The Most Anticipated Albums of Spring 2010

Record executives recently realized that the only time people actually buy music these days are when they are buying it for someone else and so there are an overabundance of titles that come out in the fourth quarter, big releases in the other three are far and few in between. Here are the five that will be released over the next couple months followed by a broader chronological list. Please note that release dates are subject to change. Click the album name (or album artwork) for an album is available for pre-order on Amazon. Click the artist’s name for their iTunes directory.

1. Brothers – The Black Keys (May 18): Inevitably whenever you make a list a hundred deep, no matter how much research you do, you are bound to forget something. The day after I posted The 100 Greatest Duos of the 00’s, I was in the shower and realized, oh crap, I forget Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney. I am sure I will be beating my head even more when I get a listen to their latest. The boys are back to their do it yourself esthetic after their turn to Danger Mouse who produced Attack and Release (he is back for one track, the first single Tighten Up).

2. To the Sea – Jack Johnson (June 1): Thankfully the greedy record execs are not holding this out for Christmas time because if there is an artist that should be listened to during the summer not while there is snow on the ground, it is Jack Johnson. Look out for the new single You and Your Heart coming to an adult contemporary station any day now.

3. Court Yard Hounds – Court Yard Hounds (May 4): You may not recognize the band name, but you know it members, the sister two thirds of the Dixie Chick. Emily has taken over the singing and writing (with the exception of Marti who takes lead on one track). The album will also feature a duet with Jakob Dylan.

4. Bionic – Christina Aguilera (June 8): Like most double albums, Back to Basics could have sufficed as a single disk. Four years after that release, Christina is back and brought with her an eclectic group of songwriters and producers for Bionic including M.I.A., Sia, La Tigre, Polow da Don (The Neptunes (rumored) and longtime collaborator Linda Perry who co-wrote You Life Me up which debut during the Haiti marathon.

5. How I Got Over – The Roots (June 8): I believe I included this in my album rundown last fall, here’s hoping it finally reached the light of day this summer.


Today
Women and Country – Jakob Dylan
I Learned the Hard Way – Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings
Midnight Souvenirs – Peter Wolf

April 13
Leave Your Sleep – Natalie Merchant

April 20
My Best Friend Is You – Kate Nash
Tears, Lies and Alibis – Shelby Lynne
Country Music – Willie Nelson
Rise Up – Cypress Hill

April 27
Nobody’s Daughter – Hole
Sparks Fly – Miranda Cosgrove

May 4
Live at the Troubadour – James Taylor and Carol King
Tonic – Tonic
Pulse – Toni Braxton
Uni-5: The World’s Enemy – Bone Thugs-N-Harmony

May 11
Sea of Cowards – The Dead Weather
Night Train – Keane

May 18
The Archandroid - Janelle Monáe

May 25
Stone Temple Pilots – Stone Temple Pilots
Distant Relatives – Nas and Damien Marley

June 1
Shout it Out – Hanson

June 8
We Are Born – Sia
Grace Potter and the Nocturnals - Grace Potter and the Nocturnals
Destroyer of the Void – Blitzen Trapper

June 15
The Laws of Illusions – Sarah McLachlan

June 22
The Sellout – Macy Gray

No Release Date Yet (So I would not expect them until fall)
Songs of Ascent – U2
Hot Sauce Committee, Pt 1 – Beastie Boys
Life Styles - Nelly Furtado
Hands All Over – Maroon 5
Everything Comes and Goes – Michelle Branch
The Business – Mark Ronson
100 Miles to Memphis – Sheryl Crow
Mojo – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Relapse 2 - Eminem
Fresh – Devo
TBA – Sara Bareilles
TBA – KT Tunstall

And of course, what would a music preview be with the obligatory; maybe this will be the season that we actually get to hear Dr. Dre’s Detox.

Previewing Expedition Wild and Mystery Gorillas

Remember the horrible Eddie Murphy version of Dr. Doolittle where he tried to adapt a circus bear into the wild to mildly humorous effect. That is kind of what is going on with Expedition Wild: Project Kodiak premiering tonight at 9:00 on Nat Geo Wild. Casey Anderson is traveling to Kodiak, Alaska to view grizzly bears in the wild so he can teach his 900 hundred pound buddy Brutus to live like his relatives do like swimming in water and even create a waterfall to reenact a bear trying to catch a salmon swimming upstream. Along the trip, we even get a cameo from one of the stars from Soul Plane (no seriously, it took me a couple minutes to realize what I was seeing) who takes on Casey in a game of fly fishing.

