Brandon's Buzz

Lisa Stansfield — “All Around the World”
(from Biography: The Greatest Hits) —

Via a press release in my email last week, I was quite excited to learn that my fierce, flawless Lisa Stansfield is blessedly returning to record stores in September with a new two-disc live album, the news of which compelled me to immediately fire off an email to her publicity team begging for an interview for Brandon’s Buzz Radio. (This same PR firm helped me wrangle an interview with the one and only Meat Loaf a number of years ago, so I’m feeling pretty good about my odds in this endeavor.) Watch this space for more developments on that front whilst you enjoy the coolly seductive slice of pop perfection that carried La Stansfield to global superstardom exactly a quarter of a century ago. (I was stunned just now, scanning the Buzz archives, to discover that Miss Lisa has not one time in five years popped out of the Hive’s speakers, and that’s just shameful. Consider that error now officially corrected.)

Bob Schneider — “Let the Light In” (from Perfect Day) —

It is an awful, wonderful beast, this nation, this country which — quite literally — was founded with the words We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal. Rights truly are unalienable and certain in this awful, wonderful behemoth of a republic that our forefathers created and that our fathers — indeed, my father — fought to maintain. What the Court affirmed on Friday, ultimately, is the notion that when we decide to cast an entire subset of Americans’ rights to the swirling winds of fate and/or to the shifting whims of a popular vote, then — sooner or later — every American’s right to do, or say, or be, or live, or pursue happiness in whichever way they choose to is bound to be tossed up for grabs.

It is an awful, wonderful nation that is governed by humans with distinctly human foibles, but it is a nation whose history nonetheless nearly always — to steal a saying from the sages — bends toward justice, and toward fair, and toward right.

Takes a little longer than we might like sometimes, but love always conquers.

There are days when identifying as a gay man, a gay Texan, a gay American plainly sucks. Happily, today is not one of those days. Today, I am equal.

Kelly Willis — “Don’t Know Why”
(from Translated From Love) —

Sherry Ann will tell you that any and every day is a good day to blast some Kelly, but this being SA’s birthday makes it feel like a particularly apropos occasion. (Happy birthday, Sherry Ann; the Buzz hopes you’re living it up wherever you currently find yourself!)