 pm: So, I have a bit of housekeeping to take care of before the show starts. Here’s what I get for not paying attention last night: neither Archie nor Jughead actually sang the true 2008 American Idol Coronation track last night. Because of last year’s “This is My Now” trainwreck (which, some say, unfairly tipped the scales in favor of Jordin over the more electrifying Blake when they both had to sing it in ’07’s performance finale), the producers decided to let each David pick their favorite from the top ten entries in the songwriting contest, and decided to save the winner for tonight’s show.

6:56 pm: The winner is called “Time of My Life” and it was written by a guy called Regie Hamm, whose name you may or may not recognize. He released a terrific album called American Dreams in 2003, and I’m pretty sure nobody but my deranged ass owns it. And/or loves it.

6:58 pm: At some point during this evening’s festivities, I’ll figure out how to link to Amazon’s Regie Hamm page so that you can check it out. It’s a very good album.

7:00 pm: It’s finally here! Is David Cook wearing a Nehru jacket, for the love of Jesus?!

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I’ve spent the past thirty-some hours, Syesha, trying to summon something even remotely interesting to say about you and your tenure as one of this year’s top twelve. And to my dismay (and even slight horror), there’s just nothing there, my darling. Despite the fact that you never once had a true knockout performance, you were expert at straddling the median (even in your best weeks, you weren’t as good as Brooke or Michael, two unfortunate victims of your phenomenal lucky streak; neither, however, were you as abominable as Kristy Lee or Jason, each of whom now flank the incomparable Sanjaya as “Idol’s” most stunningly inept semifinalists). Most weeks, you were so unassuming that America seemed to altogether forget how unremarkable you really are.

Consider this, Ms. Mercado: the “Idol” highway is liberally littered with the carcasses of contestants who well inhabited your very niche, and be they ridiculous (season five’s Mandisa, anyone?) or sublime (how many folks still believe “Idol’s” original diva Tamyra wuz robbed all those years ago?), you’ve managed — save one, who ended up winning the whole enchilada by plumbing the American songbook and brilliantly fleshing out, of all things, a Gershwin tune (!) from the ’30s — to place higher than any and all of them.

As I whispered in Brooke’s ear two heartbreaking weeks ago, there is nothing you could have done to alter last night’s verdict. Syesha, you could literally be Whitney, and it would still have been all for naught: ever since Mr. Cook turned Lionel Richie’s shockingly schlocky “Hello” into the coolest grunge ballad this side of “Plush,” the forthcoming David Squared face-off has been in the cards. You must have known your great fortune — however remarkable heretofore — was never gonna derail that train.

Simon predicts a “humdinger” for next week. Get yourself a front row seat, Syesha, and watch the fireworks unfurl.

Notwithstanding, for sure, your ingeniously flukish performance of Jeff Buckley’s (by way of Leonard Cohen’s) “Hallelujah,” I never had much use for you, Jason. Your dull, dirty hair — which, I swear to Jesus, I want to wash for about three or four days — is easily the most fascinating thing about you. You’re almost certainly not cognizant enough to feel guilty about robbing my beloved Brooke of another shot to build on the momentum of her sensational comeback last week; after all, sir, you couldn’t even summon, when you needed it most (!), the ONE lyric from “Mr. Tambourine Man” — the one about the jingle jangle morning, natch, and something tells me you’ve known a few of those, am I right? — that even people who can’t sing that song on a bet know!

Not since the outrageously outmatched Nikki McKibbin squeaked into season one’s top three has a more obviously underqualified contestant reached “Idol’s” vaunted upper echelon, which I s’pose proves as handily as anything could that old canard about fooling all of the people some of the time. Chin up, Jase: in time, you’ll become the most famous opening act at luaus the world over, and you’ll recall — no doubt with wistful, flippant fondness — the season you and your stringy, matted mane magnetized a nation’s entire electorate toward voting with its thumbs for the happy busking hobo.

Fare thee well, Mr. Castro. Your pumpkin awaits.

Admittedly, Brooke, I’m biased.

Sixteen years ago this August, an astonishing flame-haired raven name of Tori Amos cajoled her incomparably seductive self into my life and instantaneously hurled my very being straight and plumb off its axis. For reasons that aren’t remotely relevant to this particular conversation — though they merit (and will almost certainly eventually win) their own future blog post — 1992 remains, in its own way, the single most important and noteworthy of my 32 years on this planet. Thanks wholly to unrequited, emotionally draining crushes on Craig Doughten and Annie Lennox — and, all these eons later, it remains a fair toss-up which of those two people was more unattainable, despite my daily access to no fewer than one of them — it was the first year I got really serious both about writing and about music appreciation. Quite true, I had always loved music — hey, I still remember, and with the fondest grace in my heart’s most sacred quadrant, Dad driving his downright giddy eight year old son up to the TG&Y to buy anything that contained “Karma Chameleon,” and trust me here if nowhere else: yes, Brooke, an eight year old’s palms can sweat, honey — but ‘92 tore across my mind like a gale, like an huracán.

Nothing was left standing.

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