Brandon's Buzz

January roars to a close with a ferocious cross-section of great new music to choose from, including what may stand as the two most-anticipated sophomore outings of the new year. Take a look:

Even though it has sold well over one million copies (largely on the strength of her name and of residual goodwill toward her), and even though it’s loaded with drive-time-friendly fare (most prominently, the shockingly frisky “Million Dollar Bill”), pop radio has largely failed to take the bait on the divine Whitney Houston’s underrated latest album I Look to You. But this week brings a reminder that once upon a magical time, she was the queen of pop music, as Arista marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of her sterling thirteen-times-platinum debut with a deluxe edition re-release. Newly added to the record are a trio of dance remixes, a remarkable a capella take on Houston’s classic “How Will I Know,” and a live version of “Greatest Love of All.” Also included: a DVD featuring the album’s four music videos, new interviews with Houston and Arista’s founder Clive Davis, and a rare clip of Houston’s national debut on The Merv Griffin Show.

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Another low-key week on tap, although with a new Patty Griffin record due at the end of the month, take heed: the new release wall won’t be this slow and dull forever. Dive in:

• Remixes of recent radio smashes from Black Eyed Peas, Mariah Carey, Rihanna, David Guetta, and others highlight Total Club Hits, Vol. 4,
  the latest from those canny geniuses at Thrive Records.

 

• Contra, the second record from rising cult band Vampire Weekend.

 

• Those DIY wunderkinds OK Go are back with their latest effort,
  Of the Blue Colour of the Sky.

 

• Acclaimed singer/songwriter Freedy Johnston returns with
  Rain on the City, his first album in nearly a decade.

 

• Rain or Shine, a four-disc live collection from A’s favorite road dogs O.A.R.

 

• And finally, Sherry Ann’s reason for living this week: a new Jason Mraz track has somehow or other found its way onto the original motion picture soundtrack for the new Josh Duhamel flick When in Rome.

Typically, after November’s music slate builds to a budget-busting, orgasmic wall-of-sound crescendo, the December doldrums set in. 2009 is no exception, with only one major release worth getting any degree of excited over. Happy shopping, y’all:

With over 70 million albums sold, she has taken a great deal of the entire world under her Irish new-age-y spell, and now she pauses to take the measure of two decades of music with her brand new collection, The Very Best of Enya, which pulls together all her classic singles — from her massive 1988 breakthrough “Orinocco Flow” and her 1996 classic “Anywhere Is,” right up through last year’s “Trains and Winter Rains” — into one breathtaking 22-track set. I haven’t picked this up yet, so I can’t tell you which version of her left-field 2001 smash “Only Time” — the horrid original version, or the crackling remix, which became a runaway behemoth at top 40 radio in the immediate wake of 9/11 — appears here, but I pray it’s the latter, since, to my knowledge, that version has never been made commercially available. But because I’m thrilled to see my favorite-ever Enya tune — 2002’s glorious “Wild Child” — in the mix, odds are I’ll forgive her either way.

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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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As has become typical of late, between day job responsibilities and preparing for my radio show, I was so swamped last week that the record store report sadly fell to the bottom of the pile. (On that front, if you missed my blockbuster chat with the incredible Brett Claywell this past Tuesday night, be sure and check it out in the Buzz’s radio archive.) Hence, a super-sized doubleheader this week. The new release wall is hopping lately, kids. Get on board:

(PS: Full disclosure and all — A and I are initiating the brand new liquor cabinet this evening, so I’m writing this while sipping a Jack and Coke. Therefore, if something feels a bit… off… about the text contained herein, it might be because I am typing while tipsy.)

Despite being one of 2009’s most entrancing pieces of music, the risky, brilliant lead single “Dead Flowers” failed to take off at country radio last summer (which, sadly, I predicted in a Buzz post last May). And while it’s slowly climbing, I’m not sure how much better second single “White Liar” will ultimately fare in what is certain to be a Carrie-driven fall. Still, that magnificent spitfire Miranda Lambert has a whole passel of folks rooting for her success, and the fact that each of her first two albums are pushing platinum status despite minimal radio play means she must be doing something right. Don’t be afraid to dive in to her brand new third album, Revolution.

