Brandon's Buzz

Genesis — “I Can’t Dance” (from R-Kive) —

“Progressive rock bands, according to their fans, are supposed to stop about two albums into progressing and progress no more. . . . I think the secret to Genesis’ longevity is that they are the progressive rock band who progressed. And that’s why they’ve survived.”

— British comedian (and rabid Genesis fan) Al Murray, simply shedding light on the band’s four-decade-plus status as one of the world’s pre-eminent rock bands, at the end of Genesis: Sum of the Parts, a riveting documentary that premiered on cable’s Showtime last November. (Parts has just been released on DVD and Blu-ray and includes candid, no-holds-barred interviews with all the band’s principals — including Mike Rutherford, Phil Collins, and even Peter Gabriel, who split from the band in a hellacious huff in the late 1970s before embarking on one of the most magnificent solo careers in music history — and is exceedingly worthy of a couple of hours of your time. As, for that matter, is the album linked above: R-Kive, a first-of-its-kind three-disc, thirty-seven-track compendium of the greatest of Genesis’ hits alongside hits and highlights from Collins’ and Gabriel’s ravishing solo work, plus selections from Rutherford’s hit-making side gig Mike + the Mechanics. Taken as one, a veritable Genesis-inspired abbondanza awaits you, people.)

Tegan and Sara (featuring The Lonely Island) —
“Everything is Awesome!!!”
(from The Lego® Movie [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]) —

Conventional wisdom has it that “Glory” — Common and John Legend’s moving anthem which they co-composed for the film Selma — is the front-runner to nab the Academy Award for Best Original Song this evening. And while that result wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest, I can’t help but find myself rooting for The Lego Movie‘s gloriously goofy “Awesome” to nab the Oscar tonight, because a) Tegan and Sara are involved, and Tegan and Sara are — no pun intended — everything as far as the Buzz is concerned, even when all they’re doing is singing such an electrically innocuous earworm such as this; and b) despite — or, perhaps, because of — its hilariously bent, wickedly subversively adult tone, Lego was inexplicably left out of the running in the Best Animated Feature derby, leaving “Awesome” as the only opportunity for Academy voters who are passionate about the uproariously funny film (of which I choose to believe there exist many) to honor it. “Everything” is awesome, possums.