The importance: The diva has been missing from the pop landscape since 2003, when she released a holiday-themed collection. Much of the singer's headlines over the last few years have been more of the tabloid nature, focusing on health issues and her marriage to Bobby Brown. But the public loves a good comeback, as evidenced by Mariah Carey and her "The Emancipation of Mimi." A new Whitney album -- one that's not embarrassing -- would surely ascend to blockbuster status in a matter of weeks, if not days. Indeed, it's not just the Sony BMG brass who would likely be hungry for some new Whitney content. Just check the success that met Leona Lewis, and her Whitney-influenced smash "Bleeding Love."
The verdict: "Like I Never Left," featuring production and a collaboration from Akon, is as much an Akon song as it is a Whitney cut. As such, its mission isn't so much to be a knockout, but to reestablish Whitney as a contemporary artist, even featuring some electronically-manipulated vocals from Akon. But while that's one of the song's more distressing qualities (the other is Akon feeling the need to announce who is singing the song at its start), it doesn't fully distract from what is ultimately an effortlessly light R&B cut. As feather-light as the song is, Houston still sounds pretty good, even though she has nothing to say. If anything, the song definitely doesn't need Akon. Houston is cool, assertive and matter-of-fact, bringing a level of personality to the standard that's absent in the ho-hum lyrics. Akon's production is cheesy-smooth, lacking any sense of grandeur, and putting Houston on par with Mariah.
Is it finished? According to a spokeswoman for Houston, no, the song that was leaked out is not "a finished song at all." But as to when it was recorded and if it will be finished? No comment.
Does this mean an album is coming soon? "Yes your girl is coming back," Houston sings in the song, but don't bet on it, at least not anytime soon. The much-discussed return of Whitney has been years in the making, and a new album has been promised to be on the horizon dating back to 2005. In February of this year, then-J Records head Clive Davis said at his pre-Grammy bash that a new Whitney album would be coming soon, but we've heard that promise before. And Fox's Roger Friedman reports that a new Whitney album is "not nearly ready."
How to find it: Google "Whitney Houston" + YouTube + "Like I Never Left."
Here's a bargain: Paul Westerberg this weekend released an one-track, 44-minute song via Amazon.com, distributing it to the online seller with the help of TuneCore.
The cut, really one 44-minute album, is available for 49 cents. It's essentially one long, scruffy, low-fi melding of a dozen-plus Westerberg songs.
A tracklist on PaulWesterberg.net puts it at 22 songs. I haven't owned it long enough to critique it, but Westerberg fans will be pleased, and it's certainly as tunefully scrappy as his full-priced albums for Vagrant Records in 2003 and 2004.
Billboard.com posted some details on the album, with quotes from Westerberg's manager Darren Hill. Apparently, the album was just finished last week. Said Hill to Billboard's Jonathan Cohen: "He finished it on Monday, sent it to me on Tuesday and it was out this weekend."
But 49 cents? That's a bit removed from the iTunes standard of $9.99, and at first, it might seem to mark a new low for the cost of an album. But credit TuneCore for making something such as this possible.
With Westerberg selling this as one track, it's only costing Westerberg a whopping $9.99 to sell it online, according to TuneCore's figures. That's simply a $9.99 flat yearly fee. (The single/album is also available via TuneCore.) Without taking into account any fees that would go to Amazon.com, only about 22 people would need to purchase the album to make back the $11 distribution fee.
Update: Originally, I had the distribution fee at $10.98, but a TuneCore rep got in touch, and noted that there are no additional charges for distributing a single. For albums, TuneCore charges an additional .99 cents per track per store.
The "Camp Rock" survivors are the first act announced for the 2008 awards, which will be broadcast from the Paramount Studios lot on Sept. 7 in Los Angeles. While there's still plenty of time for MTV to offer up a more shocking appearance, a la the return of Brit last year, the mere presence of the Jonas Brothers would likely signal a shift toward a more family-friendly affair, unless the Jonas Brothers are hoping for some sort of MTV controversy to catapult them out of the tween-pop world. But that's more of a job for Annie Leibovitz, anyway.
It's been about two months since we had some country music awards to discuss, but that will soon change. The Country Music Assn. has set a Nov. 12 date for its 2008 ceremony, which will air live on ABC.
While a nomination announcement date has not yet been revealed, last year's nominees were unveiled at the end of August. The 2008 awards will be broadcast from the Sonnet Center in Nashville, and will be celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.
