The Five Most Anticipated Albums of Spring 2012

A pretty slow week for music releases (unless you’re a fan of the 90’s: Wilson Philips! Candlebox!!) and where spring has become a wasteland for new music ever since the major labels pushed 90% of major releases to the weeks before Christmas, there is a surprising glut of great music coming in the next couple weeks, here are the top five album I am must looking forward to in the next couple months.

1. …Little Broken Hearts – Norah Jones (May 1): Sure the spaghetti western soundtrack album Danger Mouse released last year was a bit of a letdown, but the three standout tracks all utilized the vocal talents of Norah Jones (sorry Jack White). The duo is back together for a new album, but unlike Danger’s previous duets with Cee-Lo and the dude from The Shins, no new band name instead the album is being released under Jones’s name. Despite the darkness of Rome’s tracks, the first single from …Little Broken Hearts is the bouncy break up song Happy Pills. And looking at other track names (Say Goodbye, Travlin’ On) we will be getting a full on break up album.

2. Born and Raised – John Mayer (May 22): Let’s get out of the way first: Mayer’s last album sucked massively because nobody wants to hear a concept album about dating and breaking up with Rachel Green. In the three year since the album his stupid mouth has gotten him much more publicity than his music but has been relatively quiet since starting recording the album, which may just be because of a lingering throat problem, but the first single Shadow Days suggest that he is truly sorry for saying things like how his genitalia is racist. I just hope the album is more on par with his first three.

3. What We Saw from the Cheap Seats – Regina Spektor (May 29): The first song off the new album from Spektor, All the Rowboats, sound darker than anything she has done before. This could be thanks to producer Mike Elizondo who is most famous for working with Dr. Dre but also produced that last album from fellow pianist Fiona Apple. But the second single, Don’t Leave Me does fit much better into her back catalogue, most because it is actually a new version of a song she released a decade ago.

4. Blunderbuss – Jack White (April 24): Now that he has stated no more new bands, Jack White is now on his own, but I get the sense we will still get the blues-pop-rock through a weird filter that we have come to love from the guitarist.

5. The Idler is wiser than the Driver of the Screw, and Whipping Cords will serve you more than Ropes will ever do – Fiona Apple (June): Much like her last album, Fiona’s new album has been sitting on the shelf for a while but will supposedly get a June release, though no specific date gives me pause that we will actually get to hear the album before then. Unless, of course, you caught her nine date tour last month where she unveiled some new song (I avoided listening to them because I do not like to judge songs based on a crappy YouTube recording). (Scooter Update: It seems like whenever I create one of these music preview lists, inevitably that day a major release gets announced and today was no difference as just an hour after I published this post, Fiona Apple wrote on her Facebook page that her album got an official release date: June 26 along with the cover art. No presale on Amazon as I write this update.)

And here are some other notable releases. Click on the album title to preorder on Amazon or the artist name to be taken to their iTunes page.

Today
Dedicated – Wilson Phillips
My Head Is an Animal – Of Monsters and Men
Bottoms Up – Obie Trice
Love Stories & Other Musings - Candlebox

April 10
Underwater Sunshine (or what we did on our summer vacation) – Counting Crows
Boys & Girls – Alabama Shakes
Slipstream – Bonnie Raitt
MTV Unplugged – Florence + The Machine
A Wasteland Companion – M. Ward
New Life – Monica
Scars On 45 – Scars On 45

April 17
Love Is a Four Letter Word – Jason Mraz
Picture Show – Neon Trees
California 37 – Train
I Missed Us - SWV
Moving Up Living Down – Eric Hutchinson

April 24
Speak in Code – Eve 6
This Machine – The Dandy Warhols
Landline – Greg Laswell

May 1
Blown Away – Carrie Underwood
Master of My Make-Believe – Santigold
Strange Clouds – B.o.B

May 8
Strangeland – Keane
After Hours – Glenn Frey
After Hours – Silversun Pickups

