Brandon's Buzz

Blessedly, this week is markedly different than the wallet-buster that kicked off this month in high style. (Good thing, too, because I find myself so hopelessly enchanted by The Fray’s riveting new disc — my early favorite song from which is track number five, the gloriously wrenching “Never Say Never” — that I haven’t had a chance to listen to anything else that dropped last week.) Take this breather as a chance to play catch-up, because that’s certainly what the Buzz is gonna be doin’.

(Incidentally, believe it or not, this marks the Buzz’s 200th (!) post. Many, many thanks to all of you who continue to allow this silliness into your daily lives. If you have as much fun reading these musings as I do writing them, we’re all having a gay old time. So to speak.)

On a high following last summer’s surprising and triumphant comeback, legendary country crooner Glen Campbell reminds his fans of the good ol’ days this week with yet another best-of set. Titled simply Greatest Hits, the record includes pretty much all of Campbell’s best-remembered classics — from “Wichita Lineman” to “Galveston” to “Southern Nights” to even “Country Boy (You Got Your Feet in L.A.)” — and all of them are newly (and crisply) remastered. (Misleadingly, they’re called “remixes” here, but don’t be fooled: the songs have just been cleaned up.) Also tossed in for good measure are a pair of tracks — “Times Like These” (a Foo Fighters cover) and “These Days” (a Jackson Browne chestnut) from last summer’s Meet Glen Campbell, the man’s most successful album in three decades. And if you’re looking for some one-stop Glen shopping, the Buzz proclaims you could do far worse than this.

Two years ago, she tore across the pond trying to trump the imminent Amy Winehouse explosion with a hilariously blunt smash called “Smile” and its equally amusing accompanying album Alright, Still. And here it is 2009, and Lily Allen is still as precocious as she ever was: her sophomore record — It’s Not Me, It’s You, out this week — contains a song entitled, simply, “Fuck You.” As she put it in a recent article in Blender magazine, It’s You is “part God, part country, and all middle finger.” That kind of blunt brashness might not float urrybody’s boat, but that’s totally my cup o’ tea. Color me in.

Also noteworthy this week:

• I don’t even know what to say about Incredibad, the new CD/DVD comedy set from The Lonely Island. Except, if you ever saw Andy Samberg and Justin Timberlake’s Emmy-winning “Dick in a Box” sketch on “Saturday Night Live” — and, considering it’s one of the most-viewed clips in YouTube history, chances are you probably did — you’ve got a pretty good idea what you’re in for here.

 

• Previously released material from John Mellencamp, Sharon Little, Dashboard Confessional, and both Bob and Jakob Dylan highlight the new two-disc collection, NCIS: The Official TV Soundtrack.

 

• She’s mad as a March hare, but that’s as good a reason as any to adore her, and I do: India.Arie is back this week with a sequel to her 2006 chart-topper, Testimony: Vol. 2, Love & Politics.

names dropped with reckless abandon: "Saturday Night Live", Amy Winehouse, Andy Samberg, Bob Dylan, Dashboard Confessional, Foo Fighters, Glen Campbell, India.Arie, Jackson Browne, Jakob Dylan, John Mellencamp, Justin Timberlake, Lily Allen, Sharon Little, The Fray, The Lonely Island