— the small-print disclaimer which flashes on the screen during the new television commercial advertising the Total Pillow, a seemingly unremarkable variation on the classic U-shaped travel pillow whose TV spot features folks standing in a shopping mall and singing this product’s praises. (This probably isn’t that funny, but I found it rather amusing, as the implication here seems to be that other commercials of this type showcase fake people with artificial opinions. Incidentally, I ran across this commercial while watching an old episode of A’s new favorite television series, Bravo’s Million Dollar Listing, which I wrote about on this site last April and which, he has implored me to inform you all, returns for its fourth season this coming Thursday night.)
“Here’s where I landed on Lady GaGa: the kids need it. She speaks for the freaks of the Midwest…. It doesn’t matter if it’s boring music; she’s still waving the freak flag. It doesn’t matter if it’s inauthentic — it matters that if you’re 14, you get the message that it’s okay to be weird…. But here’s the barb with Lady GaGa: since she’s waving the freak flag but conforming so heavily to the pop structure, is she ultimately doing more long-term harm than good by telling kids, ‘Be yourself, be weird, but be thin and beautiful and….'”
— The Dresden Dolls’ frontwoman Amanda Palmer, discussing Lady GaGa — in what may be the most concise, astute, and acutely observed dissection of Gags’ current spot in this society that I’ve ever heard expressed — in Spin magazine’s annual year-end roundup issue.
There’s a bit more action at the record store this week than there has been in the last couple, but this Tuesday’s biggest release comes to us from the film world, where the bona fide frontrunner for this year’s Best Picture Oscar makes landfall on DVD. Dig in:
Nomination ballots for this year’s Academy Awards race are due at week’s end, and you can bet your bippy that a good many of them will be marked with across-the-board votes for The Social Network, David Fincher’s dazzling dramatization of the controversial origins of the global phenom now known as Facebook. Working with a typically terrific (and vividly verbose, natch) script from the masterful, magnificent Aaron Sorkin — whose efforts here are damn near certain to land him the golden statuette he has long deserved — Fincher assembles a crackerjack cast to bring this story to life, including the staggering Jesse Eisenberg (who so flawlessly and fabulously crawls into the skin of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg that it’s quite easy to take for granted what a taut tightrope he is walking in portraying a character who is not always easy to like) and the amazing Andrew Garfield (as Zuckerberg’s college pal and Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, who finds himself frozen out of the company after Mark is seduced by the bells and whistles of Silicon Valley), and coaxes from all this post-adolescent agita a riveting yarn about youth, deception, and what it truly means to be a friend in today’s isolated world. (Incidentally, the great character actor David Selby — best known for his starring roles in Dark Shadows and Falcon Crest — appears in Network as an attorney who engages in several blisteringly brilliant scenes of verbal jousting with Eisenberg, and we discussed his role in this film when he popped into Brandon’s Buzz Radio last October.)
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)
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.)
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
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.
(who has spent the past decade chasing the ghost of her spry debut smash “A Thousand Miles”)
(ditto, regarding his solo star turn with 
(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)
(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'”)
(“The Chauffeur and the Professor” failed to make the cut here, but just try not to laugh listening to “You’re On My List”)
(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)
(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)
, whose entry in this rollout comes in a just-the-facts-ma’am 
or in a more robust 
.
. 
— 
) — 
) — 
) — 
) — 
) — 
) — 
) — 