Brandon's Buzz

Taylor Swift — “Back to December” (from Speak Now) —

Official numbers won’t be revealed until later this afternoon, but a music news blog which I frequent on a daily basis reported yesterday that Speak is a lock to debut at number one on this week’s Billboard 200 album chart, with first-week sales flying past the million mark — a jaw-dropping rarity in today’s let’s-just-steal-it environment — and that, indeed, roughly one out of every five albums purchased last week was this one. (Compare that with last week’s bestseller Sugarland, whose ratio was something like one in thirty-three.) I popped this record in the CD player Sunday night and listened to the first half while driving home from work (second half gets its fair shot today), and while there certainly wasn’t a howler in the bunch (with the possible exception of the simpy “Never Grow Up,” which felt like an awkward fumble, and not the greatest message to be transmitting to the teens who apparently worship this young woman with such fervent ferocity), I found many of Speak‘s opening jabs to be pleasant and perfectly forgettable, and in my estimation, only “December” — a beautifully-written, sincerely sophisticated regret-tinged tune which is rumored to be an apology to the astonishingly-abbed actor Taylor Lautner, with whom Swift shared a highly-publicized, ill-fated dalliance last year — hits the bullseye bang-on.

Everything But the Girl — “Apron Strings [live]” (from Acoustic) —

The other night on Jeopardy! an answer popped up about “apron strings” and how they correlate metaphorically with a mother’s love, and A — ever the master of adorably mangled English idioms — announced he had never heard this expression theretofore. Because the above is one of my favorite songs ever, I had heard of the notion, and am thrilled to have a shattering piece of music to help enlighten my beloved. Ben Watt ably supports the ravishingly terrific Tracey Thorn — obliterating any doubts that these two are the most beautiful blend of British brilliance since Dave and Annie — in bringing to quiet, gently harrowing life this tale of a young woman’s desperation to have a child to call her own.