May 15
Not Your Kind Of People – Garbage
Heroes – Willie Nelson
Rize Of The Fenix – Tenacious D
The Only Place – Best Coast
Bloom – Beach House
Welcome To: Our House - Slaughterhouse

May 22
Apocalyptic Love - Slash

May 29
Here – Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros

June 5
Americana – Neil Young & Crazy Horse

June 12
The Bravest Man in the World – Bobby Womack
Sythetica – Metric

June 19
Cherry Thing – Neneh Cherry

June 26
Overexposed – Maroon 5

TBD
Handwritten – The Gaslight Anthem
The Diving Board – Elton John
Life Is Good – Nas
The Lion the Beast the Best – Grace Potter & The Nocturnals
Lollipops and Politics – V.V. Brown
Write Me Back – R. Kelly
Undisputed – DMX
Songs of Accent - U2
Mumford & Sons
The Avett Brothers
The Beach Boys
Bob Seger
D'Angelo
Diane Birch
Pearl Jam
Green Day
Linkin Park
Taylor Swift
M.I.A.
Wu-Tang Clan
The Offspring

And of course let’s not forget the obligatory this may be the quarter we finally get to hear Dr. Dre’s Detox.

The Voice Top 24 Power Rankings

Before I get into the Power Ranking of the Top 24, let me take a look back at The Post-Blind Auditions Power Rankings and of my top twenty-five, only thirteen moved on to the Live Shows. It did not help that six of the people on that list ended up battling each other. Also not helping: Cee-Lo Green’s horrible decision picking one of the Battles correctly by my calculations (Adam went 3-3; Christina 4-2; and Blake with an impressive 5-1). But enough with the sour grapes, the Live Shows start tonight and here is my rankings of all the singers left (assuming the producers have not stepped in and replaced Erin with The Shields Brothers! like they should).

1. Jesse Campbell

2. Lindsey Pavao

3. Jermaine Paul

4. Tony Lucca

5. Mathai

6. Charlotte Sometimes

7. Jamar Rogers

8. Naia Kete

9. Sera Hill

10. Katrina Parker

11. Ashley De La Rosa

12. Juliet Simms

13. RaeLynn

14. Cheesa

15. Pip

16. Jordis Unga

17. Karla Davis

18. Erin Willett

19. Chris Mann

20. Kim Yarbrough

21. Tony Vincent

22. Moses Stone

23. James Massone

24. Erin Martin

Even though the teams will not go head to head until the Finals, it is still fun to see how the teams stack up. Going into the Battles, Adam had a slight edge over Christina while Blake was battling Cee-Lo for the bottom. What a difference a month makes because of his shrewd battle round chooses, Blake has pulled even with Christina while Cee-Lo put a huge gap near the bottom thanks to having three of the four worst singers going into the Live Shows. Here is how it works point wise if you assign one point for the worst singer and twenty-four to the best.

Christina – 86
Blake – 86
Adam – 79
Cee-Lo - 49 (having three of the four worst singers left in the compitition does not help)

No official word of which teams are up first, but my sources team me that Christina and Blake’s teams will perform tonight. Unfortunately there will not be a week of voting this year (seriously, why not the results show on Sunday? Do they really need two hours of Donald Trump?) so I will be updating this space with the best of tonight’s performances (maybe). And this year there will be four ways you can vote, like last year there will be a phone number for each contestant, NBC.com, and iTunes downloads (clink on the names above to be taken to their iTunes page to download their songs). And the newest way to vote is with a Timeline app on Facebook, whatever that means.

Updated: I'm voting for Lindsey Pavao, Jesse Campbell, Ashley De La Rosa on Team Christina and Jermaine Paul, Charlotte Sometimes, and RaeLynn for Team Blake.

Predictions: Lindsey, Jesse and Chris Mann will be safe and Christina will save Ashley.

Jermaine, Charlotte, and RaeLynn will be safe and Blake will save Erin Willett.

