The Ten Most Anticipated Albums of Fall 2010

We are coming upon the fourth quarter which means record companies will actually start releasing albums in hopes that you will buy some to giveaway at Christmas. Please note that release dates are subject to change. Click the album name (or album artwork) to pre-order it on Amazon. Click the artist’s name for their iTunes page.

1. Dark Twisted Fantasy (working title) – Kanye West (11/16): He really shouldn’t be this high considering his last album was one of the worst of last decade. But this will be a return to rap, and it is hard not to get excited when the album will be headlined by two stellar tracks, Power and Runaway. I suspect there will be plenty of toasting to this douchebag this fall.

2. Speak Now - Taylor Swift (10/25): And how can you mention Kanye West without Taylor Swift? She gave us a definitive answer at the Video Music Awards to the question of if she would be addressing the Kanye incident from last year on the new album. Between Innocent and Mine, it sounds like Taylor is growing up quickly and moving further away from her country roots.

3. Wake Up! – John Legend & The Roots (Today): Fall 2010 looks like the season of collaborations with Ben Folds teaming with writer Nick Hornsby, Elthon John recording with his idol Leon Russell, and Mark Ronson hooking up with, well, everyone. But the union I am most interested in is this one from The Roots and John Legend covering mostly obscure soul records.

4. Record Collection – Mark Ronson & The Business Intl. (9/28): After bringing retro back in style with Amy Winehouse, Lily Allen, and his second album, Ronson has been working with Duran Duran and that comes though in a big way on this album which sounds very synth heavy. Look for appearances by Q-Tip, Ghostface Killer, Boy George, D’Angelo, and Simon LeBon himself.

5. Come Around Sundown – Kings of Leon (10/19): After their breakout with Only by the Night it is interesting how the Followell boys will follow up the success. From the sound of first single Radioactive, it will be more of the same.

6. Hands all Over – Maroon 5 (Today): After a pretty good debut album, every successive Maroon 5 album has gotten blander than the previous one. First single Misery doesn’t give me too much hope that Hands all Over will turn that around, but the album was produced by hair-band uber-producer Mutt Lange, so maybe it will be worth a listen.

7. Second Chance - El DeBarge (9/28): C’mon, who isn’t down with an El Debarge comeback? One can only be disappointed in that he didn’t bring the whole family with him.

8. Lonely Avenue – Ben Folds and Nick Hornby (9/28): Here was an album I had to do a double take when I first saw it announced. Quirky pop master Ben Folds and novelist Nick Hornby. For illiterates like me that are unaware of Hornby, his books that have been turned into movies include High Fidelity (which was number 10 on my list of The 100 Greatest Movies of the 00’s), About a Boy, and Fever Pitch (but do not blame him about the horrible adaptation because his book was actually about soccer). Hornby contributed the lyrics with Folds coming up with the music including a song about Alaska’s least favorite son Levi Johnston.

9. The Lady Killer - Cee Lo Green (12/7): I really was not interested in a Cee-Lo album that didn’t involve Danger Mouse, but after hearing the ultra-catchy (Explative Deleted) You, color me intrigued. But seriously, after this, lets get another Gnarls Barkley album out please.

10. Hot Sauce Committee part 1 - Beastie Boys (TBA): Putting this on the list may be a bit of wishful thinking because there is no release date announced yet, but with Adam Yauch doing better these days, he’s hoping he is well enough to do the rigors that surround promoting a new album.




Other albums of note:

Today
The Sound of Sunshine – Michael Franti and Spearhead
Guitar Heaven: The Greatest Guitar Classics of All Time – Santana
You Get What You Give – Zac Brown Band
A Year Without Rain – Selena Gomez and the Scene

September 28
Clapton – Eric Clapton
Invented – Jimmy Eat World
Pete Yorn – Pete Yorn
Le Noise – Neil Young
6: Commitment - Seal
The Dissent of Man – Bad Religion
Going Back – Phil Collins

October 5
Tiger Suit – KT Tunstall
Glow – Donavon Frankenreiter

October 12
Charleston, SC 1966 – Darius Rucker
The Rock and the Tide – Joshua Radin
The Age of Adz – Sufjan Stevens

October 19
Sale el Sol - Shakira
The Union – Elton John and Leon Russell
Libra Scale – Ne-Yo
Fly Me to the Moon... The Great American Songbook Volume V - Rod Stewart

October 26
Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager - Kid Cudi

November 2
...Featuring Norah Jones – Norah Jones
National Ransom – Elvis Costello
Dreams – Neil Diamond
Sidewalks – Matt and Kim

November 16
Born Free – Kid Rock
Loud – Rihanna

November 23
Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes – Social Distortion

Unknown Dates
Songs of Ascent – U2
The Believer – Common
Walk with Me Now and Fly with Me Later – DMX
Give Till it’s Gone – Ben Harper and Relentless7
Nothing – N.E.R.D.

