Brandon's Buzz

Jon McLaughlin — “We All Need Saving” (from OK Now) —

As a daily viewer of more than one ABC soap opera, I have been subjected of late to a continual barrage of commercials advertising the network’s upcoming prime time series Off the Map, which premieres Wednesday, January 12, and whose typically telegenic cast features one Zach Gilford, late of Friday Night Lights, NBC’s extraordinary epic about small-town ordinariness. A fair amount of said commercials feature this stunning scorcher — the triumphant closing track from McLaughlin’s strong second album — reminding me anew of the graceful, exquisite yearning that lay beneath McLaughlin’s uniquely tender tenor. (If Wikipedia is to be believed, this tune also popped up in ads for NBC’s The Event earlier this fall.) Apropos of the man and the song: utterly gorgeous.

Celine Dion — “Have a Heart” (from Unison) —

I’ll tell you, the more time I spend with Celine’s more recent efforts, the harder I long for the days when she worked with staggering material like this, when she wrapped her miraculous, voracious voice around songs that are more than just empty, hollow vessels for emotionless, multi-octave wailing.

If you missed any of last week’s tunes, below is a quick recap:

MONDAY: Blake Shelton — “Ol’ Red”
(from Loaded: The Best of Blake Shelton) —

TUESDAY: Daniel Bedingfield — “Blown It Again”
(from Gotta Get Thru This) —

WEDNESDAY: Cyndi Lauper — “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”
(from She’s So Unusual) —

THURSDAY: Zac Brown Band — “Colder Weather”
(from You Get What You Give) —

FRIDAY: Natasha Bedingfield — “Little Too Much”
(from Strip Me) —

SATURDAY: Kenny Loggins (with Stevie Nicks) —
“Whenever I Call You Friend” (from The Essential Kenny Loggins) —

SUNDAY: Dolly Parton — “Think About Love”
(from The Essential Dolly Parton) —

Dolly Parton — “Think About Love”
(from The Essential Dolly Parton) —

A took a trip to San Antonio yesterday afternoon to see Miss Dolly’s musical 9 to 5, and he requested that I make what I assume to be one of the show’s songs today’s dispatch from the hive. I, however, was not familiar with the tune he chose, but having literally grown up with Parton’s music, it wasn’t at all difficult to pick one I did know. Coming as it does from Dolly’s often-underrated pop-leaning years — long before Shania ever even knew what a midriff was, Parton and Juice Newton practically invented the notion of the megasmash country crossover, honey — this gem sometimes gets overlooked when compilers set out to assemble Dolly best-ofs, but I say you’ll be hard-pressed to find a catchier ringer in her repertoire.

Kenny Loggins (with Stevie Nicks) — “Whenever I Call You Friend”
(from The Essential Kenny Loggins) —

I got myself in an easy rock mood yesterday morning while driving to finish up Christmas shopping and couldn’t shake it for the whole of the day. Loggins co-wrote this all-time classic with the magnificent Melissa Manchester in 1977, and if my understanding of history is indeed accurate, Manchester was more than a little irate about getting passed over for the then-white-hot Nicks — who, concurrently, was riding a rollicking rocketship called Fleetwood Mac — when it came time to select a duet partner and lay the tune down on tape. But, and I say the following as a card-carrying Manchester fan: take one listen to the heavenly harmonies that Loggins and Nicks manage to create here, and then just try to convince me it wasn’t the absolutely correct call.

Natasha Bedingfield — “Little Too Much” (from Strip Me) —

Tuesday, we heard from her brother Daniel, and today, it’s Natasha’s turn: I fear it’s going to get buried in the mind-blowing crush of late-year albums currently jockeying for position on the record store’s new release wall — not quite sure why they didn’t hold this until February or March, particularly since top 40 radio is thus far cool toward the lovely lead single — but I spun Natty’s brand new CD twice straight through today and found it to be ravishingly terrific, a wondrous whale of a pop record. (A quick scan of the behind-the-scenes credits reveals a cadre of creative aces — John Shanks, Ryan Tedder, and the divine Danielle Brisebois, among them — whose sonic fingerprints on this material are quite easy to identify in retrospect.) “Too Much,” the record’s dynamite opening track, handily sets the tone for Strip — in short, love is all there is, and it’s worth the risk every time — and creates a theme for Bedingfield to explore fully for the remainder. She’s battling divas at both poles of the pop spectrum, with Rihanna (back to her loud and rowdy roots) at one end and La Swift (so pure, it floats) at the other; time will soon tell just how smart Bedingfield and company were to play this one straight down the middle.

