Another jam-packed week on tap at your local record store, as two of music’s brightest talents return with much-anticipated new projects. Too bad only one of same manages to soar:
As part of a duo with his twin brother Evan, he scored a pleasantly melodic radio hit called “Crazy for This Girl” in late 2000, but despite a keen sense of his abilities as a vocalist and a couple of strong records, it seemed as though long-term commercial success in the music business was just not in the cards for Jaron Lowenstein. But not so fast: using the moniker Jaron and the Long Road to Love, Lowenstein is back in the game this week with Getting Dressed in the Dark, his debut album as a solo act. The first single “Pray for You” — a hilarious kiss-off dedicated to a gal who clearly done this boy ten kinds of wrong — is a burgeoning smash at country radio, and, if his Facebook updates are any accurate indication, Jaron sure is a charmer. This could be a sleeper hit of the highest order.
“Fine, you know, ‘We’re a free country… except for you guys over there.’ Well that’s all well and good, until you’re standing over there, and it’s for some ridiculous reason that everybody decides to pick on you. Either you’re a free country or you’re not a free country: if somebody isn’t free in your country, that means your freedom is up for grabs, too.”
— Grammy-winning pop icon (and longtime civil rights activist) Cyndi Lauper, discussing her continuing battle for total equality for gays and lesbians in this country, on The Joy Behar Show.
Upon its release back in January, my new online buddy Blake used this very website to more or less pan — or, at the very least, damn with imperceptibly faint praise — Lady Antebellum’s white hot sophomore album Need You Now, daring to call it “One Tree Hill with fiddles” and sending that phrase flying like an epithetical slap across Sherry Ann’s beautiful face. (Lest you lose the thread here, Sherry Ann is the free world’s most passionate devotee of that angst-riddled assortment of Tree Hill confidantes and clotheshorses.) He swore a number of times that he didn’t necessarily mean his phrase to disparage or belittle, even though Sherry Ann and I both took it exactly that way, and I repeatedly invited her to tear Blake’s flip, slightly sullen sarcasm to shreds — as only she can, trust me — right cheer on the Buzz. She repeatedly declined each request, but having spent a good measure of time with this quite fine record over the past few months, I feel both compelled and qualified to weigh in with my own two cents.
An insanely busy workweek has come and gone, and I am now charged with composing the longest record store report in Brandon’s Buzz history. Luckily for verbose ol’ me, I feel that I am equal to this challenge. To wit:
Those canny folks at Now! are back on the block with a pair of new singles collections, as Now That’s What I Call Music! 34 compiles a cross-section of recent radio smashes from the likes of, among others, red-hot Lady Antebellum (the wistful “American Honey”), OneRepublic (“All the Right Moves,” so deliciously epic), The Script (“Breakeven,” a worthy breakthrough for this terrific and too-long-ignored band), and Miranda Lambert (the tremendously moving “The House That Built Me,” the most played song at country radio this week); and the crassly manipulative Now That’s What I Call the USA! pulls together a handful of so-called patriotic country tunes, some of which absolutely fit the mold (Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA,” say, or Billy Ray Cyrus’ “Some Gave All”), and others of which are, for this occasion, only marginally appropriate at best (fine though they certainly are, Eric Church’s “Guys Like Me” and Rascal Flatts’ “Fast Cars and Freedom” don’t exactly fill me with the urge to salute the nearest flag, if you know what I mean). Being, however, from the same group of people who, a few months ago, seemed to believe that The Fray’s incendiary “You Found Me” actually glorifies (as opposed to excoriates) God, I s’pose this scattershot set is right on par.
My best friend on this planet celebrates a birthday today, and though I’ll refrain from telling you how old she is, I can’t resist the temptation to remind her once more that she is one month older than I am, and she always will be.
Much love from your favorite Austin boy, Sherry Ann.
As a massive fan of this song in its original form, I might normally be violently opposed to making such bold-faced fun of it. But quite frankly, the video below is freakin’ hilarious, and in honor of my chat with the incredible Meat Loaf — which airs tonight at 11pm EST on Brandon’s Buzz Radio (and which will be available starting tomorrow as a downloadable podcast from ) — sharing it today somehow seems wholly appropriate.
posted in child, my work | Comments Off on grammy-winning rock icon meat loaf, plus greg maclennan & henri mazza from the alamo drafthouse’s action pack, on brandon’s buzz! 6/8/10, 11pm edt / 8pm pdt!
One of Sherry Ann’s harem of future husbands helps to kick off June in inimitable style, and had I been using my noodle last weekend, I would have commissioned her to compose the text celebrating that event. Instead, you’re stuck with me, and I s’pose I’ll leave it to you to discern whether or not that’s a good thing:
Give Clay Aiken this much credit: he certainly never backs down from a challenge. Despite several moments of genuine brilliance — laugh if you must, but “Invisible” and “Run to Me” (the standout tracks from his middling 2003 debut Measure of a Man) are both terrific tunes — Daddy Clive’s quest to turn Aiken into the next great pop star was a wholesale failure, and the attempt to refashion him as a baby Barry — replete with Manilow’s maddening penchant for godawfully inappropriate remakes! — fared even worse. And yet, through it all, Aiken has rolled with the punches, displaying an admirable grit and tenacity in the process. And now he’s back, and coming at mainstream success from yet another angle: on his fourth album (and first for new label Decca), Tried and True, Aiken now appears to be channeling his inner Bobby Darin by unleashing upon us an entire collection of big-band-era covers. (To prove he is serious about this, he even dares to tackle “Mack the Knife”!) Now, to be fair, I’ll disclose I haven’t heard as much as a note of this record, and it may well be triumphant from stem to stern, but just from scanning the tracklist, I see the precise same problem that sunk A Thousand Different Ways — Aiken’s ill-fated 2006 project — which is that he has chosen a series of tunes — in this case, titles like “Unchained Melody,” “Suspicious Minds,” and “Crying” (the lattermost of which is presented as a duet with the peerless Linda Eder, whom, one can only surmise, must have been promised the moon in exchange for these precious few moments of her time and talent) — upon whose shattering originals he cannot possibly improve. We shall see.
While bumming around on YouTube just now, wasting time that would be better spent composing this week’s record store report or editing an episode of my show or finishing that pesky playlist that has been occupying my mind for multiple weeks now, I ran across what continues to stand, from some three decades of daily afternoon viewing, as my all-time favorite soap scene — from One Life to Live, circa June 1992 — and I was compelled to squeal with delight, do the happy dance in more than one room of my house, and let loose an overwhelmingly orgasmic burst of pure ecstatic energy so all-consuming I’m stunned it didn’t tear a hole in my socks. (I’ve probably watched this scene a good three hundred times over the years, and have the audio on my iPod besides, so I have it memorized cold, but it does my heart good somethin’ fierce to understand that someone else holds this scene with the same reverence as I.)
