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.