Future episodes of Expedition Wild will focus on the wild wolves of Yellowstone, a journey with Casey trekking through Yellowstone during two key seasons – winter and spring – documenting every living thing he encounters; and a one hour special with the complete history of his relationship with Brutus. Check out a preview of tonight’s episode below:



The other programming premiering tonight right after Expedition Wild is Mystery Gorillas at 10:00. The show follows explorer Mireya Mayor as she immerse herself in the jungles of Africa studying wild gorillas including one that they affectionately call Ugly. They even discover gorillas using tools for the first time viewed by a human. But my favorite part of show is how all the westerners are dressed in earth tones that border on camouflage while the native tour guide wears a very bright colored basketball jersey. Check out a clip below:

57 Channels and Only This Is On vol. CXXIV

Quote of the Week: I feel like I’m in a Godzilla movie. (Keamy, Lost)

Song of the Week: Hello – Lionel Richie (as sung by Dan LeBatard, Pardon the Interruption)

Big News of the Week: Charlie Sheen Leaving Two and a Half Men (But Probably Not): Not to self: if I ever become the highest paid actor on television and still want more money, but don’t want people to realize my greediness, drop a news story on April 1st so all the commoners think it is an Aprils Fool joke while my bosses get worried that I may end the most watched sitcom so I get even more money. Brilliant.

Gratuitous Token Hot Chick Picture of the Week:




Tool Academy: The problem with past Tool Academy seasons is the less Tools there are, the less entertaining the show gets. How do you alleviate the problem: chick fight. Every week I would have guessed the Neandratool would be the one going home, and now he has to be the odds on favorite to win it all. You can stream recent episodes over at vh1.com. You can also download Tool Academy on iTunes.

Chuck: If Shaw is this great CIA agent, scaling the ranks at breakneck speed, how is he that stupid not to realize that The Ring doctored the footage of his wife’s murder (at least that is the assumption I am going under)? And why frame Sarah? Wouldn’t The Ring rather Shaw dead than have him kill Sarah in revenge? Unless The Ring hopes to flip him thinking the CIA had his wife killed. But at least civilian Casey is still highly entertaining with him still breaking and entering, the stakeout, ending up in jail and, wow, he told Sarah that he killed the mole. You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Chuck on iTunes.

Greek: Here’s hoping that Casey and Cappie actually stay broken p this time but since they are placing the seeds of her staying at CRU, I am really not holding my breath for that one. Just let her graduate, go off to grad school in Washington and end the show that way because I see that show tanking creatively if they keep all the seniors around even though they graduated. If the show does stick around, pull a Friday Night Lights and let the seniors leave and just restock the cast and let Rusty, Calvin and Rebecca be the leads. You can stream recent episodes on Hulu.



Lost: Holy One Eyed Willie sighting! Except he has two eyes! Well he did until Jin shot one out. I guess we know now how he lost his eye. Sort of. Almost. Well not really but at this point I take any almost answer Lost gives me these days. I am sure I would have enjoyed this episode a lot more had the host of Dancing with the Has Beens and Never Weres didn’t spoil the episode by announcing what was coming up on the show. But that still didn’t beat the V countdown clock that obscured Sun’s writing. I have resigned myself that networks will never get rid of these screen covering practicing, but is it too hard to ask that they make sure that they are not covering anything important? You can stream recent episodes on Hulu.



Justified: I love how stupid the bad guys are on this show. How big is your ego when you think you can outdraw a US Marshall who is famous for killing a dude by outdrawing him? Then practice drawing with a loaded weapon. You knew someone was going to die. It is like the bad guys think they are the greatest chess players ever while Raylin is playing three dimensional chess. You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Justified on iTunes.

Parenthood: The show really likes to get Erika Christensen in the pool which is hard not to think Swimf@n whenever they do it. Here’s hoping one of the kids joins the swim team with coach played by Jessie Bradford. You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Parenthood on iTunes.

Modern Family: I really hope Apple enjoyed their half hour infomercial about how their customers are humongous losers. But I think this was the first episode where Phil actually made me laugh multiple times. You can stream recent episodes on Hulu.



Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains: What is great about the two most overrated Survivors going after each other is that you know one will be going home sooner than later. And neither Boston Rob or Russell have noticed that their tribe has voted out three straight guys, the exact same strategy that Parvati used in her winning season. And if the preview is any indication, the Villains will go three straight entertaining tribal councils. You can stream recent episodes over at cbs.com.



