With Jesse McCartney’s new album getting pushed back to January at the last minute, there is very little of note happening on the new release wall at your local record store in the closing weeks of 2010. To wit:
Oscar-winning actor Jamie Foxx dives back into the hip-hop world with his latest album, Best Night of My Life.
If I told you I’m crazy about “Pretty Girl Rock” — the lead single from Keri Hilson‘s brand new sophomore effort No Boys Allowed — would you think me crazy?
Heads up, A: This week, Target premieres an exclusive EP from the Glee cast entitled Love Songs, a collection of six tracks from the series, including “The Boy is Mine” and “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart.”
A physical CD is due in stores in mid-February, so until then, iTunes has an exclusive release window on All You Need is Now, the thirteenth studio album from Duran Duran. Billed as the sequel that their 1982 global breakthrough smash Rio never managed to get, Now is produced by red-hot Mark Ronson.
Speaking of iTunes exclusives: don’t miss “It Happened Today,” the tantalizing first taste of R.E.M.‘s upcoming album Collapse Into Now (due in March); and also check out Live – Fall 2010, a five-track EP of concert performances from Ray LaMontagne and the Pariah Dogs.
I know nothing is less fun (or appetizing) than a passel of Christmas tunes playing the week after the holiday, but if you missed any of last week’s yuletide tunes, and you’re still interested in catching up with them, below is a quick recap. (PS: Today’s Teena Marie tribute will likely be this week’s one and only dispatch from the Hive. My best-of lists for 2010 will be posted later in the week, as will a handful of other goodies that I’ve been holding on to, and the Hive will be back online on Monday, January 10.)
posted in sweet you rock and sweet you roll | Comments Off on some time to revisit, to go back, to return (or: (most of) a week’s worth of honey from the hive)
Tell me why I don’t like Mondays: my original plan was for the Hive to go silent this week, as I am on vacation until Friday, and I have a couple of long-germinating posts in the pipeline (not to mention the Buzz’s annual year-end best-of lists, which will be up later in the week). But having awoken this morning to the devastating news that the terrific Teena Marie was found dead in her home yesterday (of what, thus far, are undisclosed causes), I knew immediately that plan had to change. Because of her breathtaking facility for the intricate vagaries of fabulous funk, the magnificent Marie was caught between two worlds for most of her underappreciated career: because she was a white girl, the R&B side tended to regard her as a cute anomaly, not much more than a novelty; and because her sound was steeped in stirring soul, the pop side too often pitted her against the more radio-friendly likes of Janet, Mariah, and Whitney in a fight Marie could never win. (There’s a reason that the latter trio are all well-known, single-name divas, and that reason has precious little to do with talent, honey.) Still, an entire generation of us ’80s acolytes are in mourning at this early hour, and though I regret that such a sad event has precipitated this trip down mem’ry lane… thanks, Teena, for taking me back for a minute, one final time.
Everybody, meet Kelly, the cutest li’l boxer puppy you ever saw. Kelly, everybody. (I recorded this on my iPhone last night, so please forgive any issues with video quality.)
Everything But the Girl — “25th December” (from Amplified Heart) —
Sadly, my all time favorite Christmas song — Tori Amos’ riveting take on “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” released, oddly, in the summer of ’98 as a b-side to the European single for “Spark” — remains unavailable on iTunes, so consequently — even though I chose a song from this very band (and album) just last week — I’m forced to go with my second-favorite Christmas song, this powerfully earnest stunner from the brilliant Ben Watt, the understated cry in whose voice serves as a potent reminder to the inherent redemptive power of the season. (By the way, the entire team here at Brandon’s Buzz wishes all of our readers the merriest — and most musically satisfying, natch — of Christmases.)
It’s Christmas Eve morning, and I write this in a lovely (but ridiculously retro) room at the Rodeway Inn in Childress, Texas, where my beloved and I stopped for the night after a full evening of driving across hill and dale. We’re two-ish hours away from my hometown, and I’m already feeling that familiar excitement about crossing the city limits yet again, seeing old friends, celebrating the season. (Oh, and meeting, after an excruciating two-month wait, my new puppy, which my sister has graciously been harboring.) I don’t get sentimental about many other holidays, but this one gets me, and I reckon it would probably level me if I couldn’t spend it the way I always have. Trust me, Cyndi, when I tell you: I, too, can’t wait to be home on Christmas Day. And in the worst kind of way.
names dropped with reckless abandon: A, Cyndi Lauper
posted in sweet you rock and sweet you roll | Comments Off on every christmas tree reminds me (or: december 24’s honey from the hive)
Except to say that her massive, somewhat surprising crossover success forced her to become an eminently better and more compelling performer (not to mention, to choose more gutsy, go-for-broke material), I carry no water for Faith Hill, whose bald-faced attempts to out-diva the gals at the grown-ups table have fallen embarrassingly flat far too often over the years. That said, there are times when a tune is so simple yet so strong, it becomes singer-proof. And times when such a simple tune reminds you of something it’s all too easy to forget. (The true power of Christmas resides ever in your hearts, my Buzzing little bees.)