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Sherry Ann and I have this thing between us that we lovingly call “The Whitney Houston Rule,” which came to exist in the winter of 1998 when Miss Whitney became positively livid with the Recording Academy — not because they failed to nominate her soundtrack for The Preacher’s Wife for any major Grammys, but because they nominated her in what she perceived to be the wrong categories.  See, Whitney considered Wife to be the gospel album she had long dreamed of making, and while it was indeed top-heavy with selections from the God-is-love songbook, it also contained a handful of viable radio singles, enough to keep the boys at Hot 97 happy, and so the Academy deemed that the album was only eligible for the R&B categories, a decision which so enraged Whitney that she proceeded to embark on a nationwide press tour announcing her immense dissatisfaction over the news and proclaiming that she would not be showing up to that year’s ceremony to accept any awards she might win.  (The single funniest moment of this madness was when she appeared on “Entertainment Tonight” and slapped a deluxe diva diatribe — “I’m sick of work bein’ done and people not recognizin’ it!!” — upside poor Bob Goen’s head.  To this day, over a decade later, whenever either Sherry Ann or myself wish to give voice to something which frustrates or annoys us, we always preface it by cooing, Whitney-style, “No, Bob…”; and, to this day, the audio of Whitney’s hilarious hissyfit can be found on my iPod, where it continues to stay in pretty heavy rotation.)

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Forgive me for the late record store report this week: I’ve been swamped the past few days preparing for my blockbuster interview with the great Pam Long. (If you’re at all interested in the inner workings of a soap opera, from someone who’s excelled at mastering them, you should listen to this.) At any rate, it’s rather a hodgepodge of different stuff on the new release wall this week. Dig in:

The latest British import to dazzle us with a gregarious blast of giddy pop: Gary Baker, coming to be better known as Gary Go, who releases the physical version of his debut record this week. (The album has been available for the past month at iTunes, whose version includes bonus covers of The Cars’ 1984 classic “Drive” and a mellow take on Lady GaGa’s brilliant “Just Dance.”) The lead single “Wonderful” is an absolutely terrific, magnificently melodic counterpoint to some of the heavier tunes —
The Fray, Kelly Clarkson, Mariah Carey, fine songs all, but not exactly party-starters — populating top 40 radio right now. Give this a shot.

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The Associated Press predicted Monday night it would likely be the biggest and most spectacular memorial for a public figure — bigger than Elvis, bigger than Diana, bigger than Marilyn — in the history of the free world, and having been glued to the coverage of Michael Jackson’s farewell service all damn day last Tuesday, surfing aimlessly across all the channels broadcasting the exact same action, I can scarcely imagine a more true statement.

Except to say that I found the overall presentation to be incredibly moving — and, when you consider the whole thing was thrown together on something like 48 hours notice, stunningly smooth — and that Miss Mariah would almost certainly have benefited from an extra hour of rehearsal time, and that the choice to finally cut his hair is the best creative choice John Mayer has made in eons, I haven’t much pertinent commentary to add to the growing list of funeral post-mortems. As I indicated in my initial Buzz eulogy, Michael’s music is strong enough to forever speak for itself, and, notwithstanding Al Sharpton’s pompous proselytizing, it by and large did on Tuesday.

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After sleepwalking through the past several weeks, we’ve finally got a release slate we can really sink our teeth into. While we wait to see what gifts this week’s lineup of music has in store for us, allow me to throw out this question for discussion: am I the only one who thinks the new U2 record is mind-numbingly inane and dull? What the hell was Rolling Stone thinking giving that ridiculousness a five-star review?! (I would take a stab at tackling that second one, but I’m afraid I already know the answer and it would just be way too depressing to see it in cold print.)

