Brandon's Buzz

Santana featuring India.Arie & Yo-Yo Ma —
“While My Guitar Gently Weeps”
(from Guitar Heaven: The Greatest Guitar Classics of All Time) —

As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, Guitar Heaven‘s extraordinary guest list is what keeps the album from being swallowed whole by the bland, hellish hokum which has demolished covers collections of a similar stripe. Of late, the remarkable Arie has become the queen of the classy, compelling remake, having turned in radiant recent takes on Don Henley’s “The Heart of the Matter” and Stephen Bishop’s “It Might Be You,” and of course she shines like a diamond here breathing brilliant new life into some of the finest words the late George Harrison ever wrote.

Emmylou Harris — “Goin’ Back to Harlan [live]”
(from Lilith Fair: A Celebration of Women in Music) —

Because her mass-market popularity (and seeming commercial viability) had all but faded clean away by the mid-’90s, nobody was on the lookout for Harris to unleash her career-defining masterpiece, but that’s just what came to pass with the 1995 release of Wrecking Ball, Harris’ astounding collaboration with U2’s famed producer Daniel Lanois. Miss Emmy covers Kate and Anna McGarrigle just fine on record, but the live take — raw, intense, electric, alive with crackling energy but crawling with seeping dread — captures brilliantly, and with an irreplaceably compelling sense of grace, the tragic inevitability of a woman who is powerless against the pull of her own lust-strewn heart.

Ben’s Brother — “Time” (from Beta Male Fairytales) —

Sounding for all the world like a young Rod Stewart (even down to the lilting yet gruff rasp in the catch of his voice!), frontman Jamie Hartman scores a ringer with a lovely tune about the ephemeral fragility of life’s ever-ticking clock.

Ryan Adams — “New York, New York” (from Gold) —

Because he’s so fond of nonchalantly tossing the names of famous California highways and byways into the titles of his tunes (Hollywood Boulevard, of course, and Los Angeles’ famed thoroughfare La Cienega), Ryan Adams’ heartfelt music resonates with A much more deeply than one might reasonably predict. (The fact that much of said music is in actual fact quite compelling helps, certainly, but as his unabashed passion for all things Black Eyed Peas most painfully proves, it isn’t always a paramount consideration.) While we lay in bed the other evening, A requested that I name my favorite Adams tune, and I think I surprised him when I chose this one, Adams’ bittersweet love letter to the Big Apple. It’s a close race over the latter of the aforementioned songs, but “York’s” gloriously fun sing-alongability — not to mention its haunting videoclip, which was recorded on September 7, 2001 and is liberally littered with disquieting shots of the World Trade Center’s twin towers — make it a simple, simply irresistible triumph.

Chris Botti — “Nessun Dorma” (from Italia) —

Puccini’s heart-shattering masterpiece is almost certainly the most revered recorded aria of the late Luciano Pavarotti’s career, and the astonishing Aretha Franklin stunned the whole damned world with her impromptu performance on the 1998 Grammy Awards telecast. But if you ask me, Botti’s take — entirely instrumental, yet teeming with rich emotion, with a simple trumpet standing in brilliantly for a standard tenor — is the most staggering, most wrenchingly gorgeous, most luminously alive version to be found.

I woke up in plenty of time this morning, but i just plumb forgot to file this morning’s song of the day before I left for work. Hence, no honey today, but if you missed any of the rest of the past week’s tunes, below is a quick recap:

MONDAY: The Reverend Al Green & Lyle Lovett —
“Funny How Time Slips Away” (from Rhythm, Country & Blues) —

TUESDAY: Ani DiFranco — “As Is” (from Little Plastic Castle) —

WEDNESDAY: Janet Jackson — “Miss You Much”
(from Rhythm Nation 1814) —

THURSDAY: Miranda Lambert —
“That’s the Way That the World Goes ‘Round” (from Revolution) —

FRIDAY: Train — “Counting Airplanes” (from My Private Nation) —

SATURDAY: Amanda Marshall — “Sittin’ On Top of the World”
(from Amanda Marshall) —

Amanda Marshall — “Sittin’ On Top of the World”
(from Amanda Marshall) —

Among those things the facts of which we as a nation should feel profound shame and remorse: the inventions of Crystal Pepsi, canned hominy, and that horrifying rump roast dress that Lady GaGa wore to the MTV Awards last month; the hard-to-justify rises to fame of Pauly Shore, Perez Hilton, and whichever wacked-out butcher-slash-tailor thunk up said horrifying dress; and our utter (and utterly criminal) failure, as a collective music-consuming public, to make this gorgeous gal — who crossed over from Canada in the fall of 1996 and spent the next six years futilely attempting to carve out a place for herself in the suddenly crowded arena of female pop — our next major star when we had the chance.

Train — “Counting Airplanes” (from My Private Nation) —

Even though his songwriting style tends to veer toward unnervingly cutesy more often than is necessary, I see no point in pretending that I think Train’s fabulous frontman Pat Monahan isn’t beyond brilliant. (Anyhow, it’s not like I haven’t dedicated a barrelful of Buzz ink to expressing that very opinion in any number of words and phrases.) What can I say: when he gets on a roll, his vocal acrobatics hit my sweet spot every single time, particularly in tunes like this, which find him pondering his place in the universe and wondering whether someone will be there to help break his inevitable fall.

October opens with a much less crowded slate than the past couple of weeks have offered us, and I’m fine with that, because I am still swimming upstream trying to get caught up with all of September’s new music. Take a look:

She is a Scottish lass who tore across the pond four years ago with a pair of rollicking, ridiculously infectious radio smashes, “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree” and “Suddenly I See,” and just as quickly hit rough waters: a stunning sophomore effort, released a year later, failed wholly to connect here in the States, and it seemed as though she was done before she had even gotten started. But don’t count out the staggeringly talented KT Tunstall just yet: she’s back in action with her third album, Tiger Suit, on which she adventurously dares to weave flashes of electronica into what is an already well-established folk-rock — think modern-day Bonnie Raitt — vibe. (Also of note: Amazon is pushing an exclusive deluxe edition of Suit which contains a behind-the-scenes documentary, How to Make a Tiger Suit.)

keep reading »

Miranda Lambert — “That’s the Way That the World Goes ‘Round”
(from Revolution) —

Covering an old John Prine chestnut with the kind of fearless ferocity which tends to jolt the folks in Nashville plumb out of their jalopies, the magnificent Miss Miranda — at last, the celebrated star she has long deserved to be — splits the difference between Courtney Love and Loretta Lynn with riveting, raw brilliance by putting front and center the graceful grit which has always marked her best music.

Janet Jackson — “Miss You Much” (from Rhythm Nation 1814) —

Though I’ve admired her talent and tenacity for the practical whole of my life, I would never cop to being Jackson’s biggest fan, but listening to Number Ones — a stupendous double-disc collection of her chart-toppers from the past two decades — upon its release last fall gave me a whole new appreciation for the tough yet sophisticated edges that a great measure of Jackson’s work (particularly those tunes which make up the Rhythm Nation era) contains. I’m not sure how many fans still hold “Much” in high regard; even though it was a monster hit at the time of its initial chart ascent, it hasn’t held in the pop culture memory banks the way some of her other smashes (“Nasty” or “That’s the Way Love Goes,” to name but two) have, but this was absolutely the track that convinced much of the music world that this girl was no joke (and certainly was no fluke of nepotistic circumstance), and it remains an underrated pop classic to this day.