Brandon's Buzz

‘Twas a bitch of a week, so all apologies for the record store report’s lateness this week. But better late than never: May comes to a close with a handful of highly-anticipated comebacks, along with a soundtrack that is sure to stand among the year’s most popular. Take a look:

• No doubt you, as do I, remember with a peculiar fondness an eerily ethereal smash from the summer of 1992 called “Stay”; the creator of that tune, the miraculous Siobhan Fahey, has just reassembled Shakespear’s Sister, the band who rode the song straight to the top of the charts across the whole damn world, and their brand new album is entitled Songs from the Red Room.

 

• The spectacular soulstress Bettye LaVette turns her rapt attention across the pond to cover the likes of Elton John, Paul McCartney,
  The Moody Blues, The Who, Pink Floyd, and many others on her latest, Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook.

 

• They have broken up and reconciled more times than Victor and Nikki, but those alt-rock icons Stone Temple Pilots are officially flying in the same pack anew, and they’re back with a new eponymous album, their first project as a group since 2001’s terrific Shangri-La-Dee-Da.

 

• Brit-rock heroes Stereophonics return with their seventh studio album, Keep Calm and Carry On.

 

• Beck and Feist are among the folks who stop by to help out
  electronica guru Jamie Lidell on his latest record, Compass.

 

• In the week in which we pause as a crunchy to coronate the next American Idol, how fitting that we should be treated to the official stateside debut of Will Young, the first winner of Britain’s Pop Idol (the mega-popular program upon which ours is based). Young’s album is called Leave Right Now, the title track from which has been heard as Idol‘s farewell song during each of this season’s elimination montages.

 

• The songs have been available for free download at the band’s website for weeks now, but if you care about ridiculously ornate deluxe packaging (not to mention indecipherably stupid album titles), then Teargarden By Kaleidyscope 1: Songs for a Sailor — the latest project from Smashing Pumpkins — is almost certainly for you.

 

• With contributions from Cyndi Lauper, Dido, and the magnificent Nicholas Rodriguez, not to mention a duet betwixt those golden-throated uber-divas Leona Lewis and Jennifer Hudson, plus a cover of Beyonce’s smash “Single Ladies” which is performed by the one and only Liza Minnelli, the original motion pitcher soundtrack for Sex and the City 2 would seem at first glance to be a big ol’ gay wet dream, agreed? (Other hot soundtracks out this week: True Blood, Vol. 2, a new collection of music from HBO’s white-hot vampire series, featuring songs from Lucinda Williams, Bob Dylan, and Beck; and the companion album for box office dud MacGruber, with classic tracks from Eddie Money,
  Mr. Mister, Toto, and Robbie Dupree.)

 

• And finally, one of the finest (and most criminally underappreciated) singer-songwriters in existence — the majestic, magnificent
  Beth Nielsen Chapman — returns with Back to Love,
  her first album in three years.