Brandon's Buzz

Pearl Jam — “Just Breathe” (from Backspacer) —

Pearl Jam — “Yellow Ledbetter”
(from Rearviewmirror [Greatest Hits 1991-2003]) —

I see all these little girls screaming, crying, fainting at the sight of that mop-haired doofus-lite Justin Bieber nowadays. Well, when I was 16, I honestly believed I would grow up to be Mrs. Eddie Vedder, and that we would live happily ever after in Seattle next door to a Starbucks. That didn’t work out, obviously, but I still have his music in my heart, and these are two of my favorites. “Just Breathe” (from the band’s latest record, Backspacer) is an acoustic ballad in which Eddie takes stock of his life and counts his blessings, something we all find necessary to do sometimes. And it’s anybody’s guess as to what “Yellow Ledbetter” is about; I’ve heard everything from war to boxing, so who knows? No matter: Eddie’s delivery of the indiscernible lyrics, coupled with Mike McCready’s heart-shattering guitar solo, make this song great. (And to all you little girls out there who have come down with Bieber fever, I hope Justin’s music still means as much to you two decades hence as Eddie’s does to me. I doubt it highly, but I still hope.)

Lee Ann Womack — “I’ll Think of a Reason Later”
(from Some Things I Know) —

Joey + Rory — “Cheater, Cheater” (from The Life of a Song) —

I was reviewing this week’s posts and most of them are downright depressing, so today we switch gears with two country ladies that can (and will) tell you how the cow ate the cabbage in two of the funniest songs that I have ever heard. The brilliant Lee Ann Womack nails to the wall that feeling of you don’t want him, but you don’t want some perky girl from Denver to have him either, while Joey + Rory take the more direct approach with an anthem for jilted women everywhere that expresses everything you wish you had the presence of mind to say to his face as you’re throwing his crap out onto the front lawn. So take her pictures, black out her teeth with a marker, and then wish her well as she rots in hell, and have a good belly laugh enjoying today’s tunes.

It’s another slow one out there, kids, as the great new release famine of August 2010 rolls on. Fear not — relief arrives next week in the estimable forms of David Gray and Ray LaMontagne, so until then, bide your time with these titles:

• The ever-ambitious Blake Shelton delivers the second leg of a planned trilogy of EPs this week with the release of All About Tonight,
  a six-track collection of tunes which includes “Draggin’ the River,”
  a bizarro duet with his beloved, that surly spitfire Miranda Lambert.

 

• Just ahead of the film’s arrival in theaters nationwide this weekend
  drops the motion picture soundtrack for Julia Roberts’ much-anticipated Eat, Pray, Love, which includes a brand new single from Pearl Jam’s frontman Eddie Vedder, as well as previously released material from Josh Rouse, Neil Young, and Marvin Gaye.

 

• This has apparently been out since freakin’ May, but I only stumbled across the original television soundtrack Friday Night Lights, Vol. 2 just last week (and quite by accident, at that). Nevertheless, this is a must-own, with tracks from Augustana, Jakob Dylan, and The Avett Brothers, as well as — at long last — W.G. Snuffy Walden’s gorgeous theme song, about which I waxed eloquent here last weekend.

 

• Finally, head on down to your local Wal-Mart store this week, where five bucks’ll get you Self Loves Lilith 2010, a miniature version of Self magazine (with Sugarland’s glorious goddess Jennifer Nettles gracing the cover!) which comes bundled with a fifteen-track CD containing music from such Lilith Fair participants as Suzanne Vega, Grace Potter, A Fine Frenzy, Lights, and (duh!) Sarah McLachlan. (Give this one spin, and then I dare you to tell me it’s not ten times more satisfying than the so-called “official” Lilith companion disc that was released last month!)

Cary Brothers — “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You”
(from Under Control) —

Joshua Radin — “What If You” (from We Were Here) —

Today we tackle men and other catastrophes, with a pair of sad songs from two pretty boys who blame themselves for the end of their respective relationships. Brothers’ tune — my favorite track from his most recent record — is a beautifully haunted ballad about confessing your infidelities to the one you love. (If this one doesn’t make you a believer in the brilliance of Cary Brothers, check out the impromptu acoustic version of his classic “Ride”
which he dedicated to yours truly last May during a delightful interview on Brandon’s Buzz Radio.) And Brothers’ good pal Joshua Radin turns in a tale of a couple that knows it’s over between them but need one final night together to seal the deal. In both songs, the guys admit that they were wrong, that they have issues, and that the best thing to do, probably, is walk away.
Where is Dr. Phil when you need him?!

