Brandon's Buzz

The month’s overall release schedule seems unusually uneventful (particularly following an atypically topheavy January slate), but Brandon’s Tips ushers February onto the calendar with a huge bang, even though it must once more look beyond the music world to do it.

Last summer, we discussed at some length one of the classic television series, the landmark ’80s romantic fantasy Beauty and the Beast. Starring the gorgeous Linda Hamilton as a New York City lawyer, and the amazing Ron Perlman as the half-man/half-??? who saves her life after she is attacked and left for dead, it was an electrifying, profoundly moving program that obliterated every rule about how to portray a couple falling in unlikely love that ever existed for the small screen. Last week, the series’ third and final season arrived on DVD, and although most Beast-philes will caution you to avoid these episodes altogether — the passionate (and at times, vitriolic!) online debates among these folks are staggering — just trust your Uncle Brandon when he tells you from the bottom of his humble heart: these are thirteen engrossing hours of can’t-miss television.

[**** SPOILER ALERT **** The next few paragraphs address several crucial third-season plot points, and if you’d rather be surprised (or if you, quite frankly, don’t give a flying flip about any of this), hit the page down button at once.]

You’ll be steered away from this season because, in its first episode, Hamilton’s character (Catherine Chandler, the titular beauty to Vincent, Perlman’s beast) is kidnapped shortly after discovering she is carrying Vincent’s child. Months later (nine of ’em, wouldn’t you know?), Vincent finally manages to track down his beloved, but just like the Shakespearean tragedy this series must always have been meant to be, it’s too late: the evil Gabriel (played with chilling intensity by the mesmerizing Stephen McHattie) has just absconded with the newborn child, leaving Catherine to die in Vincent’s arms from a lethal dose of morphine. (Hamilton and Perlman’s final scene is an all-out triumph: Vincent is at once demolished to lose the woman he loves, yet ecstatic to learn that their love has produced a child, and the waves of emotion that visibly wash over Perlman’s face are astonishing. Against all odds, his inviolable dedication to this series’ outlandish material alone is more than sufficient to draw you in and keep you riveted.)

Gabriel and Vincent spend the season’s remaining episodes locked in a viciously suspenseful cat-and-mouse game which comes to include Catherine’s former fiance Elliot Burch (a never-better Edward Albert) and tough, whip-smart detective Diana Bennett (the oddly breathtaking Jo Anderson, who was slowly — and, believe it or not, successfully — being refashioned as the new “beauty” in a show whose entire existence hinged on the interplay between its title characters). One of these four characters dies an unexpected hero; the remaining three collide in a climactic confrontation that is truly one for the ages.

The show’s die-hard fans went apeshit crazy when Catherine was killed off (don’t forget, this was 1989: the Internet was still jus’ a gleam in Al Gore’s eye, and what hadn’t been widely reported at the time was that Hamilton actually wanted to leave the show). Faced with losing one seemingly irreplaceable half of their primary cast, the producers quite rightly surmised that Catherine’s death was the only real way to propel the series forward. Recasting the role was out of the question (Hamilton and Perlman’s chemistry was too combustible to recreate), as was having Catherine simply vanish from the canvas (lest the series devolve into Vincent searching for his lady love week on interminable week). While an undoubtedly daring choice, murdering the show’s heroine gave the show’s hero an easily-identifiable purpose; in reaching his goal, Vincent would conceivably win the closure he desperately sought and would be able to move on with his life. The problem was, the core audience, by and large, was so turned off both by the plot twist and by the so-called “darker edge” that said twist wrought (patently and laughably ridiculous was the latter claim; with no fewer than two deaths in any given episode (and a goodly portion of them brutal maulings from the beclawed hand of Vincent), this series was never solely the swooning romantic fantasy it was marketed as); since Beast was never a mainstream ratings smash anyway, once the fairweather fans abandoned the series in droves and only the dyed-in-the-wool fanatics like me — hey, no shame here: as a man who caught every painful second of Designing Women‘s disastrous final season (and who lived for those final few breaths of Studio 60 last summer), and as the best friend of a woman who, when given merely an episode title, can immediately hurl at you a thorough synopsis (replete with guest stars, songs used, and any and all exceptionally quotable lines of dialogue) of any of Beverly Hills, 90210‘s 293 televised hours, I’m proud to say I come from a dizzying line of let’s-hang-on-’til-the-bitter-end folk — were sticking around, the show’s fate was quickly sealed. (As I’ve often said, I do what I can, but I’m only one man.)

