Brandon's Buzz

It’s 2:47am in Texas, and I’m wide frickin’ awake and watching that pulse-pounding Ultimate Rock Ballads infomercial that still kills me every time I see it, even a year later. I have updated the Buzz’s radio archive, I have made a Facebook event for my show with the great Suzy Bogguss next week, I have answered some emails, I have played Bejeweled, and now I’m going to try to tackle as much of this week’s record store report as I can before I fall asleep. There’s some true blockbusters in the mix this week, y’all, so dig in:

When irritating twitlets like Taylor Swift and Colbie Caillat re-release albums that aren’t even one year old in enhanced “deluxe edition” sets, my ass gets thoroughly and enormously chapped. But when an indisputable classic album returns to the spotlight with a brilliant three-disc reinvention that is clearly worthy of the effort, I’ll bow in reverent deference ten times out of ten, honey. And you best believe the latter is what’s going to take place this week when I finally manage to get my hot li’l hands the sparkling new 15th anniversary commemorative edition of one of the ten best albums of the 1990s — Sheryl Crow’s amazing debut record, Tuesday Night Music Club.

Teased to a knowing few via the luminous “Leaving Las Vegas” — still and forever, one of the finest debut singles in the history of pop music — and sent into orbit via the worldwide smashes “All I Wanna Do” and “Strong Enough,” Tuesday earned four Grammy nominations (and netted Crow three trophies, including one for Best New Artist) upon its release in 1994, and a decade and a half later, all of that brilliant music — from the rambunctious “Can’t Cry Anymore” to the bizarro “The Na-Na Song” — continues to hold up. (I dare you to think you can still say that about the material of Crow’s pop compadres like Lisa Loeb and Jewel!) And it has now been augmented with a 10-track bonus disc of b-sides and rarities, as well as a DVD containing the album’s videos and a documentary about Tuesday’s tumultuous road to existence. Looking for the perfect stocking stuffer this holiday season? Aww, baby, look no further.

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Are you believin’ we’re already a month into the new year?! The Buzz hasn’t even fully closed out the books on 2008 yet, and ‘09 has already ticked away thirty precious days of its half-life.

I know that we’re already knee deep into the new year’s music slate, and that you’ve no doubt already largely forgotten all the brilliance 2008 had to offer, but please allow the Buzz a final opportunity to sway your ears. The ten tracks which make up the playlist that follows don’t necessarily comprise the absolute best music of the year just ended — any list of that stripe which fails to include Sugarland’s fascinating cover of “Life in a Northern Town,” Kings of Leon’s incendiary “Use Somebody,” Tift Merritt’s devastating “Another Country,” or Kacy Crowley’s wondrous “The Universe” is just ridiculously short-sighted and ill-conceived — and, indeed, a great many of these songs may have slipped entirely through the cracks of your musical cognizance last year. Do seize this shot to correct that foolishness. It may not come ’round again.

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So, we finally have a new president, which means we can finally get back to the important stuff: what we’ll be listening to when we realize that the cesspool of American politics will likely do to him exactly what it did to most of the rest of ‘em. Lucky for us, we’ll always have magnificent music on which to fall back.

Speaking of our new president, a compilation album which was commissioned Barack Obama’s campaign (and which, heretofore, was only available with a donation to the campaign’s website) has been granted a mass release.
Yes We Can: Voices of a Grassroots Movement features previously released tracks from Sheryl Crow, John Mayer, and Stevie Wonder, among others, as well as a new track from John Legend (an impassioned cover of U2’s “Pride (In the Name of Love)”) and a new collaboration — their second — between Kanye West and Maroon 5’s lead singer Adam Levine.

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Generally speaking, at least where music is concerned, the holiday shopping season really gets going the first week of November.  But with next Tuesday being Election Day and all, and with more emphasis than ever being placed on first-day sales, the record companies are largely shying away from that as a viable release date.  Consequently, this week is beyond crowded.  I advised you all last week not to get complacent; read on to see why that was a fair warning.

The acronym’s a nifty play on those controversial print ads which made their target a pop culture buzz magnet last spring; alas, the thirty-two point letters on the album’s cover akshully stand for Original Music Featured on ‘Gossip Girl’. An entire array of under-the-radar acts fills this collection, although appearances are made by The Kooks, Junkie XL, and current flavors of the week The Ting Tings. Could be fun, could be a sprawling, self-indulgent mess.

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One of the finest performers in the history of the world is back with a pair of projects that beautifully illustrate the rich and inspiring depth of her range and artistry.

A little-remembered 1982 live recording which has just been restored and expanded for a first-ever release on compact disc, Live in Washington, D.C. finds American soul icon Patti LaBelle — whose powerful pipes have long since passed into legend — at the very zenith of her talent and ability. Still in the infancy of her solo career at that time, following her amazing run as the frontwoman of the pioneering ’70s trio Labelle (whose classic #1 hit “Lady Marmalade” — a performance of which anchors this live album — endures some three decades later), Miss Patti was stuck on tiny Philadelphia International Records (following an inconsequential three-album stint at Epic) and, in ‘82, was still a full year away from finding and recording “If Only You Knew,” the tune that would eventually become her signature smash. LaBelle needed something concrete to help reignite the once-deafening buzz that used to surround her, and although few realized it at the time, this concert would end up being just the ticket. By mixing a handful of classics (like her showstopping take on Harold Melvin’s “If You Don’t Know Me By Now” and a riveting (and flirting-with-definitive) cover of “Over the Rainbow”) with a series of songs that would become Patti staples (like “I Don’t Go Shopping” and “You Are My Friend,” which began as a random entry in Patti’s husband’s journal), she managed to get the entire music industry talking about her again. Now, at long last, you can hear for yourself a legend being (re)born.

In conjunction with the release of Live comes a new two-disc retrospective, The Essential Patti LaBelle, a thirty-track compendium of material from all three phases of Patti’s career (the ’60s, when she was with the Blue Belles; the ’70s, when she was the driving force behind Labelle; and the ’80s, when her solo career finally took off). To my immense frustration, several truly essential tunes are omitted from this collection (I’m devastated that none of Labelle’s classic collaborations with the late Laura Nyro — most notably sterling takes on Smokey Robinson’s “You Really Got a Hold on Me” or Carole King’s “Up on the Roof” — were deemed worthy for inclusion; same goes for Patti’s original 1989 version of “If You Asked Me To,” which would become a top ten smash for Celine Dion three years later), but enough classics are here — “Marmalade” and “If Only,” of course, plus “New Attitude,” “Love, Need, and Want You,” and her unforgettable 1986 duet with Michael McDonald, “On My Own” — to make this a worthwhile experience. (In addition, there’s also a previously unreleased track, “Mean Ol’ Man’s World,” for true fanatics.) If you’ve ever wondered what all the fuss was about regarding this brilliant woman, there has never been a better opportunity than this to crack the code.

A Canadian bubblegum pop star in her teens, and a misunderstood (and, to a large extent, mischaracterized) angry young female (and, at that, one who singlehandedly touched off a deafening revolution for women in rock) in her twenties, the tenaciously divine Alanis Morissette has mellowed markedly as she navigates her thirties, though that fact may not be immediately evident upon first listen to Flavors of Entanglement, Morissette’s texturally dense eighth studio album. Inspired by her brutal breakup with actor Ryan Reynolds, Entanglement finds its author being lured into intriguing new sonic territory by producer Guy Sigsworth (co-writer of Seal’s 1991 classic debut “Crazy,” and best known for his striking work with the lovably psychotic Imogen Heap), who grafts rougher-hewn guitars and touches of electronica onto Morissette’s typically untidy prose.

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