Brandon's Buzz

Life has been a bit crazy the past couple of weeks, but the record store report is back in action, and wouldn’t you know it’s just in time for the quarter’s three busiest frames. Holiday shopping season is in full swing, kids, and the music business is playing along mightily. Dig in:

 

Recent smashes from almost all of A’s favorite gals — Katy Perry (“Teenage Dream”), Sara Bareilles (“King of Anything”), Sugarland (“Stuck Like Glue”), and Ke$ha (“Take It Off”) — not to mention midlist hits from Maroon 5, OneRepublic, and Paramore, punctuate the track list for the new compilation Now That’s What I Call Music! 36. Also noteworthy from the Now folks: following up their pulse-pounding pair of discs celebrating the best of the ’80s, they have now turned their gaze to another decade with a strong new collection, Now That’s What I Call the 1990s, a masterful mix of grungy garage rock standards (Blind Melon’s “No Rain,” Collective Soul’s “Shine”), fair Lilith-era lovelies (Joan Osborne’s “One of Us,” Lisa Loeb’s “Stay (I Missed You),” Meredith Brooks’ “Bitch”), and the passionate prom-night epics of the day (Edwin McCain’s “I’ll Be,” Shawn Mullins’ “Lullaby”). Of course I have a few quibbles with the song selection here — let it suffice to say that “Missing” and “Mr. Jones” and “You Oughta Know” and “Hold My Hand” and “I Don’t Want to Wait” must land front-and-center spots on the inevitable Volume 2, no excuses — but if you ever doubted that the ’90s brought us every bit as much terrific tuneage as the decade it succeeded,
this record stands as a stark testimony to the fallacy of that argument.

At nearly ten million copies moved, her debut record I Dreamed a Dream was 2009’s biggest-selling album, and all indications are that instant megastar Susan Boyle — who, just two short years ago, was toiling away in complete Scottish obscurity prior to her rocketship ride to celebrity in the wake of her appearance on Britain’s Got Talent — has no need to worry about the dreaded sophomore slump: her second album, a holiday-inspired effort called The Gift, has been the country’s number one album for two weeks running, and it finds Boyle putting her stamp on a number of well-loved pop classics — including Crowded House’s “Don’t Dream It’s Over,” Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day,” and Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” — in amongst the typical yuletide standards. (And following in Boyle’s talent-show footsteps: little Jackie Evancho, the ten-year-old opera-belting wunderkind who stole the nation’s heart last summer on America’s Got Talent, and who follows up that triumph with her debut EP, O Holy Night. And that’s not all: also tossing their hats into the Christmas derby with new holiday discs are Jessica Simpson, Pink Martini, and the kids from Glee.)

She burst onto the scene in 2002 with her Grammy-winning instant classic Come Away with Me, and while constructing one of the decade’s hottest-selling discographies over the past eight years, she has also collaborated with some of the most compelling and successful artists of our time, and a handful of those disparate duets have been compiled onto one disc with the brand new collection entitled …Featuring Norah Jones. Included here is “Here We Go Again,” Jones’ slow-burning duet with the late Ray Charles which picked up the 2005 Grammy for Record of the Year (a controversial victory, considering that it never actually charted as a single), as well as collaborations with Foo Fighters, Willie Nelson, Ryan Adams, and Outkast.

My beloved A — otherwise known as the world’s biggest Josh Groban devotee — was crushed to report that he was violently disappointed by Illuminations, the celebrated performer’s fourth studio effort, which finds Groban temporarily shifting away from the operatic grandiosity of his earlier work, and turning inward, teaming up with super-producer Rick Rubin and co-writing most of the album’s personal, more intimate tunes. I’ve not given this a spin myself, so I can neither defend nor deny A’s take on the record, but I will say that the leadoff single “Hidden Away” is a riveting change of pace for Groban, and if Illuminations stays largely in that lane, there’s no way it can be that bad.
(If you haven’t already, pick this one up at your local Target store, whose exclusive deluxe edition comes bundled with a bonus making-of DVD.)

She is nothing short of an angel who slipped right out of heaven to traverse the earth, and we are all the better for her dogged determination to be here among us. The utterly divine Annie Lennox — who rose to fame as one peerless half of pioneering ’80s band Eurythmics, before achieving even greater fame and importance in the ’90s as a solo act — has never released a holiday record heretofore, a fact which changes this week with the blessed arrival of
A Christmas Cornucopia. The song selection here ranges from obscure European carols of yore — “Il Est Ne Le Divin Enfant,” anyone? — to traditional favorites like “Silent Night” and “The First Noel,” and Lennox caps off the festivities with an amazing original track of her own, “Universal Child.” It’s bound to be a very merry Christmas, indeed.

