“Originally it was like a Neil Young song but it was missing this key word. It used to go, “Look at the stars / look how they shine for you…” and there was this gap. So I was sitting there singing this song, and I looked at the nearest book to me, and it was the Yellow Pages. So, in an alternate universe, this song would be called Playboy.”
— Coldplay’s fearless leader Chris Martin, explaining the origins of his band’s worldwide breakthrough smash “Yellow,” on VH1 Storytellers.
A plethora of greatest hits collections punctuates this week’s (inexcusably tardy) record store report. Take a look:
They always deserved a great deal more commercial success than they managed to achieve, and this week, Jakob Dylan’s acclaimed ’90s band The Wallflowers receive their first career-spanning best-of set with the new 16-track Collected: 1996-2005. Everything you’d expect to be here is, from the band’s terrific breakthrough smashes “6th Avenue Heartache” (which features a heartbreaking, song-making harmony vocal from head Crow Counter Adam Duritz) and “One Headlight” (which, in retrospect, set a bar of triumph they’d never be able to clear again) to great lesser-known later singles like “Sleepwalker” and “When You’re On Top.” (And if you pick this up at Best Buy, you get a bonus DVD of Wallflowers videos.)
“It can be like a segment in the show: ‘Now we come to the part where you say hello to Sherry Ann!!'”
— my eternally crazy best friend Sherry Ann, humbly suggesting (via IM last night) that I add a regular portion to Brandon’s Buzz Radio wherein I impel my guest to send her a lovely greeting. (Probably not funny to anyone besides me, but I almost fell on the floor, I was laughing so hard at this request. And don’t think I’m not crazy enough to do this!)
She has been my best friend on the planet from the minute we met nearly twenty years (!) ago, and in the time I’ve known her, she has evolved from a smart, precocious teenager into a stunningly beautiful, hilarious, brilliant woman, not to mention a great mother of two terrific boys.
I love you to pieces, Sherry Ann. Happy birthday, my darling. (And don’t you ever forget: no matter how many of these we celebrate, you’ll always be older than me.)
“I want to find good pop music. Help me please.”
— a comment from a poster named Kalebarkab which got stuck in the Buzz’s spam filter this afternoon. Don’t know whether it is indeed spam, since they’re not overtly advertising anything anywhere in their message, but the sentiment is pure serendipity, and my response is simply this: visit this very site everyday, and soak up like a frickin’ sponge every syllable you read, and you’ll be on the road to happiness.
It’s exceedingly quiet out there in musicland this week, which gives you a perfect opportunity to catch up on some great recent records (Dave Matthews Band and Mat Kearney, to name but two) that may have slipped past your consciousness. If you must go record shopping this week, here’s what you’ll find on the new release wall:
Fresh off the brilliant remastering of her 1997 masterwork Blue Roses from the Moons, one of the finest songwriters in the history of music, the spectacular Nanci Griffith, is back this week with The Loving Kind, her nineteenth studio album (and her first of original material since 2005’s sweet Hearts in Mind). Kind finds Griffith delving into some politically charged topics, with a diatribe against Dubya (“Still Life”), an angry rant against capital punishment (“Not Innocent Enough,” a duet with musician John Prine), and, in the lovely title track, a remembrance of the Supreme Court case which made interracial marriage legal in this country. Griffith also takes a moment to pay tribute to her late mentor Townes Van Zandt in the album’s emotional high point,
“Up Against the Rain.”
The bikinis are already out in full effect (lord love those becleavaged CenTex beauties), the mercury is already scorching (Austin promises to be in triple-digit territory by next weekend), and the pop has already taken a turn toward the mindless (thank you, Lady GaGa, for reigniting a trend, milady). Means only one thing: the long, hot summer is upon us once again, and spring, with its life-affirming promises of the spirit of renewal, has been sent packing for another year.
Sometime around early April, with the dazzling second act laid down by a white-hot cadre of Colorado boys who call themselves The Fray and the stunning returns to form turned in by Pet Shop Boys, Wynonna, Annie Lennox, and Kelly Clarkson, it became very clear that music as a whole had regained its mojo following a bumpy time last fall, and that, at least creatively, the industry was firing on all eight cylinders. Some damn fine tuneage made its way to the forefront of our collective consciousness in the season just passed; what follows directly is a convincing cross-section of same:
He is the kindest, most intelligent, most thoughtful and amazing man — and, considering some of the fun that gets poked toward him on this very website, he’s one hell of a great sport — and today, exactly three decades after his arrival on this planet, we celebrate.
Happy thirtieth birthday, A. I love you.
“It was the four monstrous actors at the core of it.”
— former “Dawson’s Creek” showrunner Tom Kapinos, bluntly (and rather harshly!) answering a question about what made his time on the iconic WB show so difficult, during an Emmy screening panel for his current series, “Californication.”
