3
Mar

 

Not much going on out there this week, except the biggest band in the free world returns from a five-year hiatus. Yippee-ky-yay, kids.

 

Remixes of recent smashes from Britney Spears (the thrilling “Womanizer”), David Archuleta (the hilariously addictive “Crush”), Pink (“So What” if it’s brilliant fun?), Coldplay (“Viva La Vida,” 2008’s song of the year, if you take the Grammys’ word for things), and the infinitely irritating Katy Perry (“Hot & Cold,” a song that makes A smile broadly urry time it pops up on the radio, which is unspeakably often) highlight the latest collection from Thrive Records, Total Dance 2009.



The reviews, of course, are rapturous — Rolling Stone leapt out front with a gleaming five-star critique while managing to tell us as little about the music itself as possible — and the sales expectations, of course, are sky-high. And so it goes for Bono and the boys of U2, back with their first album since 2004’s monster smash How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. The Brian Eno-produced No Line on the Horizon is teased by the frenetic “Get On Your Boots,” easily the band’s most enjoyable and fun single since 1997’s coolly-received sonic marvel “Discotheque,” and while I’m far from U2’s biggest fan, I say anything powerful enough to knock that annoying twit Taylor Swift off the top of the charts — and this record is damn well certain to accomplish that feat, at the very least — is mighty fine by me.



Also noteworthy this week:

 

  • After a two-record detour covering other folks’ songs — and
    doing a damn fine job at that, yes sir — former Mavericks head honcho Raul Malo is back with Lucky One, his first album of original material in seven years.
  •  

  • Indie icon Neko Case follows up her 2006 commercial breakthrough Fox Confessor Brings the Flood with her latest release, Middle Cyclone.
  •  

  • The company you keep, indeed: Emmylou Harris, Robert Plant, and Patty Griffin help out Buddy and Julie Miller on their latest album, Written in Chalk.

 

1 response to “let me in the sound, let me in the sound now
(or: march 3 — a thumbnail sketch)”

  1. the buzz from A.:

    A. would like to stipulate that (a) lately “Hot & Cold” has been resulting in many more groans than smiles and (b) Austin’s Mix 94.7 should really be more creative in its programming.