Science and Progress Do Not Speak as Loud as my Heart

When people hear “power ballad” they conjure up visions of hair metal bands swaying their guitars in unison while lighters flicker across the arena. But if a power ballad is just a ballad that climaxes with an epic guitar near the end, then no one does power ballads in modern times better than Coldplay. The built their career on writing love songs with an extra kick to them that launched a couple thousand copy cats last decade. If Coldplay introduced this sound with Parachutes, they perfected it with A Rush of Blood to the Head, this month's induction into the Scooter Hall of Fame.

There were plenty of soaring ballads like on their album including one of their best The Scientist, a song so lovely you are not even distracted by the clunky title. It was even accompanied by a brilliant backwards music video that went back to the start just as the song suggested. And of course the song ends with their signature crunching guitars. But no song on the album (or in the band’s catalogue) builds to an epic conclusion quite as good as the album closer Amsterdam with a closing coda you just have to sing along with.

The band even took out the power with pure ballads like the sweet Green Eyes. Warning Sign was another stand out track that worked that middle ground between power ballad and pure ballad where singer Chris Martin yearns for a lost love with lyrics like, “And the truth is I miss you.” The song is a must for any break up mixtape.

As great as the power ballads on the album are, A Rush of Blood to the Head is where the band dropped the ballad completely on some songs and just brought the power. The opening song Politik was a the real rush of blood to head into where the band really sets the tone of the album with the frantic drums, piano, and guitars that give way to Pink Floyd style verses before hitting you over the head again at that chorus. But Politk just sets you up for not only the best song on the album, the second best song from the 00’s with Clocks, a song so great, the moment I heard it I had to dust of my piano, download the sheet music and give it a try myself. After listening to Parachute, you could tell the band was heading for something great, but I am not sure even the early fanatic would have guess something as great as A Rush of Blood to the Head was coming down the pipeline.

57 Channels and Only This Is On - 3/31/12

Once Upon a Time: Of course the Mad Hatter is the only Storybooke character that know who he really is. Which begs the question how did Lewis Carroll find out about the fairytale land?
You can stream current episodes on Hulu. You can also download Once Upon a Time on iTunes.

Shameless: That Spam turkey looked really awesome.

House of Lies: I do not know what it says about me that I have talked up my mixtapes the same way Doug does. I even made a 9/11 mix. On the bright side, I have never had sex with my boss’s daughter to get back at me for screwing me over.

The Voice: And we are done with the Battle Rounds. Thank goodness. Even though I approved the expanded Blind Auditions, I could do with less Battle Rounds, The could have easily gone eight battles a night over three weeks instead of six over four weeks. Or just shorten it to two weeks and lumped a bunch of the battles via montage.

Even though Ashley De La Rosa lessened the shock of montage singers making it to the live shows, it is still shocking to Karla Davis and Moses Stone advance, especially Moses who defeated the four chair turners The Line (for those keeping track at home, that is two four chair turners sitting at home right now). I am going to miss the duo and their laughably bad sexual chemistry. And Orlando Napier really screwed himself by letting Adam switch their song from Rich Girl, which was right his blue-eyed soul alley to Easy which suited her mellow vibe more. But anyone who does not know the entire Hall and Oates catalogue should not be on a singing competition in the first place.

But as bad as the Battle Rounds have been, it was nice that NBC forced some synergy and let Community’s Jeff Winger and Dean Pelton close the show with an epic romantic duet.



You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can download songs by the winners in the widget at right. And be on the lookout for my Top 24 Power Rankings tomorrow.

Castle: You know what; I could really do without the subplot of Castle telling Beckett he loved her when she was shot. That can go away. Unfortunately looking at the promo for next week, which will not be going away.
You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Castle on iTunes.

Justified: I have long considered this season a four person chess match between Raylan, Quarrels, Boyd, and Limehouse, but I forgot a very important piece on the board of Dickie Bennett and his three million dollars which could go to the winner of the match (and I would venture to say at the very least the dead last loser will end up, well, dead).
You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Justified on iTunes.

