the Buzz for January 20th, 2010

20
Jan

 

It’s a little better out there this week than the last couple, but we’re still biding our time while we await the imminent monster that is next week. Consider this an appetizer:

 

It’s not always the case, frighteningly enough, but this year’s annual single-disc roundup of tunes that are vying for the Recording Academy’s highest honors, Grammy Nominees 2010, plays like a mixtape of the year’s strongest, most fascinating music. (Imagine that!) True, you have to sit through the likes of Black Eyed Peas and Beyonce, as well, not to mention subpar material from the typically dependable U2, Sugarland, Rascal Flatts, and Kelly Clarkson, but I say any album which can wrangle aural diamonds from Kings of Leon (the staggering “Use Somebody”), The Fray (“You Found Me,” putting Isaac Slade’s scary-good vocals on a riveting piano-based pedestal), Lady Antebellum (the revelatory “I Run to You”), and Dave Matthews Band (“You and Me,” a sweet fare-thee-well to a fallen comrade-in-arms) onto the very same slice of musical real estate is mighty fine by me.

(more…)

20
Jan

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