Brandon's Buzz

As the industry recovers from a Swift-sized hangover, November opens with a bit of a whimper this week. Enjoy this respite of sorts; the action picks up again next week:

One of last year’s strongest efforts receives its inevitable upgrade this week, as Train‘s terrific fifth album — the sterling Save Me, San Francisco — returns to the new release wall with its so-called Golden Gate Edition. The new deluxe update features a pair of previously available tracks (“The Finish Line,” which premiered as a one-off digital single in conjunction with the Winter Olympic games, and “Half Moon Bay,” which came as an exclusive bonus track with the original digital release of SM, SF last fall), as well as a new holiday offering (“Shake Up Christmas,” soon to be the centerpiece of a massive new yuletide-inspired Coca-Cola campaign), a bizarro uptempo remix of the album’s sweet closing track “Marry Me,” an alternate mix of the record’s best track (the propulsive “Parachute”), and a hilarious cover of Rihanna’s classic smash “Umbrella,” on which the friskily fearless Pat Monahan proves he has one hell of a sense of humor to accompany his pristine pipes.

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Roxette — “The Look” (from Look Sharp!) —

A and I grabbed dinner last night at one of our favorite haunts, the local Red Robin, and whilst we were waiting for (and then scarfing down) our food, a lovely litany of my favorite artists’ music — Peter Gabriel, The Pretenders, Steve Winwood — came tumbling from the restaurant’s loudspeaker. Ah yes, but sooner or later this aural bliss had to come to an end, and end it did when ABBA’s “Take a Chance On Me” popped up. A — an ABBA fan, dyed in the wool — was immediately overtaken by giddy glee, and roundly chastised me for not singing along as readily as I had been with “Sledgehammer” and “Back on the Chain Gang” just moments earlier, and then, with all the gall of the world, sat there across a table from me — me, the person he says he loves with his whole heart — and played the one card he knew would draw a reaction when he uttered the following: “If this were Roxette, you’d be—” To which I immediately countered, “You’re damn straight, I’d be!” (If you’re a regular around here, you surely know that you’ll play hell convincing me there has ever existed a greater post-Beatles pop band than Roxette, or that one fine day, history will judge my estimation to be correct. And if you missed the story of our first excruciating entanglement with ABBA as a couple, you can bring yourself up to speed here.) I resisted the urge to remind A that Roxette landed four number one singles in this country (versus his idols’ measly one), and that an additional pair of their smash hits were heartbreakingly stopped just short of the goal line at number two on the Hot 100, and instead, I simply retreated to my mind’s hidden happy place, commenced with silently humming their most famous tune’s riveting refrain — and I go, ‘la la la la la’ / she’s got the look! — and finished my french fries in stoic silence.