Kenny Chesney — “The Boys of Fall”
(from Hemingway’s Whiskey) —

Fountains of Wayne — “All Kinds of Time”
(from Welcome Interstate Managers) —

Are you ready for some football? It’s that time of year again, time to dig into the closet and get out your favorite player’s jersey and foam finger (and, if you’re a Packers fanatic, that ginormous cheese head). And to kick off the pigskin season right: a pair of songs about what in my part of the world isn’t just a sport, but a way of life. Initially, I wasn’t that crazy about the new Kenny Chesney single, until I saw its ten-minute videoclip, which chronicles the football player’s journey from pee-wee to the NFL, and which features everyone from Brett Favre to Peyton Manning. I will admit I teared up at the end hearing the pros talk about the joy that they feel in watching little boys play the game just for the sheer pleasure of it, and encouraging them to dream big without losing sight of that feeling. “All Kinds of Time” tells the story of a young quarterback and what goes through his mind in the mere seconds between the drop back from center and the pass. He envisions his family crowded around the TV watching him make the big play, and then he sees his target and completes the pass. So with that, let me wish my Redskins, Longhorns, and Comanches the best of luck this season! (Oh yeah, and don’t forget Brandon’s Colts either!)
[EDITOR’S NOTE: Damn right, don’t forget those Colts! If you hadn’t typed that, I would’ve done it for you!)

Foo Fighters — “Home”
(from Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace) —

Sheryl Crow — “Home” (from Sheryl Crow) —

I was scrolling through my iTunes library searching for a song for today and discovered that my favorite Foo Fighters and Sheryl Crow tunes each share the same title. The Foo Fighters’ “Home” is a piano ballad that tells of a man’s longing to be home with his family. You can feel the pain and ache in Dave Grohl’s voice as he sings about the people that have drifted in and out of his life. Makes me want to give Dave a big hug and tell him that everything is going to be alright. And I have had a love/hate relationship with Sheryl Crow for many years now [EDITOR’S NOTE: I’ll say! I believe I’ve heard the term “homewrecking whore” cross your lips multiple times with regard to this woman!], but no matter how I am feeling about her, “Home” has always been one of my favorites. Sometimes you hear a song that tells your story better than you could tell it yourself, and at one point this — a tale of two people that fell in love too young and wake up one day and realize that they no longer have that much in common — was my story. Two very different songs that share a common sadness for the inevitable change that comes with life.

If you missed any of last week’s tunes, below is a quick recap. (And if you haven’t the foggiest clue what any of this is even about, you can get up to speed right here.)

MONDAY: Lee Brice — “Love Like Crazy” (from Love Like Crazy) —

TUESDAY: Tasmin Archer — “One More Good Night With the Boys”
(from Bloom) —

WEDNESDAY: George Michael — “Jesus to a Child” (from Older) —

THURSDAY: Jerry Reed — “When You’re Hot, You’re Hot”
(from The Essential Jerry Reed) —

FRIDAY: Macy Gray (featuring Velvet Revolver) — “Kissed It”
(from The Sellout) —

SATURDAY: W.G. Snuffy Walden — “Friday Night Lights Main Title Theme”
(from Friday Night Lights, Vol. 2 [Original Television Soundtrack]) —

SUNDAY: Nick Drake — “Time Has Told Me” (from Way to Blue) —

Kelly Willis — “Time Has Told Me” (from What I Deserve) —

Nick Drake — “Time Has Told Me” (from Way to Blue) —

Kelly Willis — “Time Has Told Me” (from What I Deserve) —

I’m on vacation this week, and I have turned control of the hive over to Sherry Ann — a music lover every inch my equal — for a few days, and the following is her first filed dispatch:

Two of my favorite artists of all time take on this tale of messed-up love in very different ways: Drake’s original is upbeat and peppy, while Willis’ is slow, sad, and depressing. Either way, it is pure brilliance. (For you trivia buffs out there, Robert Smith of The Cure adopted his band’s name straight from this song’s opening verse.)