Also new and noteworthy:

• Country queen Reba McEntire turns in a brilliant take on Beyonce’s
  “If I Were a Boy” on her thirty-fourth studio album, All the Women I Am. (Miss Reba also turns up, alongside Sheryl Crow, Miranda Lambert, and Faith Hill, on Coal Miner’s Daughter: A Tribute to Loretta Lynn, an all-star celebration of the legendary music of country’s true crown jewel.

 

• Speaking of all-star fiestas, iconic producer Quincy Jones pulls together quite a cast — Jamie Foxx, Mary J. Blige, and Amy Winehouse, among them — for his latest project, Q: Soul Bossa Nostra.

 

• Cee-Lo Green (who knows from novelty hits as half of Gnarls Barkley) scored one of fall’s word-of-mouth hits with his kiss-off classic “Fuck You,” which appears on his latest full-length effort, The Lady Killer.

 

• It’s the divalicious faceoff to end them all, as Cher and Christina Aguilera each strut their considerable stuff on the original soundtrack for their new film Burlesque. (If you missed my meandering thoughts
  on this film and its music in yesterday’s honey from the hive,
  you can get all caught up right here.)

 

• Soul man Ne-Yo steps up with his latest album, Libra Scale.

 

• She’s trashy, she’s terrifiying, and she still can’t sing a note to save her life, but that hasn’t stopped that walking petri dish Ke$ha from becoming a megastar over the past year, and she’s up this week with a new EP, Cannibal, which is available either as a stand-alone disc or bundled with her platinum album, Animal.

 

• For an American Idol winner — and, at that, one in possession of
  a stunning, superlative voice — Lee DeWyze‘s major-label debut,
  Live It Up, is getting an alarmingly low-key launch, agreed? (The record takes a while to find its groove, as I noted last week, but methinks it deserves much better than the negligent treatment it is getting from its record company to here.)

 

• Two of my favorite ladies — Grace Potter and the marvelous
  Mandy Moore — turn up on the soundtrack for Disney’s
  latest animated feature, Tangled.

 

• One legend pays tribute to another, as the criminally underrated crunchy crooner Lacy J. Dalton — from whom came one of the most interesting episodes in the history of Brandon’s Buzz Radio — returns with Here’s to Hank, a tribute to her genre’s torchbearer, Hank Williams.

 

• Pop icon Sting revisits his classic hits on the new CD/DVD combo
  Live in Berlin.

 

• A DVD of videos and live performances, a duet with Kanye West, and even a freaky cover of Lady GaGa’s “Bad Romance” highlight a new deluxe edition reissue of Thirty Seconds to Mars‘ 2009 album
  This is War.

 

• Speaking of Kanye, he enlists quite an eclectic collection of talent — Elton John, Jay-Z, indie hero Justin Vernon (better known as Bon Iver), and this year’s it-girl cameo queen Nicki Minaj — to guest star on his fifth album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. (Minaj is also up
  this week with Pink Friday, her hotly-anticipated debut album.)

 

• Jazz icon Cassandra Wilson is back with her latest record, Silver Pony.

 

• Riveting rockers Alter Bridge offer up their third album,
  appropriately titled AB III.

 

• That twenty-four carat nutjob Regina Spektor chronicles her most recent tour with the new double-disc concert recording Live in London.

 

• Sherry Ann’s freaky faves The National add a bonus disc of b-sides and live cuts to an expanded edition of their latest album, High Violet.

 

• ’80s icon Bryan Adams strips it down to just himself and a guitar, reinventing his greatest hits in an intimate live setting on his latest album, Bare Bones.

 

• Speaking of greatest hits, it’s time again for the annual fourth quarter cavalcade of best-of releases, and this year’s Christmas-timed recipients of career compendiums include Nelly Furtado, Billy Joel, Jay-Z, Blake Shelton, Alan Jackson, Pink, and Bon Jovi.

 

• He recorded it in 1992 at the height of his commercial renaissance, but his record company inexplicably shelved the masters (although a number of its tracks later turned up on 1995’s A Spanner in the Works). But now that he’s the king of interpretive crooning, Rod Stewart‘s so-called “lost album” — Once in a Blue Moon — finally sees daylight.

 

• Two of country’s most dependable hitmakers are back with hot new discs: following the dissolution of their former record company, Lyric Street, Rascal Flatts turn up on Big Machine (translation: they’re now labelmates with Taylor Swift and Reba) with the release of their latest record, Nothing Like This. And Keith Urban continues his hot streak with Get Closer, which arrives in two separate formations: the eight-track regular version and the Target-exclusive expanded edition, which contains three extra original tunes and four live Urban classics.

