Brandon's Buzz

One of the funniest, most wholly satisfying seasons of television in the history of the medium hits DVD at long last this week, surrounded by a passel of worthy music choices populating the new release wall at your local record store. Live it up, kids — it’s a banner week:

A’s new favorite guy, the cutie-pie balladeer Jamie Cullum, returns this week with his fourth album, The Pursuit, which includes his apeshit crazy cover of Rihanna’s smash “Don’t Stop the Music” and a gentle reading of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd classic “Not While I’m Around,” as well as the stirring title track he contributed last year to Clint Eastwood’s hit film Gran Torino. (Don’t miss the deluxe edition of Pursuit, which contains a DVD with a handful of live performances, recorded at the famed Montreux Jazz Festival, and videos, plus an interview which finds Jamie going through the album track by track.)

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We all get a week to catch our collective breaths following the end-of-September blowout and in preparation for the imminent holiday shopping onslaught. Behold:

She is nothing less than one of the finest singers in the history of the world, and to the betterment of everyone, the divine Linda Eder is back in the spotlight with her eleventh studio album, Soundtrack. A covers project, the album contains adventurous renditions of a handful of Eder’s favorite film tunes, including modern standards like “Everything I Do (I Do It for You)” (from Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves) and “Accidentally in Love” (from Shrek). But the undeniable standout track is a wildly bold take on last year’s Academy Award winner for Best Original Song, Once’s “Falling Slowly.” If you, like me, can scarcely imagine anybody on the planet besides Glen and Marketa singing those words, just wait ’til you get a load of this.

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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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Of all the ridonk, useless “deluxe editions” to which we’ve been subjected of late, this relatively busy week brings one whose original album — a genuine modern classic — actually merits the upgrade. Read on:

 

Obviously emboldened by the brilliantly triumphant ’80s mix they assembled last spring, the folks at Now That’s What I Call Music! have trudged forth with a series of similarly themed compilations, and while subsequent editions (covering, among other genres, the best of country, classic rock, and Motown) have wholly failed to be as uniformly riveting as the ’80s set was, this week brings a fairly worthy successor, as Now That’s What I Call Power Ballads! lands in record stores. A sterling mix of evergreen chestnuts (Journey’s “Faithfully,” Night Ranger’s “Sister Christian,” Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing,” Tesla’s “Love Song”) and forgotten favorites (Sheriff’s “When I’m With You” and Queensryche’s “Silent Lucidity,” a pair of tunes that haven’t crossed my mind in, literally, decades!), the only flaw that bars Ballads from reaching the same level as its vaunted ancestor is the complete and shameful absence of REO Speedwagon and Foreigner, a pair of pioneers who absolutely helped create the power ballad movement, and who could have easily been swapped out for subpar tracks by The Scorpions and Slaughter, neither of which deserves the coveted real estate (sandwiched in between Survivor’s heart-rending “The Search is Over” and Extreme’s smash throwback “More Than Words”) they have been inexplicably handed on this album. Also out this week: installment number 30 in the original Now! series, which passes muster with terrific radio hits from Lady GaGa, Britney Spears, Jason Mraz, Nickelback, and All-American Rejects.

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The last of 2008’s high profile releases arrive this week, and while it almost certainly won’t be enough to rescue the year from its commercial (if not quality) doldrums, it’s comforting to note that at least artists are still trying.

Released at the height of that nauseating emo movement that swept through the first half of this decade, their self-titled 2003 debut produced the radio hit “Swing, Swing” and seemed like the biggest flash in the pan this side of Marcy Playground. Thankfully, their brilliant 2005 sophomore effort changed all that: led by a trio of stickily melodic megasmashes (most notably the magnificent pop-driven title track) and uniformly terrific vocal work from lead singer Tyson Ritter, Move Along made them instant players in a crowded field. This week, The All-American Rejects return with their third album, When the World Comes Down. The lead single “Gives You Hell” fairly admirably splits the difference between the two distinct halves of their musical personality, and while these guys — much like Kings of Leon, who made an essentially identical choice and came up holding nothin’ but aces with their breakneck masterpiece Only By the Night — are taking no end of flak from their critics for pushing their sound in a more commercial direction, I say when the music sounds this good, get the hell over it already.

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