Zac Brown Band — “Colder Weather”
(from You Get What You Give) —

In preparation of my annual best-of-year music roundup, I’ve spent the past few days catching up with the handful of records that have slipped through the cracks of my attention. As a proudly gay man with a primary penchant for bucketfuls of angst in his aural entertainment, I know I am hardly in Brown’s general target demographic. But this tune — a devastating survey of a man running like the wind from the frozen ghost (real or perceived) of a woman he loved in another lifetime, and an astonishing anomaly on what is otherwise a fairly upbeat record — quite literally reaches out from the stereo speakers and slaps your soul out of its complacency. A natural successor to “Fire and Rain” (with a soupcon of “Please Come to Boston” tossed in, just for good measure), “Weather” plays like the greatest song James Taylor never had the balls to write. (And it may not sound like it, depending on your particular vantage point, but I absolutely mean that as a compliment!)

Cyndi Lauper — “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”
(from She’s So Unusual) —

In ways too multiple to enumerate, Lauper was the original Lady GaGa. And, in much the same way that GaGa’s garishness and excess often distracts from the fact that she can be quite a potent performer, Lauper let herself get boxed in for far too long in the early days of her career by her wacky-chick shtick. (Only time will tell if Gags will be able to diversify her Day-Glowing discography as handsomely in the years to come as Lauper has managed to.) Watching those misbegotten misfits Katy Perry and Nicki Minaj stumble over themselves mangling this magnificent tune during last weekend’s painfully overbaked VH1 Divas special reminded me not only of what a pristinely perfect pop record “Girls” was, is, and always will be, but also of how easy Lauper made brilliant look.

Daniel Bedingfield — “Blown It Again” (from Gotta Get Thru This) —

His fabulously foxy sister Natasha is still kicking ass (indeed,
her third album is due in stores today), but, for whatever odd reason, Danny himself — last heard from in 2004, with a spectacular second album that wasn’t even deemed worthy of release stateside — has seemingly fallen completely off the grid. Consider this a smoke signal, imploring him to phone home.

Blake Shelton — “Ol’ Red”
(from Loaded: The Best of Blake Shelton) —

I s’pose his recent win as the Country Music Association’s Male Vocalist of the Year means that I can no longer refer to Shelton as a vastly underrated talent. He has had substantially bigger hits, but this — a highly hilarious prison break fairy tale that no less than George Jones and Kenny Rogers have also taken stabs at — has always been my bar-none favorite. (Moral of the story: dog really is man’s best friend, even when he’s trained not to be.)

If you missed any of last week’s tunes, below is a quick recap:

MONDAY: Kate Rusby — “The Wild Goose” (from Sleepless) —

TUESDAY: Soul II Soul (featuring Caron Wheeler) —
“Back to Life (However Do You Want Me)” (from Keep On Movin’) —

WEDNESDAY: The Pretenders — “2000 Miles”
(from The Singles) —

THURSDAY: Lady Antebellum — “Need You Now”
(from Need You Now) —

FRIDAY: Brendan James — “Stupid for Your Love”
(from Brendan James) —

SATURDAY: Basia Bulat — “If It Rains” (from Heart of My Own) —

SUNDAY: Madonna (featuring Lil Wayne) —
“Revolver [David Guetta One Love Mix]” (from One Love 2010) —

Madonna (featuring Lil Wayne) — “Revolver [David Guetta One Love Mix]” (from One Love 2010) —

Fifty-two now, and she still hasn’t figured out the art of subtlety. Not that it matters: helped out by Wayne’s typically randy cameo, Guetta bestows his magical Midas touch onto the Material Girl’s strongest (and most fascinatingly frisky) single in at least a decade.

Basia Bulat — “If It Rains” (from Heart of My Own) —

A meandering yarn about why the iPhone might just be the greatest freakin’ invention in the history of ever: A had to drive to Houston yesterday to take some insurance exam (the full purpose of which I remain unclear, though I’m sure he’ll love you sending him all your good karma), and I spent much of the day backing up the important file on my computer so that I could turn it over to the good folks at Best Buy, who are slated to replace the machine’s dead battery and repair the touchpad’s broken left click button. And after that wrenching experience — if you know me at all, you know I never, ever, ever part with my computer, which is essentially a permanent extension of my typing fingers, as seemingly vital to my inner stasis and well-being as such trivial mechanisms as lungs and kidneys — I needed a little retail therapy, which in my case almost always means a trip to the local record store. And whilst I was browsing the racks and taking in the sights and sounds of my single favorite place on Earth, a song I failed to recognize came tumbling from the store’s loudspeaker. Back in my Luddite days, I would have either bummed a pen off of somebody and scribbled down some lyrics on my hand — or, barring that, would have just tried like hell to remember a line or two — to look up when I got home. But now, just as it has with so many other mundane daily activities (checking email, tweeting, catching up on the news and weather, even setting up the damned DVR), the new phone has revolutionized the ID process: I cued up that handy-as-hell Shazam app and had a definitive answer inside of ten seconds. And me and my iTunes lived ‘appily ever after. (P.S.: Isn’t this song just terrific? I know nothing at all about this girl — trust and believe that’ll be changing, ay-sap — but, if this is any indication, she’s an elegant font of earth-mama fabulosity.)