Survivor: One World: How dare Tarzan even suggest that Kat should be voted out? Without her, who would there be to fart on people and ask the meanings of fairly common worlds? Actually I hope that the next Survivor All-Stars season is Morons vs. Masterminds with Kat as the queen moron. Speaking of morons, how dumb are the people who lost the Reward Challenge? Of course the “secret” letter that Probst gave the winners was going to tell them there was a Hidden Immunity Idol, so why not spend the time while the winners were away to search for it?
You can stream recent episodes over at cbs.com.



The Challenge: Battle of the Exes: An epic fail on the wardrobe department. Seriously, how hard would it have been to have three distinctively covered coats so we could tell the teams apart?
You can stream recent episodes over at mtv.com. You can also download The Challenge: Battle of the Exes on iTunes.

Community: Now that Chuck is over, is Community the next low rated series on NBC that Subway is going to save? Kind of an evil genius marketing ploy that I am surprised more companies are not getting on. Speaking of evil, is the newly goateed John Goodman the same Dean of the air conditioning school from earlier this season or is he from the evil timeline? I cannot believe that was a coincidence.
You can stream current episodes on Hulu. You can also download Community on iTunes.

Best of the Week - 3/30/12

Quote of the Week: We just shot the guy that’s looking to kill the guy you’re dying to see dead. (Art, Justified)

Song of the Week: Zou Bisou, Bisou – Megan Draper (Mad Men)

Scene of the Week:



Big News of the Week: Trayvon Martin: I am not going to pretend I knew what happened during the shooting like many of the talking heads on television or the internet, but I will saw the Stand Your Ground Law is the dumbest idea ever in the history of dumb idea. It gives carte blanche to anyone who “thinks” they are being threatened, but if that law was ever instituted here I would fear threatened just for walking outside not knowing that someone having a bad day with a gun could take homage of a perceived slight from me.

Preview Picture of the Week:



Free Download of the Week: Pilot - Don't Trust the (Expletive Deleted) in Apartment 23 (iTunes)

Deal of the Week: Save up to 62% on Select HBO Favorites (Game of Thrones, Rome, Eastbound and Down)

New Album Release of the Week: My Head Is an Animal - Of Monsters and Men

New DVD Release of the Week: Eagleheart: Season One

Video of the Week: Ladies and gentlemen, the greatest acoustic metal band of all time is back. Yes Tenacious D are releasing a new album. And for those wondering what the band has been up to since The Pick of Destiny bombed at the box office, this video, complete with Val Kilmer, and, um, Josh Grobin, should catch you up.



Next Week Pick of the Week: Shameless, Sunday at 9:00 on Showtime: A lot went down last week with Karen giving birth to an Asian kid that her mother took from the hospital, Steve Jimmy giving his identity to his wife’s boyfriend, Harry Hamlin got naked, oh yeah, and Monica slit her wrists. All those plotlines play out tonight with some shocking endings (and Hamlin’s appearance proves not to be a one off as Ian runs into him is a surprising situation). And for those disappointed at Fiona’s ability to keep herself fully clothed that last couple episodes, you should be happy with tonight’s episode.

Around the Tubes - 3/29/12

I have gotten a plethora of cool press releases have been flooding my inbox recently that you may find interesting. This post will include blurbs on Dallas, The Borgias, Nurse Jackie, The Big C, Full Metal Jousting, Craigslist TV, Hungry for Change, Kid’s Choice Awards, and The Song That Changed My Life.

- TNT has released another teaser campaign for their upcoming Dallas reboot giving a nod to the famous “it was all a dream” twist from the original run when a very not dead Bobby walked out of the shower. The new incarnation hits your cable box June 13.



- The Borgias, Nurse Jackie, and The Big C all return next weekend, but for those that cannot wait for their returns; you can find them on show.com, YouTube and maybe even on your OnDemand channels.

