I have been chasing my new boxer puppy Kelly around my house for four straight days now, watching her get used to her new digs and trying — mostly in vain, unfortunately — to prevent her from peeing on every flat surface in sight. Hence, I am so far behind in Buzz posts this week that I fear I’ll never get caught up. (Regardless, I’ll try!) Luckily, this week’s record store report is a spectacularly easy one:
- Easy because there are no major new wide releases of note this first week of 2011; indeed, the only arrival of consequence is the third wave of this superbly efficient Icon series of best-of compilations which began rolling out back in September. The latest lucky recipients of retrospective discs in this series include:
- Vanessa Carlton
(who has spent the past decade chasing the ghost of her spry debut smash “A Thousand Miles”)
- Brian McKnight
(ditto, regarding his solo star turn with
1999’s “Back At One”)
- Imogen Heap
(whose set includes her brilliant 1998 debut singles “Come Here Boy” and “Candlelight,” as well as some work she did as lead vocalist for the electropop band Frou Frou)
- Lee Ann Womack
(whose disc blessedly includes “Mendocino County Line” — her exquisite duet with Willie Nelson — but, sadly, not her terrific cover of Don Williams’ “Lord I Hope This Day is Good” — which really ought to show up in Honey from the Hive, stat — nor her unjustly overlooked latest single, “Solitary Thinkin'”)
- that legendary, late southern sage Jerry Clower
(“The Chauffeur and the Professor” failed to make the cut here, but just try not to laugh listening to “You’re On My List”)
- El DeBarge
(most of whose disc is turned over to the wonderful work he created in the mid-to-late-’80s with the family band that bore his surname)
- Cher
(whose set is half ’60s-era classics like “Half Breed” and “Gypsys, Tramps, and Thieves,” and half second-act triumphs like “I Found Someone” and “If I Could Turn Back Time,” but you won’t even “Believe” what’s not present and accounted for here)
- and, finally, Sheryl Crow
, whose entry in this rollout comes in a just-the-facts-ma’am single disc
or in a more robust two-disc set
.
names dropped with reckless abandon: Brian McKnight, Cher, DeBarge, Don Williams, El DeBarge, Frou Frou, Imogen Heap, Jerry Clower, Kelly, Lee Ann Womack, Sheryl Crow, Vanessa Carlton, Willie Nelson
