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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All apologies for the tardiness of this week’s record store report: my day job schedule for the remainder of this month is jus’ crazy, so let me apologize for the spotty posting which will surely result from my need to earn a living. Thankfully, the pickins are mighty slim this week, which gives you a perfect chance to revisit last week and catch up on anything you might have missed in that jam-packed madness. (If you need a clue for where to turn first, let me just scoop my forthcoming review of Kelly Clarkson’s latest album by saying simply this: I’m thinking of a word; the word is dynamite.)

Do I already proudly own every last track — Counting Crows’ untouchable 1994 classic “Round Here,” Hole’s 1999 stomper “Malibu,” or 3 Doors Down’s elegant 2002 heartbreaker “Be Like That” (which featured a true star-making vocal performance from Brad Arnold), or Oasis’ 1996 gem “Don’t Look Back in Anger” (which unfortunately was overshadowed by the behemoths — “Wonderwall” and “Champagne Supernova” — that preceded it on the radio) that deserves its placement on Buzz Ballads 2? Damn straight I do. Is that going to prevent me from shelling out the ten or so bucks required to purchase this album, which manages to wrangle all the aforementioned tuneage (and so much more untold brilliance!) onto one shining, beautiful, eminently listenable disc? The hell you say!

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Yup, it’s that time of year again: the 51st annual Grammy Awards are nigh. And while predicting the outcome is often a painfully useless exercise, simply because the Academy voters rarely use logic in choosing their winners — witness, if you will, Herbie Hancock’s w-t-f Album of the Year victory last year, to name just one bizarro choice — the Buzz has enough opinions about who should win the coveted trophies this year that I am willing to go out on a limb and try to guess who will win.

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Another relatively light week is on tap, although if you’re feeling nostalgic, you’ll find a pair of touchstones — one from the ’80s, one from the ’90s — in the pipeline as you do your shopping this Tuesday. Behold:

After an endless wait, one of television’s smartest and most beloved situation comedies finally began making its way to DVD last year, and the latest release arrives this week. The Fourth Season of Family Ties was a watershed one for the series; having been paired with “The Cosby Show” on Thursday nights, the show was finally a ratings bonanza after several years of flying below the radar, and thanks to box office smash Back to the Future, its young star Michael J. Fox had just become a bona fide superstar. Season four also introduced to the series two of its funniest and most memorable ancillary characters, as the oldest Keaton kids both found true love: Alex, with fellow co-ed Ellen Reed (the terrific Tracy Pollan), and Mallory, with dropout sculptor Nick Moore (the hilarious Scott Valentine). The resulting complications — Alex deciding to take up ballet, or the riotous family dinner in which Mallory introduced Nick to the mortified Keaton clan, to name but two — rank among the show’s most remarkable moments.

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Believe me here if nowhere else, singers: when gay folks fall madly in love with you, you’re in like Flynn, baby. We are positively undying in our loyalty and devotion to your craft and to your output. We support you when no one else will give you the time of day (how else to explain why you crazy gals Taylor Dayne and Nicki French still have careers?), we love you even when you lose your marbles (and, in some cases, because you lose them, correct, Liza?), and we stay at your side through thick and thin, through addiction and sobriety, through brilliance and boredom.

In honor of Pride month, a prodigious passel of inarguable gay icons have just released new projects for us to devour gratefully. Allow the Buzz to guide you along a tour of these records, replete with snap judgments as to their worthiness and/or lack thereof. (Believe me here, as well: your crazy Uncle Brandon will never knowingly mislead you!)

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