- For fans of Full Metal Jousting who wonder what it would be like to joust against one of your friends, here is a video of Paul Suda and Josh Knowles talking about putting their friendship aside when they went head to head in the first quarterfinal.



- A new season of Craigslist TV starts up tomorrow on YouTube. The first episode of Season 4, "Be My Bodyguard" features JT, a Whitney Houston-obsessed karaoke host, as he searches for a Kevin Costner-esque "bodyguard" in LA.

- From now until March 31, you can watch Hungry for Change for free over at gaiamtv.com. The movie exposes shocking secrets the diet, weight loss and food industries don't want you to know. Discover the deceptive strategies designed to keep you craving more and more.

- With the Kid’s Choice Awards this weekend, SodaHead.com has conducted a poll of the most popular family entertainment over the past three decades from music to music.

- New program alert! Premiering on BYUtv this Sunday is The Song That Changed My Life where artists like Tony-award winning Broadway star Lea Salonga and Billboard chart record breaker, Grammy-award winning Duncan Sheik talk about that one special song that made them realize that could or should make music themselves.

Previewing Wicked Tuna

For anyone who like fishing or listening to Boston accents, I have a show for you: Wicked Tuna. (Full Disclosure Notice: I hate Boston, I hate Bill Belechicken, I hate the roided up Red Sox, I hate Ben Affleck, I hate Marky Mark, I hate Mitt Romney, I hate Jimmy Fallon, I hate the Boston dude from The Voice, I even hated the Boston season of The Real World; Boston is one step above Jersey Shore on the annoying places scale) The series follows around five boats (only three are shown in the premiere episode) sailing out of America’s oldest seaport, Gloucester, Mass looking to hook them a bluefin tuna.

Stakes are high because every time they head out to sea will coast them about $3,000 between fuel and other costs of fishing so if them come back without a catch, they are out a lot of money. But catching just one bluefin can bring you into the black on the trip and you may need to catch multiple fish just to make money on your trip. Keep in mind that catching bluefin tuna is not as easy as throwing out a line and coming back empty-handed is a real possibility especially when you are fighting against the other boat and other dangers at sea.

Even though the fisherman are the main focus of the show, Wicked Tuna does touch on the very real realities of overfishing that have dwindled the bluefin tuna over the year to the point one scientist called them the bison on the sea. National Geographic has even set up a website for Wicked Tuna that features an in-depth article on the history of how bluefin got where they are today (they are currently classified as a “species of concern” by the government), as well as information and links to the many different stakeholders in the survival of this species.

Wicket Tuna airs Sundays at 10:00 on the National Geographic Channel. But who cares what I think about the show, you can actually watch it yourself over at natgeotv.com or on the National Geographic Facebook page. For those that want to wait to watch it on your television, check out the trailer below:

Trailer

We’re Gonna Party, Karamu, Fiesta, Forever

It is a shame that time has almost completely forgotten Lionel Richie. He was on the eighties music Mt. Rushmore with Michael Jackson, Prince, and Bruce Springsteen but is now put into categories with other cheesy eighties acts like Culture Club. Like most eighties acts, the nineties were not kind to Richie, it probably did not help he went ten years in-between releasing a new album after the smash hit Dancing on the Ceiling. Even worse, last decade he became known primarily as Nicole Richie’s dad even though he released an otherwise ignored solid Coming Home album.

Know like many pop acts of the past decade that saw their record sales go south, Lionel is going country. But unlike someone like Jessica Simpson, Richie has a history in country, writing Kenny Rogers’s number one country hit Lady. Also Lionel is taking baby steps into the genre rerecording thirteen songs from his catalogue for Tuskegee with a who’s who of country stars from Blake Shelton (Lionel has been mentoring Blake’s rivals currently on The Voice, so hopefully a performance will be soon coming on the show), Sugarland’s Jennifer Nettles (who will be competing against Richie on the upcoming vocal competition Duets), recent country convert Darius Rucker, and of course Kenny Roger who shares his former song Lady with the songwriter.