After Eric Clapton (whose incredible, stripped-down versions of “Layla” and the devastating “Tears in Heaven” notched their album sales of ten million-plus and won their performer a wagonful of Grammys) and Mariah Carey (whose impromptu cover of The Jackson 5’s “I’ll Be There” became a radio supersmash) showed the network what a commercial goldmine it had on its hands in the early ’90s, a spare and intimate appearance on “MTV Unplugged” suddenly became a mandatory promotional tool — within a pair of years, Neil Young, Nirvana, 10,000 Maniacs, and Melissa Etheridge all had turned in landmark performances — and for many, a nifty li’l comeback vehicle. Take the case of Rod Stewart, who reunited with his former Faces partner Ronnie Wood for an acoustic set and unwittingly hurled his career back into orbit. Thanks to a startlingly fine cover of Van Morrison’s “Have I Told You Lately,” upon which — to the surprise of more than a few — top 40 radio immediately leapt, the resulting live album, entitled Unplugged… and Seated, went on to move more than three million units stateside and produced two additional hit singles (a reworked version of his early classic “Reason to Believe” and a raucous cover of Sam Cooke’s “Having a Party”). Unplugged returns this week in a special expanded edition which contains two bonus tracks — including a radically reinvented take on his 1989 smash “Forever Young” — as well as the original television broadcast, which finally makes a belated debut on DVD. And trust your Uncle Brandon, here if nowhere else: if only for Stewart’s priceless rendition — which can now be enjoyed aurally and visually, natch! — of Tom Waits’ unspeakably magnificent “Tom Traubert’s Blues (Waltzing Matilda),” this is worth the purchase price. (And memo to MTV, Natalie, and/or whomever else may be in charge of this: I’m still waiting for the aforementioned 10,000 Maniacs episode from 1993 — the recording of which would damn straight be one of my five desert island discs — to make its way to DVD, and am willing to do whatever is necessary — up to and including pleading right here on the Buzz — to facilitate the correction of that foolishness.)

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I wrote the majority of what follows last night while flying home from Las Vegas (where I managed to enjoy a weekend of enormous fun and mirth wholly in spite of the fact that I failed to win as much as a penny), so if this week’s record store report seems a bit incoherent, blame the oversized slice of Sbarro pizza I scarfed down at the airport, which — though it tasted utterly divine going down — gave me the worst case of heartburn I can ever recall.

She has strayed away from that formula in recent years, but there’s no question that Mariah Carey made her name belting out sappy love songs — and the schmaltzier, the better, especially in those early years.  Just in time for Valentine’s Day, Carey has assembled eighteen of her best-remembered slow jams (line ‘em up:  from “Vision of Love” and “Love Takes Time” up through “One Sweet Day” and even “Thank God I Found You,” they’re all here) and is re-releasing them as simply The Ballads, and while much of this is as disposable as it was then, pay special attention to a pair of tracks — “When You Believe,” her 1998 diva-fest duet with Whitney Houston (who was still remarkably, umm, sane in those years), and “Without You,” Carey’s smashing 1994 cover of Harry Nilsson’s classic — which have aged with stunning and extraordinary grace.

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In a smashingly brilliant follow up to last year’s monumental ten-disc Classic Soft Rock collection — the infomercial promoting which was hosted by Graham Russell and Russell Hitchcock (those peerless bastions of ’80s schmaltz who were better recognized by the masses as Air Supply) and was one of the finest, most compelling half-hours of television I have ever witnessed — the fabulous folks at Time-Life have truly outdone themselves with Ultimate Rock Ballads, a new eight-album assemblage of music which pulls together 133 of the most essential percussive dirges from the past four decades into one gloriously cheesy listening experience.

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7:10 pm: Due to an agricultural emergency (don’t ask), I’m a little late in liveblogging the “American Idol” finale. That’s what I get for hyping this to you people!

7:11 pm: At any rate, dinner is ready (and a tad burnt), the TV’s on, and we’re ready to go. I haven’t missed a performance yet, but I’m fifteen good minutes late in introducing you to the cast of characters. Screw it; we’ll do it on the fly.

7:14 pm: Good lord, Daddy Clive is picking songs again. Remember that year he picked “Open Arms” for Elliott Yamin and he blew it?

7:15 pm: Who put Andrew Lloyd Webber in charge of the peanut gallery?

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