Brandon's Buzz

Jose Feliciano — “Feliz Navidad”
(from Now That’s What I Call Christmas! The Signature Collection) —

A specifically requested that a Spanish-language Christmas song appear at some point during this week of mirthful music, and this is the only one I know, so the choice is remarkably easy. (Take note, my beloved, if you weren’t already aware: your woman has also attempted to plant her flag atop this crossover classic, and, in the spirit of the season, I’ll be charitable and let you make up your own mind as to whether or not that was a bright idear.)

Carnie & Wendy Wilson — “Hey Santa!” (from Hey Santa!) —

It’s Christmas week at last, and the Buzz is in a yuletide mood, with wall-to-wall festive tunes scoring the runup to Santa’s Saturday arrival. I couldn’t resist starting out with this kooky chestnut, because for the first time in months, I get to hang out with my best friend on this earth in a matter of days, and this one has been a running gag between Sherry Ann and myself since we were nascent high school churren: after an exhausted Chynna Phillips temporarily stepped away from Wilson Phillips in 1993, sisters Carnie and Wendy Wilson decided to press forth as a duo, and their debut project as such was a Christmas record, which was promoted ad nauseam with a barrage of television spots featuring the siblings donning their gay apparel and singing, with a chirpy cheerfulness that bordered on disturbing, this very song. (You just have to trust me when I tell you: you haven’t lived until you’ve seen Sherry Ann’s spot-on, gut-bustingly hilarious impression of Carnie yelling, “Hey Santa!”) Wilson Phillips recently reunited to release their own official holiday project, and while all the harmonies contained therein are predictably glorious, not even by half is
that record as fun or as interesting as this.

One cup too many of rum-laced egg nog at A’s company Christmas party on Friday night = a serious Maalox moment before work on Saturday morning, which = no dispatch from the Hive that day. (The egg nog was mighty fine, though, gotta say.) But if you missed any of the others of last week’s tunes, below is a quick recap:

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

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

WEDNESDAY: Everything But the Girl — “Missing [Todd Terry Mix]”
(from Amplified Heart) —

THURSDAY: Red Hot Chili Peppers — “Californication”
(from Greatest Hits) —

FRIDAY: Wham! — “Last Christmas” (from Twenty Five) —

SUNDAY: Elvis Presley — “Never Been to Spain”
(from Viva Las Vegas) —

Elvis Presley — “Never Been to Spain” (from Viva Las Vegas) —

Over two hundred artists — Three Dog Night, most famously, but also performers as varied as Tina Turner, Cher, and Waylon Jennings (even the formidable Shelby Lynne put her stamp on it a couple of weeks ago with an acoustic cover for iTunes sessions) — have taken a stab at this Hoyt Axton classic, but the King and his potently recognizable basso profundo raise this seeming trifle a notch above the superficial, giving these words a much-needed gravitas and anchoring the story with a rich, emotional truth.

Wham! — “Last Christmas” (from Twenty Five) —

Last night, A and I tromped down to the Alamo Drafthouse to take part in the annual Christmas Pops sing-along, which was an odd melange of the off-the-wall (John Denver and the Muppets doing “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” or Charo and Pee-Wee Herman ripping through “Feliz Navidad” on Pee Wee’s Playhouse) and the emotionally gripping (Sinead O’Connor’s aching take on
“Silent Night,” and, of course, John Lennon’s “Happy Xmas (War is Over)”). And after the show, we joined the other hundred-odd theatergoers out on Austin’s 6th Street for what is evidently an annual tradition called “Renegade Caroling,” wherein we all — each of us wearing felt Santa hats and brandishing jingle bell bracelets — ambushed a series of unsuspecting fools on the street and sang one of the evening’s songs to that person at the top of our lungs while they beheld us with a palpable mix of admiration, astonishment, and fear. The three songs that we sang to people most often during Renegade Caroling were: Mariah Carey’s 1994 classic “All I Want for Christmas is You” (which A — temporarily forgetting that the Buzz is largely a Mariah-free zone — actually suggested should be today’s dispatch from the Hive); this classic from Wham! (whose emergence as something of a modern Christmas standard has always mystified me, seeing as it has almost nothing to do with Christmas and is, instead, a rather depressing love-gone-wretched ballad); and, uh, Andy Samberg and Justin Timberlake’s riotously randy ’tis-better-to-give ode
“Dick in a Box” (don’t ask). It became instantly clear to me that one of this gleaming triptych would stand as Friday’s song of the day, and since a) I’m ever looking for ways to pull the eternally, heartbreakingly gorgeous George Michael into the daily discourse; and b) I spent the entire ride home driving A positively mad singing select lyrics from “Last Christmas” with entirely apropos passion
(“a man undah-covah / but you TORE ME UH-PART!”), the choice was eminently and decidedly clear.

The canny scheduling of the year’s most anticipated pop novelty punctuates this week’s (rather muted) action on the new release wall. Take a gander:

What Sony must be praying will make a suitable last-minute stocking stuffer arrives this week with the controversial release of Michael, a collection of ten newly-completed recordings culled from the supposedly deep vaults of the dearly departed King of Pop, Michael Jackson. There is a considerable amount of heat swirling around this record, with more than a few whispers that it’s not actually Michael’s voice on these tracks. And call me naive, but I choose to believe that the current curators of his estate wouldn’t dare risk tarnishing Jackson’s magnificent musical legacy by taking that kind of greedy risk. (Nor do I believe top-flight folks like 50 Cent, Akon, and Lenny Kravitz — all of whom make guest appearances here — would play along with such a ruse.) Having said that, Mike was notoriously prolific and always laying down something on tape; there are said to be hundreds of unreleased Jackson recordings laying around waiting to see the light of day, so you can bet Michael won’t be the last such posthumous release.

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Red Hot Chili Peppers — “Californication” (from Greatest Hits) —

“space may be the final frontier /

but it’s made in a Hollywood basement /

and Cobain, can you hear this sphere /

singin’ songs off station to station…?”

Everything But the Girl — “Missing [Todd Terry Mix]”
(from Amplified Heart) —

Not many things will impel me to turn off the iPod and displace my earphones from my skull while I’m at the gym (I’ve long fancied myself a masterful maker of mixtapes, and my workout mixes are legendary, if I do say so myself), but with a fun melange of Foo Fighters, Fergie, and even a little Last Goodnight, I took a leap of faith and entrusted my aural entertainment this morning to the local Planet Fitness while I borrowed their equipment for an electrifying elliptical ride. It was a good call, and I was rewarded thusly: when I took to the locker room to clean up after the fact, the comfortably compelling throb of this club classic’s entrancing opening notes spilled from the speakers, and I was instantly carried back to the spectacular spring of 1996, when this thing became one of its decade’s defining smashes. Don’t even try convincing me that “Missing” isn’t one of the ten best songs ever, because I’m not buying: Tracey Thorn’s thrilling ode to sexually charged desperation (and the art of ineffective stalking, natch) still packs the same potent punch it did fifteen years ago, and I spent the rest of the afternoon humming it, happily.

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.