Brandon's Buzz

Typically, after November’s music slate builds to a budget-busting, orgasmic wall-of-sound crescendo, the December doldrums set in. 2009 is no exception, with only one major release worth getting any degree of excited over. Happy shopping, y’all:

With over 70 million albums sold, she has taken a great deal of the entire world under her Irish new-age-y spell, and now she pauses to take the measure of two decades of music with her brand new collection, The Very Best of Enya, which pulls together all her classic singles — from her massive 1988 breakthrough “Orinocco Flow” and her 1996 classic “Anywhere Is,” right up through last year’s “Trains and Winter Rains” — into one breathtaking 22-track set. I haven’t picked this up yet, so I can’t tell you which version of her left-field 2001 smash “Only Time” — the horrid original version, or the crackling remix, which became a runaway behemoth at top 40 radio in the immediate wake of 9/11 — appears here, but I pray it’s the latter, since, to my knowledge, that version has never been made commercially available. But because I’m thrilled to see my favorite-ever Enya tune — 2002’s glorious “Wild Child” — in the mix, odds are I’ll forgive her either way.

If you were to ask me to choose the most purely talented vocalist from last season’s (largely woeful) crop of “American Idol” hopefuls, I’d almost certainly double down on that seventeen-year-old spunky spitfire Allison Iraheta. (What, you thought I was gonna say Adam?!) Quite frankly, I’m still steamed that America’s fast-dialing electorate jettisoned her in favor of that doofy dumbass Danny, wholly in spite of the fact that she did nothing short of sing rings around him every single week. All’s well that ends well, however: this week finds the release of Just Like You, Iraheta’s much-ballyhooed debut record. Can’t wait to hear if she was able to channel her kinetic onstage energy into a powerhouse record, but with folks like Max Martin turning the knobs, it’s at very least bound to not be boring.

Also noteworthy this week:

• Those mega-selling “popera” idiots Il Divo are back with a new
  CD/DVD combo, Live in Barcelona.

 

• Sherry Ann loves them, so what more need you know about
  The Bravery? They’re up with their latest effort, Stir the Blood.

 

• And finally, remixes from Rihanna, Mariah Carey, Kelly Clarkson,
  and Kanye West highlight Just Dance, Vol. 2, another blistering collaboration between Ultra Records and Island Def Jam.

names dropped with reckless abandon: Adam Lambert, Alison Iraheta, Danny Gokey, Enya, Il Divo, Kanye West, Kelly Clarkson, Mariah Carey, Rihanna, Sherry Ann, The Bravery