Songs range from his Commodores days to the hit making eighties that everyone know and for those that have never heard Just for You, it comes from Lionel’s little heard 2004 album of the same name (sorry Billy Currington, you drew the short straw on that one). Not surprisingly the songs can be pretty much hit or miss, Shelton, with all the time hanging around Cee Lo Green, adapts himself well to You Are. But on Say You, Say Me, now with slide guitar, Jason Aldean and his very thick country accent really drags down the song which is probably why his voice does not pop up until the second verse. Hello gets creepier thanks to Nettles but she also overpowers the song more than what it needs.

Sail On which was the most country ready song in Richie repertoire works nicely with the added Tim McGraw vocals. And the harmonies of Little Big Town start Deep River Woman off nicely in one of the few songs where Lionel’s voice is not the first week here. The old guard of Richie and Willie Nelson suits Easy well and may even leave you disappointed that Willie has not tacked the classic sooner. Tuskegee ends with All Night Long with Jimmy Buffett and Corel Reefer Band bringing even more party to the song, along with some steel drums, with the song being as awesome as you would have expected when you saw it on the track listing. But most of Tuskegee, you are left wishing that Lionel Richie would have just recorded countrified versions of his songs by himself.

Song to Download – All Night Long

Tuskegee gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.

First Impressions: Mad Men 5.x

All the pretentious Mad Men fans like to go on and on about the time jumps between season of Mad Men and how they are able to guess when the new season is taking place in no time, and this was actually the first time I actually cared enough to realize how far ahead the show went when I noticed that Baby Gene was still a baby. Although I almost thought the show went backwards in time after seeing Bobby Draper managing to get younger.

So here we are about six months later (I am still not pretentious enough to pin down the exact length of time) and apparently the new car smell might be wearing off the new Draper nuptials. As previous notch in his bedpost Dr. Miller so aptly predicted last season, Don only likes stuff that are new (she also correctly predicted he would be married within a year early last season). Note to any secretary who marries her boss who happens to have stolen someone else’s identify, throwing him a surprise party for his fake birthday may not be the best idea no matter how many awkwardly awesome Zoo Be Zoo dances you do for him at the party.

But more surprising than his party is that the marriage may actually work. Megan can play the mother that Don has be searching for all his life by monitoring his alcohol intake and she will even clean the apartment in her underwear (I bet she is up for punching him in bed too). You know that is something Betty (who thankfully was absent for the first two hours) would never do, mostly because that is something for the help and if she were to do it, she would dress in her Sundays best while doing it. Megan is Don’s mother, wife, and mistress all rolled into one. I may even take the under for number of women Don has sex with this season. Has Vegas even released their Mad Men prop bets yet?

I have long thought that Peggy Olsen would end up being the new Don Draper, she has her own secret life, but I am wondering if Pete Campbell may be filling those shoes who thanks to Peggy’s secret has his own (even if we have not seen or heard about him for about two season). And when he walked into him home in the suburbs, I actually had visions of his own Draper Manor and now has the same amount of kids as Don had during season one and even started feuding with Roger Sterling. All he needs now is his own unattractive bohemian mistress.

But the reason I continue to watch Mad Men after the boring first two seasons, is that around the third it surprisingly got funny. Well that and everyone could use more Annie Edison in their lives. There was plenty to laugh at. Bert Cooper arguing with Peggy’s hippie boyfriend, Roger and his teen bride ruining the surprise party, Lane continuing to be a creepy perv to poor effect, the unintended result of SCDP’s help wanted ad, the bean ballet, the partner’s meeting Pete’s office, Roger’s first meeting with his baby and how the baby got around, and Harry Crane’s recreation of Megan’s dance. Zoo Be Zoo indeed.

Mad Men airs Sundays at 10:00 on AMC. You can download Mad Men on iTunes. You can even buy the Zoo Be Zoo song sung by Megan Draper herself on iTunes.