Brandon's Buzz

Pardon the truncated record store report this week, but — at least on the face of it — there’s not a hell of a lot out there this week to jump up and down about. But don’t let first appearances deceive you: there might just be a pleasant gem or two awaiting you among what follows.

• Those ’90s heroes Sister Hazel are still plugging away at it;
  their latest effort is the aptly titled Release.

 

• Rising country star David Nail has just gone and made his atrocious cover of the unheralded Train classic “I’m About to Come Alive”
  the title track of his debut album.

 

• Her under-the-radar debut landed her a surprise Grammy nod for
  Best New Artist; let’s see how R&B diva Ledisi follows it up with her sophomore release, Turn Me Loose.

 

• Speaking of atrocious, all hail the return of Eurotrash dance outfit Cascada, who are back with their latest full-length project,
  Evacuate the Dancefloor.

 

• After an extended hiatus, Third Eye Blind are back and trying to re-catch lightning in a bottle with their new album, Ursa Major.

 

• After knocking our socks off with her cover of “Born to the Breed” from last year’s Judy Collins tribute project, the fabulous Amy Speace returns with her latest album, The Killer in Me.

 

• Alt-rock hero Brendan Benson steps away from The Raconteurs
  for a solo offering, My Old Familiar Friend.
• Country queen Reba McEntire is up with her 25th studio album,
  Keep On Loving You. (As near as I can tell, the title track is not a cover of the REO Speedwagon rock classic, as much fun as that might have been.)
• And finally, season two of the CW’s guiltiest pleasure
  Gossip Girl arrives on DVD.

The Buzz’s record store report celebrates its one-year anniversary this week with some welcome new visits from some of this author’s all-time favorite artists. Can’t think of a better way to mark the occasion.

With painfully earnest vocal work from the terrific Emerson Hart, and with sensationally radio-ready angst-ridden fare like their 1997 crossover debut smash “If You Could Only See,” they seemed a fair bet for megastardom. Problem was, so did all the other bands — Third Eye Blind, Sister Hazel, The Wallflowers, Son Volt — with whom they emerged from the post-grunge haze of the late ’90s, and after three albums and a handful of well-received singles which nonetheless failed to capture the magic of their breakthrough, they called it quits, and this week, you can find the highlights of their discography streamlined into one disc with A Casual Affair: The Best of Tonic. Don’t miss the inexplicably ignored 1999 singles “You Wanted More” and “Mean to Me” to get a sense of the potential these guys certainly owned, and, as with last week’s Wallflowers best-of set, the Best Buy version of Casual comes bundled with a bonus DVD, containing five of Tonic’s music videos.

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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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