oh you speak to me in riddles
and you speak to me in rhymes
(or: august 5 — a thumbnail sketch)
posted at 3:12 pm by brandon in tuesdays in the record store with brandon
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.
Formerly the lead singer of country band Trick Pony, which had a string of radio hits (2000’s “Pour Me” and 2002’s relentlessly clever “Just What I Do” being the most notable) earlier this decade, the proudly twangy Heidi Newfield embarks on a solo career with What Am I Waiting For. Leadoff single “Johnny and June” is winning strong notices at country radio this summer, and doubts about Newfield’s ability to sang were put to rest long ago. Keep an eye on this one.
Those divine geniuses over at Thrive Records are at it again with Total Dance 2008, Vol. 2, their latest collection of club mixes. Assembled by DJ Skribble, Dance includes tracks from Natasha Bedingfield, Kylie Minogue, Robyn, Missy Elliott, and that ridiculous trollop Katy Perry (for whom Jason Nevins remixes that atrocious and inescapable smash “I Kissed a Girl”; I have yet to hear this, but I can testify with certainty it can’t be worse than the intolerable original).
The soundtrack for the original 2005 film featured new tracks from Chantal Kreviazuk, Rachael Yamagata, and then-unknown Brandi Carlile and Natasha Bedingfield; three years later comes The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2, and the soundtrack feels equally strong. This time around, classic tracks from Aqualung and Cyndi Lauper augment album cuts from Craig David and Missy Higgins and others. Additionally, the record has a secret weapon: “Together,” a brand new track (and a sneak preview of her profoundly anticipated third album, Everything Comes and Goes, due October 20) from the peerless Michelle Branch, who wrote the song specifically for the film.
Her true commercial breakthrough wouldn’t come until 1997’s supernova Surfacing, but the record that first brought Canadian singer/songwriter Sarah McLachlan to the attention of discerning music fans — 1994’s incredible, sexually-charged masterpiece Fumbling Towards Ecstasy — earns a Legacy Edition upgrade this week. Just be forewarned before diving in: there’s not much in the way of new music here, and with the exception of an alternate take of album standout “Hold On,” all twenty-two tracks on this set’s two audio discs have been previously released in America. (Not even that much is true for Canada; that alternate take has been available north of the border for years.)
During the late-1993 recording sessions for Ecstasy, McLachlan’s third album, the original goal was to release the project in two versions — one with its thirteen tracks fully produced, and one with the songs in looser acoutic arrangements — but as the album began to gel, McLachlan and her producer Pierre Marchand decided that the so-called “electric” version of the album was the stronger and more compelling of the two, and shelved the unplugged idea. But after repeated MTV exposure helped turn “Possession” into a college radio hit, Arista Records — knowing their artist was in no hurry to follow up the unexpected success, despite the critical buzz now swirling around it — asked McLachlan to revisit her first plan, in order to inject some new material into the marketplace. The result was 1995’sThe Freedom Sessions, an eight-song EP which featured seven of Ecstasy‘s tracks in radically stripped-down takes, plus a riveting cover of Tom Waits’ “Ol’ 55” (which Sarah freely admitted was recorded late one night after the band — most of whom didn’t even know the song! — had attacked with great verve multiple bottles of red wine).
Ecstasy‘s new Legacy Edition now finds the original album and the EP bundled together in a two-disc set; in addition, a DVD containing live performances, a documentary chronicling the making of the album, and music videos for the album’s three singles (“Possession,” “Good Enough,” and “Hold On”) is included. It’s a fitting tribute to one of the most durably brilliant albums of the ’90s and, just ahead of McLachlan’s first-ever greatest hits collection (due October 6), a spectacular reminder of why, where, and when we fell in mad love with this woman in the first place.