Free Download of the Week: Stole My Heart – Little and Ashley: For those that have seen the new commercial for Kindle and wondered what the song in the ad is, here it is and for the low, low price of free.

Deal of the Week: Blu Ray Sale (Up, Enchanted, The Chronicles of Narnia)

Video of the Week: The Muppets are getting ready for Easter tomorrow with this odd Ben E. King inspired video. Thankfully Statler and Waldorf come in the end to (almost) make sense of it all.



Next Week Pick of the Week: Tool Academy, Sunday (4/4) at 9:00 on VH1: It is odd that they wouldn’t air an episode against the Oscars, but will air the season finale on Easter. Hopefully next week we get a reunion show which we didn’t get last season. They can even bring in former Tool Academy alum and Tiger Woods mistress Jamie Grubbs for an update of what she has been up to since being on the show.

Get in My Belly

With apologies to The Jerk, there has been no bigger fool on the big screen in my life time than Austin Powers. Raised on the free love of the 60’s, Powers selfishly cryogenically froze himself when his nemesis Dr. Evil did the same, so they could continue their feud at a later time. That ended up being a cultural opposite of the happy sixties, the drab 90’s and International Man of Mystery was the ultimate fish out of water movie played to hilarious effect.

As great of the first movie was, the second, The Spy that Shagged Me remains its best. Thanks to Heather Graham, in one of only two roles she wasn’t completely horrible in (the other being Boogie Night which can say something about her personally), as the female version of Austin that he teams up with when Dr. Evil time jumps back to the 60’s. And then Mike Myers manages to create an even creepier character than Dr. Evil, Fat Bastard, a real life version of Jabba the Hut. And of course, there was nothing more entertaining than Mini-Me.

Sure Goldmember was a colossal disappointment and many of the most memorable lines from the franchise have been beaten to death more than any other quotes in the past decade other than “I think I threw up a little in my mouth” (though I still like to throw out “She’s a man, baby” every once in a while) but Austin Power still deserves a spot in the Scooter Hall of Fame. There are rumors of Mike Myers working on a fourth and here is hoping it is better than recent trilogy killers like the recent Indiana Jones movie. Or at the very least have a line or two we can beat into the ground for the next five years.

I Want My Music Television vol. LXXVII

There have been a couple of videos that have caught my eye lately so I thought I’d give them some love since the death of Musical Television left a void for a forum on the art form. If you are interested in buying the video through iTunes, click the title link (where available). If you are interested in buying the song, look for a link in the analysis.


Window Seat - Erykah Badu



Yes this is the video that has had the internets all a flutter the last couple days. Yes it draws a thin line between “Inspired by” and “Completely rip off.” Yes it pretty offensive. Yes it is a little offensive. But hats off to Erykah Badu for getting the entire internet, including myself, to post it.


Stop for a Minute – Keane and K’Naan



Even though we have not even reached April yet, I think we can go ahead and call the race for most random collaboration of 2010 and declare Keane and K’Naan the winner.


Soundtrack 2 My Life – Kid Cudi




Meet Me in the Sky – Bone Thugs-N-Harmony



Bone Thugs-N-Harmory won the Most Random Collaberation a few years back when they teamed up with Phil Collins (no, seriously). And it hard to hate on Kid Cudi when he is making Charles in Charge references, but I am not sure what it says about my hometown that the two rap artist that come from my area are Bone, who no one can understand (and should have stopped with Tha Crossroads when it came to a memorial song), and Cudi, who brought emo-rap to the mainstream. Yep, that pretty much sums up Cleveland.

Previewing Rebel Monkeys

Want to watch a show that features a group that stealthily steals to make their way and causing havoc on their city while trying to avoid people trying to lock them up, fight with other gangs for territory and the leader has even more problems with members of his group are gunning for his title as leader. Nope this isn’t the latest offering from HBO (but the leads show plenty of skin) but this is Rebel Monkeys, the first offering from the new network Nat Geo Wild premiering tomorrow at 8:00 with back to back episodes.

The show plays like an urbanized version of Meerkat Manor as they follow a pack of Macaque monkeys in Jaipur, India. The monkeys are considered sacred and can usually rely on visitors to their Galta temple give them food as an offering o the Hindu monkey God, but a dry monsoon season is making food scare leading the monkeys into town hoping to find some unattended food while avoiding the monkey catcher and even finding some time to have a little fun while they navigate the power lines above the city. Check out a preview below: