Brandon's Buzz

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

If the conversation at any future gathering ever veers toward Brit chicks who should have become much bigger stars stateside, Tasmin’s name had better be the first one to come flying from your mouth. A brilliant melange of Seal and Sade (the artists to whom she has most often been compared over the years), possessing the innately crystalline beauty of her music combined with the omnipresent social conscience of his, the astonishing Archer threw a continuing series of bold swings throughout the ’90s (taking swipes at industry, commerce, and religion; doing Elvis Costello better than Elvis Costello; proving definitively that pop music doesn’t have to be by necessity an intellectual wasteland), and with this gorgeous glimpse at masculinity in the modern world, she ended up topping even her own elegant ambitions. A total triumph.

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

Brice co-wrote Garth Brooks’ record-shattering comeback smash “More Than a Memory” three years ago, and now he’s flying solo with a hit of his own, one of those God-‘n’-grace, hope-‘n’-humility anthems that crunchy radio just loves to churn out with effective regularity. (I say effective ’cause, damn if these inspirational, get-out-there-and-win-one-for-the-Gipper spectacles don’t get me where I live every single time.)

If you missed any of last week’s tunes, a quick recap:

MONDAY: Julia Fordham — “East West” (from Collection) —

TUESDAY: Tori Amos — “Jackie’s Strength”
(from From the Choirgirl Hotel) —

WEDNESDAY: Sugarland — “Stuck Like Glue”
(from The Incredible Machine) —

THURSDAY: Semisonic — “Gone to the Movies”
(from Feeling Strangely Fine) —

FRIDAY: David Mead — “World of a King”
(from The Luxury of Time) —

SATURDAY: Res — “They-Say Vision” (from How I Do) —

SUNDAY: Bette Midler — “All I Need to Know” (from No Frills) —

Bette Midler — “All I Need to Know” (from No Frills) —

Years after the Divine Miss M tackled this chestnut, Linda Ronstadt and Aaron Neville reworked a couple of its verses, renamed it
“Don’t Know Much,” and won a boatload of Grammys (and reignited both of their careers, natch) with the resulting smash. But I’ll go ahead and cop to the fact that I’ve always preferred Midler’s rawer, more organic take on this material: stripped entirely of the attention-stealing bells and whistles that had marked her music to that point, Bette crawls inside these words and finds the naked power pulsing beneath them. An unjustly ignored classic.