W.G. Snuffy Walden — “Friday Night Lights Main Title Theme”
(from Friday Night Lights, Vol. 2 [Original Television Soundtrack]) —

Yours truly is spending some time in the Texas Panhandle this week, checking in on various family and friends, and while here, I popped into my hometown record store last night and, to my great surprise, ran across this second volume of music from one of the great television series of the past decade, NBC’s utterly exemplary Friday Night Lights (which returns this fall for its fifth and final season). Theretofore, I had no idea this collection of music even existed — even though iTunes claims it was released all the way back in May, for the love! — but I won’t quibble, if only because this album contains an official version of the program’s extraordinary title theme, a knockout instrumental piece that is, at long last, commercially available for the first time ever. Think me crazy if you must, but if ever a forty-some-second TV theme song deserved “song of the day” status, trust me when I tell you it’s this one.

Macy Gray (featuring Velvet Revolver) — “Kissed It”
(from The Sellout) —

Gray has turned in a handful of worthy singles in the decade since her brilliant breakthrough — I personally always thought 2003’s “When I See You” shoulda been a monster hit — but nothing that held that same kind of genre-busting brash ‘tude as her Grammy-winning classic “I Try.” But check this out: the devilish, devious kiss of Slash’s ever-efficient guitar serves as a pitch-perfect complement to Gray’s wise, weathered voice in what could be a couple of adventurous program directors away from being
the sleeper hit of the fall.

Jerry Reed — “When You’re Hot, You’re Hot”
(from The Essential Jerry Reed) —

We all have those songs that, no matter what is happening or how crappy our mood, always make us chuckle and make the world go away, if only for a fleeting moment. And this is one of mine.

George Michael — “Jesus to a Child” (from Older) —

True story: last night, A and I tore up our local liquor store in search of the makings of a perfect margarita — I recently picked up one of those cool-ass Ninja blenders at Sam’s Club, and I had been dying to put to the test the claims of the frighteningly excitable infomercial hosts that this machine was literally made for flawlessly frothy frozen drinks — and while we were walking the aisles and deciding which tequila would be accompanying us home, the store’s PA system played, in rapid fire succession, bang-bang-bang: my favorite Dire Straits song, my favorite John Mayer song, and this, one of my three favorite George Michael songs. I instantly commenced singing along with George, out loud, right there in the store before God and urryone — bad habit, that — and was again blown away by the bittersweet simplicity of this glorious masterstroke of a tune. (And holy God, that gorgeous video, one of the five best clips I’ve seen in the whole of my life!) Absolutely transcendent, even fourteen years after the fact. (Incidentally, we went with Cuervo — Jose, you really are a friend of mine — and the margaritas were not short of magnificent.)

Nothing major out there this week as August arrives in earnest, but a couple of midlist sleepers pop up on the new release wall, and the artists behind them are absolutely the real deal. Dig in:

• A’ll be pleased as punch to learn that his current heroine Lady GaGa is back this week with The Remix, a collection of ten extended dance and club mixes of her hit singles.

 

• Indie rock icons Arcade Fire return with their latest, The Suburbs.

 

• Still talkin’ to angels: two decades past the release of their mega-platinum debut, The Black Crowes are back with Croweology,
  a double-length acoustic celebration of their survival.

 

• One of my all-time favorite foreign chicks is the delightfully odd
  Katie Melua, who takes a bit of a left turn this week, teaming up with Madonna’s old crony William Orbit for her fourth album, The House.

 

• I find him whiny, shallow, and painfully pretentious, but his music obviously strikes a chord with someone, and for that person, John Vesely — who records under the name of Secondhand Serenade — offers up his latest effort, Hear Me Now.

 

• And finally: he first gained national attention in 2006 as one of the contestants in CBS’ ill-fated Idol knockoff Rock Star: INXS, which
  sought to find a new lead singer for the venerable Australian band.
  (The time-stopping cover of R.E.M.’s classic smash “Losing My Religion” that he crafted for the series remains one of the most chilling and compelling pieces of television that I have ever witnessed.) Now, four years later, the blisteringly brilliant Ryan Star steps into the spotlight as a true recording artist with his hotly-anticipated major label debut 11:59.