Not really a happy-go-lucky Christmas tune, per se, but with the Virgin Mary and Jesus making crucial cameos herein, it often gets trotted out this time of year. Judd — notoriously a boundary buster for the whole of her glorious career — ain’t an opera singer by half, but she fakes it here with painstakingly exquisite grace.
A specifically requested that a Spanish-language Christmas song appear at some point during this week of mirthful music, and this is the only one I know, so the choice is remarkably easy. (Take note, my beloved, if you weren’t already aware: your woman has also attempted to plant her flag atop this crossover classic, and, in the spirit of the season, I’ll be charitable and let you make up your own mind as to whether or not that was a bright idear.)
It’s Christmas week at last, and the Buzz is in a yuletide mood, with wall-to-wall festive tunes scoring the runup to Santa’s Saturday arrival. I couldn’t resist starting out with this kooky chestnut, because for the first time in months, I get to hang out with my best friend on this earth in a matter of days, and this one has been a running gag between Sherry Ann and myself since we were nascent high school churren: after an exhausted Chynna Phillips temporarily stepped away from Wilson Phillips in 1993, sisters Carnie and Wendy Wilson decided to press forth as a duo, and their debut project as such was a Christmas record, which was promoted ad nauseam with a barrage of television spots featuring the siblings donning their gay apparel and singing, with a chirpy cheerfulness that bordered on disturbing, this very song. (You just have to trust me when I tell you: you haven’t lived until you’ve seen Sherry Ann’s spot-on, gut-bustingly hilarious impression of Carnie yelling, “Hey Santa!”) Wilson Phillips recently reunited to release their own official holiday project, and while all the harmonies contained therein are predictably glorious, not even by half is that record as fun or as interesting as this.
One cup too many of rum-laced egg nog at A’s company Christmas party on Friday night = a serious Maalox moment before work on Saturday morning, which = no dispatch from the Hive that day. (The egg nog was mighty fine, though, gotta say.) But if you missed any of the others of last week’s tunes, below is a quick recap:
MONDAY: Celine Dion — “Have a Heart” (from Unison) —
TUESDAY: Jon McLaughlin — “We All Need Saving” (from OK Now) —
Elvis Presley — “Never Been to Spain” (from Viva Las Vegas) —
Over two hundred artists — Three Dog Night, most famously, but also performers as varied as Tina Turner, Cher, and Waylon Jennings (even the formidable Shelby Lynne put her stamp on it a couple of weeks ago with an acoustic cover for iTunes sessions) — have taken a stab at this Hoyt Axton classic, but the King and his potently recognizable basso profundo raise this seeming trifle a notch above the superficial, giving these words a much-needed gravitas and anchoring the story with a rich, emotional truth.
Last night, A and I tromped down to the Alamo Drafthouse to take part in the annual Christmas Pops sing-along, which was an odd melange of the off-the-wall (John Denver and the Muppets doing “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” or Charo and Pee-Wee Herman ripping through “Feliz Navidad” on Pee Wee’s Playhouse) and the emotionally gripping (Sinead O’Connor’s aching take on “Silent Night,” and, of course, John Lennon’s “Happy Xmas (War is Over)”). And after the show, we joined the other hundred-odd theatergoers out on Austin’s 6th Street for what is evidently an annual tradition called “Renegade Caroling,” wherein we all — each of us wearing felt Santa hats and brandishing jingle bell bracelets — ambushed a series of unsuspecting fools on the street and sang one of the evening’s songs to that person at the top of our lungs while they beheld us with a palpable mix of admiration, astonishment, and fear. The three songs that we sang to people most often during Renegade Caroling were: Mariah Carey’s 1994 classic “All I Want for Christmas is You” (which A — temporarily forgetting that the Buzz is largely a Mariah-free zone — actually suggested should be today’s dispatch from the Hive); this classic from Wham! (whose emergence as something of a modern Christmas standard has always mystified me, seeing as it has almost nothing to do with Christmas and is, instead, a rather depressing love-gone-wretched ballad); and, uh, Andy Samberg and Justin Timberlake’s riotously randy ’tis-better-to-give ode “Dick in a Box” (don’t ask). It became instantly clear to me that one of this gleaming triptych would stand as Friday’s song of the day, and since a) I’m ever looking for ways to pull the eternally, heartbreakingly gorgeous George Michael into the daily discourse; and b) I spent the entire ride home driving A positively mad singing select lyrics from “Last Christmas” with entirely apropos passion (“a man undah-covah / but you TORE ME UH-PART!”), the choice was eminently and decidedly clear.
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, and while all the harmonies contained therein are predictably glorious, not even by half is 
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