Brandon's Buzz

Thanksgiving week is an unusually muted affair this year: this is typically the “official” kickoff of the holiday shopping season, and so the record companies generally wait until this week to unleash their biggest and most interesting firepower. But, because I’m decidedly not a Glambert, and because I find the year’s hottest British import just a step or two above a kitschy novelty, color me entirely underwhelmed by the latest slate of new releases. Dive in with caution:

• The decade’s most irritating strumpet Shakira is back with her latest, She Wolf.

 

• That human lightning rod Lady GaGa is back in action with
  The Fame Monster, an eight-song adjunct to her mega-selling debut.

 

• Urrybody’s favorite vegan Moby is back with a deluxe edition of his terrific album from last spring, Wait for Me.

 

• The pride of Barbados, the incredible Rihanna, is up with her fourth album, Rated R.

 

• The legendary Tom Waits returns with Glitter and Doom Live,
  a chronicle of his most recent tour.

 

• Anybody out there have any idea how that doofus Jimmy Wayne conned Daryl Hall and John Oates into helping him cover their classic Sara Smile, the title track from Wayne’s latest CD?

 

• Beyonce presents I Am…Yours: An Intimate Performance
  at Wynn Las Vegas, a fairly self-explanatory three-disc live effort which finds her covering 2Pac’s “California Love” and Alanis Morissette’s “You Oughta Know.” (I’m really not kidding about that, Sherry Ann!)

 

• Her global coming out party is one of the most-viewed videoclips in YouTube history; let’s see if the much-heralded Susan Boyle can turn that recognition into record sales with her debut release,
  I Dreamed a Dream.

 

• Regular readers of the Buzz know that I had utterly no use for the ridiculous Adam Lambert and his screechy theatrics on last season’s “American Idol.” Still, if you’re kinda curious to hear what he sounds like on record, he offers up himself For Your Entertainment. Go with God,
  all you Glamberts.

 

• And last but absolutely not least: it’s Thanksgiving week in Austin, Texas, which means the return of that beloved annual tradition known as KGSR Broadcasts. This year’s double-disc edition (Vol. 17, if you’re keeping count) includes exclusive acoustic recordings from The Avett Brothers, Pete Yorn, Ben Harper, Tift Merritt, Ryan Adams, Raul Malo, and the incomparable Tori Amos.