And what would a music preview be without an obligatory this may actually be the season that Dr. Dre releases Detox mention.

Previewing The Event

Back in the first year of Lost, I was so invested; I re-watched the show during its summer repeats to try to catch anything I missed the first time around. I know it was all for naught because 99% of the mysteries on the show was just a big red herring. I bring this up because during every commercial break I was stuck hearing some annoying kid say, “Mom, you smell different” to the point of when Invasion started up that fall I was already sick of the show. I have to imagine anyone who watched any of NBC’s summer shows are tired of hearing, “We have a problem, he’s going to tell him about… The Event.” Thankfully I already know that America doesn’t have talent, so I am only mildly annoyed by the campaign.

Invasion of course was added to the schedule to capitalize on Lost’s success, but much like Lost, Invasion (as well as Surface, Threshold, Heroes, The Nine, Jericho, Journeyman, Bionic Woman, Life on Mars, Day One, Flashforward, and Persons Unknown) is no longer on the air. That hasn’t NBC from trying to recreate that half season buzz they produced themselves during that three episode arc when Heroes didn’t absolutely suck with two shows announced for this television season.

The only one on this fall will be The Event (The Cape is set for midseason, but then again so was Day One last year). It is hard to talk about the show without spoiling it because everything seems to tie into each other. So if you watched Lost to analyze the going on’s of the Dharma Initiative and could have care less about if Kate ended up with Jack or Sawyer, The Event may be for you. And the show does promise the answers will come quickly. Even mentioning some actors in the cast may be too much of a spoiler and certainly explaining why they are on the show are some.

What we do know:

1. The disappearance is not The Event. So Jason Ritter (Joan of Arcadia) and the moderately attractive Sarah Roemer (Fired Up) are on a romantic cruise and of course just when he is about to propose she disappears. And not just goes missing, but disappears with no trace of her ever being on the boat. Do we find out in the Pilot where she goes: no.

2. The CIA cover up is not The Event. Perennial creepy dude Željko Ivanek (Live Free or Die Hard) is the Director of National Intelligence who failed to inform the President of a hundred detainees, led by ER’s Laura Innes. Do we learn why they were detained: no.

3. The assassination plot is not The Event. Blair Underwood (Deep Impact) is the black president with a Hispanic name (take that President Palmer) who sees an airplane barreling toward him during a press conference. Do who know who is piloting the plane: yes (though not who is behind the pilot).

Of course the big question is do we actually learn what The Event is? Not only do you learn what The Event is, you learn of it in the very first scene (I think, something big happens though no one comes out and says, “you see what just happened there, that is The Event we are talking about”) though you won’t know what the frack is going on until the final scene of the episode.

Yep that means we will be doing the time warp pretty early in the show and quite frequently. And this isn’t like Lost where they (usually) fliped in-between two different linear storylines, The Event bounces between three non-linear storylines (Ritter’s, Underwood’s, and CIA agent played by Ian Anthony Dale, Mr. 3000) throughout the whole episode to the point where you wished you took notes because sometimes it is hard to wrap your head around what is going on. So if you added to Lostpedia, this show is definitely for you. Just demand to the writers on The Event that they are not allowed to close the series finale in a church in purgatory.

The Event airs Mondays at 9:00 on NBC.


One quick note on the show that will follow The Event, Chase is your run of the mill Jerry Bruckheimer event. It shows some flashes but is at the end of the day very bland. Less than half way through I thought how they could not have caught the fugitive of the week by now? And the casting is pretty laughable; seriously, the gardener from Desperate Housewives? I guess after assembling most of the main cast of Swinf@n on the network, NBC next will try recruiting actors from John Tucker Must Die with Brittany Snow attached to a midseason show (I can not imagine Sophia Bush has anything better thing to do to create the trifecta). But if you like procedural cop shows, you can do much worse, you will still be better off waiting for the return of the much more superior show about a federal marshal, Justified.