Eighteen years (practically to the week) beyond its too-early cancellation, Beauty and the Beast: The Final Season — many of whose episodes haven’t been seen since their original airdates — makes its home video debut in a glorious new three-disc DVD set. Disregard the hilariously hostile disdain heaped upon it from all sides, and hear me tell you this: it’s not to be missed.

— Two new digital singles are up at iTunes this week, and they each demand your rapt attention. Just last week, we nearly went mad discussing Adam Duritz and his brilliant band Counting Crows, whose terrific 1993 debut August and Everything After has just been re-released in a special deluxe set, but I failed to mention that the Crows’ fifth studio album (and first in six unbearable years), Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings, is due on March 25. “You Can’t Count On Me” is the leadoff single, and it showcases anew Duritz’s unerring ability to tuck a bittersweet lyric inside a piano-based poppy beat.

Also imminent is the long-awaited sophomore effort from Gavin DeGraw, whose 2003 album Chariot turned into a slow-burning sensation with Clive Davis’ acutely-aimed promotion and with DeGraw’s tireless touring schedule. Dropping April 15, Gavin DeGraw is teased by the driving first single “In Love with a Girl,” which deftly recalls his breakthrough smash “I Don’t Want to Be” without once straight-up ripping it off.

— As for albums, if the first half of February seems thoroughly paltry with its musical offerings, rest assured that there is plenty of great new stuff to keep you occupied if you so choose. First up: a profoundly felt welcome-the-hell-back to the much-missed Taylor Dayne, who returned last week with Satisfied, her first full-length project in a decade. Laugh if you must, but “Love Will Lead You Back” owns a permanent spot in the most hallowed corner of my red-blood-pumpin’ heart (natch, sharing a brownstone with Sinead O’Connor and Expose) and I, for one, am thrilled beyond expression that Dayne is back where she absolutely belongs. Unless you’re predisposed to such things (and most probably, even then), you’ll want to avoid her shaky, ill-advised cover of “Under the Bridge” (which is every bit as head-scratchingly bad as you must be imagining); irregardless, Dayne’s full-throated splendor ought to be required listening for Fergie, Jessica Simpson, and that whole gaggle of nauseating diva-lites who were still shaking rattles and choking down strained peas when this woman became a straight-out-of-the-box megastar the first time around.

If, in 1996, you had taken a straw poll on who was still going to have a viable recording career a decade later, I’ll posit that The Presidents of the United States of America, Primitive Radio Gods, and Candlebox all would have received more votes than Nada Surf . But go figya: the authors of said year’s frothy MTV mainstay “Popular” beat the odds by radically changing course and (gasp!) growing up. In 2002, the band brought us Let Go, an album that was so stirringly strong, we were all convinced it could be nothing more than a wicked fluke. 2005’s extraordinary The Weight is a Gift silenced the doubters forever. And this week arrives Lucky, another delicately observed effort from the unlikeliest survivors of the post-grunge era. It’s definitive proof: these guys — led by the fearlessly quirky Matthew Caws — are no fluke.

Undeniably blessed with a smokin’ voice, and yet — just like Norah Jones years after — too often saddled with mediocre material, k.d. lang resurfaces this week with Watershed, her first album since 2004’s Hymns of the 49^th Parallel (on which she made a tragic mockery of Joni Mitchell’s “A Case of You,” a ferocious song that nobody this side of my divine Tori Amos seems to know how to deliver correctly). She’s great, as usual, but too much of the music just lays there.

God bless the ever-pretentious Lenny Kravitz, whose new It Is Time for a Love Revolution sounds virtually identical to everything he has released since “Fly Away” inadvertently ignited his big 1999 comeback.

I need to be careful what I say about this generation’s Jimmy Buffett, Jack Johnson, since Sherry Ann has been the fool’s biggest fan for eons. I haven’t listened to his latest record, Sleep Through the Static, yet, but I have a thesis project for anybody who needs one: how can this man appeal to such a wide swath of the young demographic, and yet notch multiplatinum sales numbers with virtually zero airplay? It’s quite a different animal when the likes of Barry Manilow and Rod Stewart continue to sell records, given who they primarily appeal to. But this guy is worshipped by the youngsters amongst us. But riddle me this: although, with first-week sales approaching 400,000 units, Static will almost certainly enter atop next week’s Billboard 200, you’ve yet to hear one of its songs on a mainstream radio station (and if your plan is to wait it out, I hope you packed a sweater and a granola bar. And, fifty lashes to the person who quotes to me the call letters KGSR, KCRW, and/or KFOG. I know the triple-A guys are all over this record, but no way, no how does triple-A exposure — no matter how expansive — account for a half-million album sales in a seven-day period).