 

• After a dark turn with last year’s Rated R, Rihanna returns to
  having fun with her latest effort, Loud.

 

• Kid Rock takes a stunning step back from the rowdy rock of his past catalog and looks into his soul on his extraordinary eighth album,
  the slightly melancholy Born Free.

 

• Rock legend Bruce Springsteen returns the music world’s attention to one of his early masterpieces — 1978’s Darkness on the Edge of Town — with an expansive new box set containing the album itself (beautifully remastered, natch), two discs of tunes recorded during the Darkness sessions but rejected for the final record, a DVD documentary chronicling the making the album, and a pair of DVDs — one with a concert from ’78, and one with a show from last year — which find Springsteen and his E Street Band performing the album in its entirety.

 

• Another year, another Dave Matthews Band concert recording; the latest is the double-disc effort Live in New York City.

 

• A recurring theme of this record store report has been Target and their canny knack for landing white-hot retail exclusives, but Wal-Mart is a major player in that game as well, and this week, they roll out the red carpet for that adorable li’l fop Justin Bieber, whose latest album,
  My Worlds Acoustic, consists of spare and more intimate re-recordings of highlights from his first two records.

 

• For the first time ever, all thirty-five of the King of Pop’s revolutionary music videos (as well as a carload of extras, including a handful of pre-Thriller clips with The Jacksons) arrive on one triple-disc DVD collection, entitled, simply, Michael Jackson‘s Vision.

 

• After their thrilling triumph with reworking the work of The Beatles,
  the folks at Cirque du Soleil have set their sights on the King with the soundtrack of their latest mind-bending extravaganza, Viva Elvis.

 

• Any week in which I can step into my local bookseller and pick up a new novel from the fabulous Fannie Flagg is a great week, and the arrival of Flagg’s latest tome, I Still Dream About You, made that great week a concrete reality. Also: a few weeks back, former Days of Our Lives
  head writer Sheri Anderson stopped by Brandon’s Buzz Radio to discuss her latest project, a Days-related novel which utilizes characters from the show’s past and present. The book is called A Secret in Salem, and it’s in stores now. (I saw this in my local Sam’s Club this very day for under eight bucks, people!)

 

• And last (!!) but absolutely not least: ’tis Thanksgiving week in Austin, Texas, which means another edition of an annual local touchstone: KGSR Broadcasts, a two-disc collection of the year’s strongest live performances, almost all of which are recorded in the studios of the city’s most prestigious radio station by visiting musicians. This year’s collection — Volume 18, if you’re keeping track — features exclusive live tracks from David Gray, Mat Kearney, Alpha Rev, The Temper Trap, Raul Malo, and the aforementioned Grace Potter, and can be purchased at all Austin area Best Buy stores, at Waterloo Records, and at select establishments around the city through the end of the year.

names dropped with reckless abandon: "American Idol", "Days of Our Lives", "Glee", 30 Seconds to Mars, A, Alan Jackson, Alanis Morissette, Alpha Rev, Alter Bridge, Amy Winehouse, Annie Lennox, Beyonce, Billy Joel, Blake Shelton, Blind Melon, Bon Iver, Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen, Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, Bryan Adams, Cassandra Wilson, Cee-Lo Green, Cher, Christina Aguilera, Collective Soul, Counting Crows, Crowded House, Dave Matthews Band, David Gray, Edwin McCain, Elton John, Elvis Presley, Eurythmics, Everything But the Girl, Faith Hill, Fannie Flagg, Foo Fighters, Gnarls Barkley, Grace Potter, Hank Williams, Hootie and the Blowfish, Jackie Evancho, Jamie Foxx, Jay-Z, Jessica Simpson, Joan Osborne, Josh Groban, Justin Bieber, Justin Vernon, Kanye West, Katy Perry, Ke$ha, Keith Urban, Kid Rock, Lacy J. Dalton, Lady GaGa, Lee DeWyze, Leonard Cohen, Lisa Loeb, Loretta Lynn, Lou Reed, Mandy Moore, Maroon 5, Mary J. Blige, Mat Kearney, Meredith Brooks, Michael Jackson, Miranda Lambert, Ne-Yo, Nelly Furtado, Nicki Minaj, Norah Jones, OneRepublic, OutKast, Paramore, Paula Cole, Pink, Pink Martini, Quincy Jones, Rascal Flatts, Raul Malo, Ray Charles, Reba McEntire, Regina Spektor, Rick Rubin, Rihanna, Rod Stewart, Ryan Adams, Sara Bareilles, Shawn Mullins, Sheri Anderson, Sherry Ann, Sheryl Crow, Sting, Sugarland, Taylor Swift, The Beatles, The Jacksons, The National, The Temper Trap