Brandon's Buzz

“Well, you know, human beings don’t change very fast. You have to keep telling these stories over and over again until we get it. We’re a rather thick group.”

— legendary actress Tyne Daly, speaking with MetroSource about the fact that the topics which “Cagney and Lacey” attacked with such vigor back in the ’80s — abortion, racism, sexism in the workplace, etc. — are still very much hot-button subjects in today’s society.

“By the time I was about to graduate, I had a fellowship to graduate school, because I wanted to be, of course, Dr. Long… But you had to take the GRE! That’s a big test, right? And a third of it’s math. Let me tell ya: I can’t do math. I had put it off every year until I couldn’t graduate unless I took the idiot math, and in the first day of the class, they said, you know, ‘Integer.’ And I’m like, ‘What?! What’s an integer?!’ And they said, ‘It means number.’ I said, ‘I am in so much trouble….'”

— the hilariously brilliant Pamela K. Long, former headwriter of “Guiding Light,” discussing her college days on Brandon’s Buzz Radio. (This is for you, A, my all-time favorite math genius.)

Forgive me for the late record store report this week: I’ve been swamped the past few days preparing for my blockbuster interview with the great Pam Long. (If you’re at all interested in the inner workings of a soap opera, from someone who’s excelled at mastering them, you should listen to this.) At any rate, it’s rather a hodgepodge of different stuff on the new release wall this week. Dig in:

The latest British import to dazzle us with a gregarious blast of giddy pop: Gary Baker, coming to be better known as Gary Go, who releases the physical version of his debut record this week. (The album has been available for the past month at iTunes, whose version includes bonus covers of The Cars’ 1984 classic “Drive” and a mellow take on Lady GaGa’s brilliant “Just Dance.”) The lead single “Wonderful” is an absolutely terrific, magnificently melodic counterpoint to some of the heavier tunes —
The Fray, Kelly Clarkson, Mariah Carey, fine songs all, but not exactly party-starters — populating top 40 radio right now. Give this a shot.

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It’s Beatlemania anew this week, as all fourteen of the band’s original albums have been digitally remastered and are being re-released — with great fanfare, of course — in gorgeously rendered deluxe editions. Naturally, most everyone else is steering clear of the expected sales stampede, but there are a few new releases of note to complement the Fab Four this week.
Take a look:

Hard to believe that six long years have passed that cute moppet Howie Day released his sophomore album Stop All the World Now, which produced the monster smash “Collide,” a staple that made an entire generation of heavy-breathing prom-goers swoon. After an eternity of radio silence, Day resurfaces this week with his third studio set, Sound the Alarm, a chunk of which was co-written and produced by Better Than Ezra’s brilliant frontman Kevin Griffin. Just like pretty much every other male singer-songwriter who hit it big in the wake of John Mayer’s textbook breakthrough, Day can be a tad too earnest for his own good at times, but there’s no denying the kid’s got some chops. Color me curious on this one.

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One of modern music history’s premier divas has officially launched her long-awaited comeback, as the one and only Whitney Houston returns to center stage this week with her sixth studio album, I Look to You. Last heard from — musically, at least — on 2002’s horrendous, howlingly awful slap job Just Whitney (am I the only one who remembers, for all the wrong reasons, “Whatchulookinat”?), Houston is back — hardly wizened, mind you, but hardly none the worse for wear, either — cautiously (perhaps overly so) dipping her big toe back into the water to see if time and the ever-dynamic world of pop have passed her by.

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Just caught a glimpse of a calendar and realized that today would have been my dad’s 57th birthday. Still miss you like crazy, man, every single day, but I hope that you’re well, wherever you are. And also, that the deer aren’t being too shifty.

The new release wall returns to Earth this week following last week’s end-of-August blowout, with only one truly major release commanding your attention. Take a look:

Summer’s biggest blast of pure pop fun, the brilliantly wacky “I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho)” — which masterfully marries a flamenco guitar with a pulsing techno beat, and then tosses in a measure of deep-voiced Spanish rap and sex talk, just for the hell of it — finally gets a full-length album to surround it, as Miami rapper Pitbull releases his fourth record, Rebelution, this week. Akon, Lil Jon, Slim and others drop by to collaborate, and while it’s not clear how the rest of the album will stack up against “Want Me” — and you can damn well bet no fewer than fifteen DJs and producers are trying right this very minute to deconstruct that track and figure out exactly why it works so well — there’s no question that the ‘Bull has just taken his burgeoning career to the next level, and is ready for takeoff.

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Weeks and weeks of slow-to-nonexistent release slates have led to this fresh hell: August’s final Tuesday is so jam-packed with new stuff that I’ll be typing about it from now until Christmas. But I’m not complaining, mind you: you have no idea how great it will be to walk into the record store and actually be greeted by a new release wall which is literally popping with exciting material begging for my attention.

(Incidentally, this is the Buzz’s 300th post, hard as that is to believe. Thanks to all my readers who continue to follow me on this crazy ride!)

Her annoying debut single “The Way I Am” — and the spare, folk-y album, Girls and Boys, on which it appeared — became a word-of-mouth sensation after saturating the whole of television a couple of years ago, popping up on such series as “Grey’s Anatomy” and “One Tree Hill” as well as in an extensive advertising campaign for Old Navy. A collection of b-sides and live recordings followed last year, and now, indie queen
Ingrid Michaelson has returned with her true sophomore project, Everybody. This gal’s tinny voice irks me no end, but she clearly has her fans, and they will probably turn out en masse to snap this up. Mazel tov, y’all.

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