If you missed last January’s triumphant At the Movies, the stunningly sumptuous latest record from the masterful Dave Koz, here’s your chance to rectify that silliness: Double Feature, a new two-disc set featuring the original album — a set of covers of classic film tunes, featuring the peerless likes of Anita Baker, Vanessa Williams, Donna Summer, Chris Botti, and India.Arie (who whoops fifteen kinds of ass on Tootsie‘s “It Might Be You”) — bundled with a DVD documenting the recording sessions.

So, the big joke regarding one of this month’s big releases is simply this: is there anyone on the planet who doesn’t already own Thriller?! To mark the 25^th anniversary of Michael Jackson‘s landmark 1983 musical touchstone, Sony has just rereleased the album in a new deluxe set that includes new versions of five of the record’s classic tracks (new versions, incidentally, which pale hopelessly in comparison to the originals they abut) and a DVD which contains the classic music videos for “Beat It” and “Thriller,” plus both the video for “Billie Jean” and the Emmy-nominated television performance of the song that introduced the world to the “moonwalk” and launched Jackson’s fame into the ionosphere. That’s all well and good, but, just like roughly thirty million other people (in this country alone!), I already own this album! (Fact, I have it on vinyl, on cassette, and on CD.) And I’m not for sure all these newfangled extras are substantive enough to get me to plop down money for it all over again.

I have no such problems handing over the contents of my wallet to ten-time Grammy winner Sheryl Crow, who has just released her sixth studio album, Detours. Know this upfront: this record is a massive improvement over her last album, 2005’s dank and dreary Wildflower. Crow has re-teamed with producer Bill Bottrell, who steered her amazing 1994 debut Tuesday Night Music Club to glory, and you’re probably right on the money if you believe that’s a big reason why Detours is Crow’s strongest, most confident music since Club.

A is still working his way through the previous tipsheet’s four playlists, so even though we’re covering two weeks of material this time around, I’ll spare him the backlog stress and stick with just one playlist this time around. Sheryl Crow is the big name in this frame, so let’s get our fingernails dirty and dig into her discography for a deeper exploration of her brilliant career.

1. “Leaving Las Vegas” (from Tuesday Night Music Club) — the single that started it all. True, “All I Wanna Do” stole its thunder by unexpectedly becoming the smash later that summer. But return with me to the spring of 1994 for one hot minute as I remind you of what, exactly, it took to stand out in that music season’s loaded landscape. Natalie Merchant and 10,000 Maniacs had just knocked their heart-pounding cover of “Because the Night” over the fences. Tori Amos was on fire with Under the Pink, her blasphemously brilliant sophomore triumph. Tears for Fears had launched an improbably American comeback with their stupendous smash “Break It Down Again” (“blast off to heaven / just like Moses on a motorbike,” indeed). A musical fireball called “Mr. Jones” had just created instant superstars out of a quiet, unassuming band of bohos called Counting Crows. And here comes the incredible debut single from a woman whose theretofore biggest claim to fame was being Michael Jackson’s go-to backup singer. Fourteen years later, and still a classic.

2. “Love is a Good Thing” (from Sheryl Crow) — the song that got Crow’s second album notoriously banned from Wal-Mart, whose gun-selling policies get royally lambasted in the tune’s first sentence.

3. “Hard to Make a Stand” (from Sheryl Crow) — I swear to Jesus, that catch in her throat during the final repetition of this song’s “hey there / miscreation” refrain, it gets me urry damn time.

4. “Solitaire” (from If I Were a Carpenter) — I love me some Karen Carpenter (and don’t even get that twisted!), but as far as I’m concerned, this is the definitive version of Neil Sedaka’s all-time classic.

5. “Mississippi” (from The Globe Sessions) — Dylan originally wrote it for his comeback record Time Out of Mind, then decided it didn’t work and offered it to Crow, who sings it as though she wrote it. In a career full of standout performances, this one’s easily in the top tier.

6. “Abilene” (from C’mon, C’mon) — not even Natalie Maines can ruin this track’s forlorn beauty.

7. “Shine Over Babylon” (from Detours) — the new record’s dense first single needs two or three listens to take hold, but wow, it doesn’t let go once it’s grabbed you. 2008’s single of the year derby is barely a month old, true enough, but you’re currently listening to its first front-runner.