Brandon's Buzz

It’s a huge week out there in music land, as the favorite artists of both myself and Sherry Ann come up to bat with highly anticipated new efforts. Only time will tell if they are worth the wait, but the early returns are certainly encouraging. Take a gander:

Since she is without question the planet’s foremost Kate Voegele authority, I asked the magnificent Sherry Ann to compose some text regarding this week’s release of A Fine Mess, Voegele’s sophomore album. What follows is her response in its entirety: “Stay out of it,
Nick Lachey!” Six words that made me laugh so hard that I nearly fell off the couch while watching “One Tree Hill” two weeks ago. While no one else in the room with me at the time found those words particularly funny, I was vindicated when
“The Soup” picked up on the scene and has been showing it non-stop. These words were spoken by Mia Catalano, also known as Kate Voegele, whose sophomore album, A Fine Mess, drops this week. Voegele uses her onscreen alter ego to debut her music to the loyal Tree Hill brethren each week in the hopes that we will run right over to iTunes after the show and buy it, which I do every time. I have purchased five of the singles from this album on iTunes in the months leading up to its release, and I fully intend to march into the local record store and buy the album on Tuesday. The standout track for me is “Angels,” which does have a Vanessa Carlton-type of quality to it (but hey, I am a sucker for any chick that can play the piano). Another great track is “Manhattan from the Sky” — another piano pop song that has a catchy chorus — which was inspired by the way the city looks from cruising altitude. Bottom line on this album is that “One Tree Hill’s” head honcho Mark Schwahn has personally given his stamp of approval to 5 of the 12 songs on this album. What else do you need to hear? Buy it! (Editor’s note: First, aren’t all of her songs of the piano-based pop variety; and second, couldn’t have said it better myself.)

Buzz has been building for months on their first single “She is Love” (which has been playing incessantly in television ads for Nivea lotion), and the album shot to number one on iTunes last week when it received a one-week digital head start on traditional brick-and-mortar outlets. (That meteoric rise was also helped along by the fact that the album’s second single, “Under Control,” was iTunes’ free single of the week.) We’ll see now how Losing Sleep, the debut record from rising band Parachute, fares out in the real world, but I will say upfront that I think lead singer Will Anderson has a compelling voice. Color me interested.

Another of Sherry Ann’s beloveds, riveting Nashville-based rocker Mat Kearney, is
back this week with his second major-label effort, City of Black and White. Relentless touring and scads of primo television exposure made his fascinating debut Nothing Left to Lose a word-of-mouth hit, and Kearney couldn’t ask for a better way to introduce this new CD than its terrific leadoff single (most seriously, one of my favorites from a very crowded spring), the intoxicating “Closer to Love.” Sherry Ann is primed and ready to go, and I must say, so am I. (Be sure and grab this on sale at Best Buy, whose version contains a pair of exclusive bonus tracks.)

Those brilliant, brooding, flannel-swathed relics from the ’90s, Gin Blossoms, are still alive and most certainly still kicking, as is evidenced by their new album, simply titled Live in Concert. Name any one of their hits from 1993 forward — from the 1993 classic smash “Hey Jealousy” (to this day, one of my favorite songs evah) plumb up through 1996’s easygoing singalong “Follow You Down” and their 200 — and they’re present, as is an impromptu cover of Elton John’s “Rocket Man.” Even years past his prime, lead singer Robin Wilson still sounds amazingly agile with the mic in his hand, and although there’s no chance of this changing the world, I’ll wager it’s a fun, harmless way to relive senior year all over again without actually having to run into and/or interact with all the people you couldn’t stand back then.

At the time, they called it the single greatest evening of contemporary pop music ever presented in our nation’s capital, and after you watch the concert, it’s impossible to believe you won’t firmly concur: in 2007, American legend Paul Simon was awarded with the first-ever Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, and to commemorate the occasion, the award committee assembled a mind-blowingly brilliant lineup of artists and musicians to recreate and re-imagine some of Simon’s most indelible compositions for a concert to air on PBS. Two years later, the incredible concert finally makes it to DVD, and trust me, you’re an utter fool if you don’t pound the pavement until you find this disc. Entitled simply Paul Simon and Friends, the concert starts off with a thoroughly ravishing opening salvo — Alison Krauss and the peerless Shawn Colvin teaming up for a breathtakingly tender cover of “The Boxer” — and only proceeds to get better from there. Contributions from James Taylor, Marc Anthony, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Philip Glass, and Simon’s old musical partner Art Garfunkel round out the two hour event, and I just don’t have enough words to express how terrific it is to behold. (Not that I didn’t try!)

Season one was roughly as fine an assemblage of twenty-two episodes as American television has ever seen. So good, in fact, that season two was bound to be a devastating letdown. (Which, with its emphasis on doofy teenagers trying in vain to cover up a murder, it most certainly was.) But I’m thrilled beyond reason to report that Season Three of NBC’s criminally undervalued gem Friday Night Lights — whose thirteen stellar episodes land on DVD this week — marked a gorgeous return to form for the series. Ostensibly a show about high school football (but, in actual fact, as finely etched a portrait of small town life as has ever landed on the airwaves), Lights is anchored by deeply flawed (but profoundly lovable) characters (who are brought to magnificent life by some of the finest actors — show leads Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton chiefly among them — known to man) and a staggering, palpable sense of family and community. The show was able to survive to see the season thanks to a groundbreaking pact between NBC and DirecTV, and the deal was so successful for both sides that the series was recently renewed for two more seasons. All you need to do is laugh, howl, scream, cry, and love your way through one episode to understand why.

Tori Tori hallelujah: my favorite used CD store here in Austin, Cheapo’s on Lamar, is open until midnight this evening, and you best believe my happy ass is gonna be there as the clock strikes twelve to get my hot little hands on a fresh copy of my darling Tori Amos‘ hotly awaited tenth studio album, Abnormally Attracted to Sin. (As a matter of fact, I’m seriously considering live-blogging my first listen to the record.) Sin has been streaming from Tori’s MySpace page for the past few days, but I have purposely avoided listening to it because I always love experiencing Tori the way she intends for me to: ripping the plastic away from the jewel case; slowly opening the shell, savoring each precious moment; removing the CD from the tray and placing it in the stereo; listening to the machine’s gears and sprockets grind to life as it prepares to play for the first time its latest offering; and falling into a whole world that Tori has created out of whole cloth. Even though I was pointedly not a fan of Tori’s last effort, the ridiculous American Doll Posse, I am forever a staunch and unyielding fan of this brilliant artist, and I can’t fucking wait to get my hands on this brand new treasure. T-minus two hours and counting.

Also noteworthy this week:

• Longtime pals Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood teamed up in February 2008 for a three night stand, the highlights of which are presented in the double-disc Live from Madison Square Garden.

 

• Rap’s great white hope Eminem is back after a self-imposed hiatus with Relapse, a new album to rile up the masses.

 

• Fitting in the week which finds us crowning the eighth American Idol — go Kris!! — that the second winner of that crown, Ruben Studdard, returns with his latest album, Love Is.

 

• Admirable how he just keeps plugging away at it: legendary R&B staple Lionel Richie is back this week with his ninth studio album, Just Go.

 

• Around the Well, a two-cd, career-spanning rarities and b-sides collection from those indie heroes Iron & Wine.

 

• Sherry Ann: “Are you going to write up the new
  Kenny Chesney this week?”

   

  Me: “I’m sure I’ll think of something to say.”

   

  And here’s what I thought of to say about Greatest Hits II, that doofus’ latest hits collection: there are some criminal omissions in the track list (where is “Don’t Blink”? “A Lot of Things Different”? Work with me, Kenny!) but I suppose there are worse ways than this to spend ten bucks and an hour or so of your time. (That’s as charitable as I get where he’s concerned, Sherry Ann, so take that and be grateful!)

names dropped with reckless abandon: "American Idol", "Friday Night Lights", "One Tree Hill", Alison Krauss, Art Garfunkel, Connie Britton, Elton John, Eminem, Eric Clapton, Gin Blossoms, Iron & Wine, James Taylor, Kate Voegele, Kenny Chesney, Kris Allen, Kyle Chandler, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Lionel Richie, Marc Anthony, Mark Schwahn, Mat Kearney, Nick Lachey, Parachute, Paul Simon, Philip Glass, Robin Wilson, Ruben Studdard, Shawn Colvin, Sherry Ann, Steve Winwood, Tori Amos, Will Anderson