Last year's awards saw the emergence of Taylor Swift as a country star. Swift took home the Horizon Award, and bounded back into the top 10 of the U.S. pop chart the following week. In what has become the norm at country music award shows, Kenny Chesney was honored as the entertainer of the year.
The release: The soundtrack to "The Dark Knight." The principles: Oscar-nominated composers Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard, who also worked on "Batman Begins," the first Bat-film to be directed by Christopher Nolan. Zimmer took home an Academy Award for his score to "The Lion King," and has been nominated for his work on "Rain Man" and "Gladiator." Howard has earned nominations for his work on "The Prince of Tides" and "The Fugitive." This isn't just geeky fan-boy stuff? Naw. There's some high-profile releases this week, the latest from rapper Nas, as well as the return of glorified bar band the Hold Steady, but it can be safely argued that the most intense piece of music that hit stores on Tuesday was the opening cut to "The Dark Knight" soundtrack, "Why So Serious?" It's a pretty arresting composition, one that wouldn't be out of place in a horror film, or a Nine Inch Nails record. So how does the music work in the film? "The Dark Knight" brings out the best in Zimmer and Howard. "Batman Begins" took a more subtle approach to scoring a superhero film, opting out of the sort of grand gothic overtures Danny Elfman brought to Tim Burton's two Bat-films, and instead decorated its scenes with sharp, minimalistic sketches -- fast and streamlined strings that lived in the shadows and echoed the mystery of its hero.
"The Dark Knight" score, to put it mildly, ratchets things up. This is apparent from the film's opening moments, an elaborately intense bank heist staged by Heath Ledger's Joker. It's here film-goers get introduced to the more than nine-minute epic that is "Why So Serious?" In an earlier Extended Play piece, Zimmer discussed how the Joker's theme is essentially one note, one that''s teased and manipulated and mimics the sounds of razors and rat-infested alleyways.
But it's also quite musical, driven by an edge-of-your-seat rhythm that slices its way around a deep, bellowing bass. There are other themes in "The Dark Knight," and tracks such as "I'm Not A Hero" and "A Dark Knight" more closely adhere to the sounds of "Batman Begins," with their flurry of repetitive string notes. Yet in much the same way Ledger's Joker performance takes control of the film, it's the music that follows his character that has a grip on the soundtrack.
No matter, as "Why So Serious?" and "Like A Dog Chasing Cars" are thrilling pieces of music. They're loud, they sound as if they're piercing through the speakers, and they're a bit demented in the way the music will cut out into mere nothingness one moment and suddenly pounce back to the forefront the next. And they go a long way toward making the 2.5-hour run time of the film soar, as the sheer tension in the music doesn't allow the audience to relax. And that's a good thing.
But does it work outside the film? Some better than others. The music that traces Harvey Dent/Two Face ("Harvey Two-Face," "Blood On My Hands") is a bit more traditional. And while it works in the film -- the Joker, after all, is the one who gets to run around the film's Chicago locales as if it's his own personal playground -- it slows the momentum of the soundtrack.
Yet then a cut such as "A Little Push" arrives, with its scraping atmospheres, nightmarish bass notes and teasing strings, and it knocks the traditional film score on its side. "The Dark Knight" has some of the most adventurous cinematic music released in recent memory, certainly since Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood tackled the score for "There Will Be Blood."
Even some of the shorter, less pronounced tracks, such as "Aggressive Expansion," offer some surprises. Almost everything is heavy on the rhythms, and come with drumbeats that sound as if they've been slightly tweaked -- check "Always A Catch," where the pounding is not quite organic, yet not quite electronic. It's fair to say that the sounds of "The Dark Knight" can be a bit in your face, but as the fast-moving and thematically schizophrenic "Like A Dog Chasing Cars" illustrates, can then burrow under your skin too.
This is not a true mid-year Top 10 list. The Grammy Awards, as noted last week, are ending the year a little early, with the eligibility period for next year's awards coming to a close Sept. 30.
What follows is a look at some of the more notable releases of late 2007 and the first half of 2008, and how they may fare come Grammy time. Some are major efforts from established artists and others, while Grammy long shots, are simply albums deserving of more recognition.
Ten albums are discussed in this post, and five were mentioned last week. Any favorites you want to highlight? Please share in the comments below.
And click here for a look at some of the notable new artists of 2008 ... thus far. It should be noted that some of the newcomers, such as Duffy, may also figure into the album of the year discussion, but in the interest of spreading the wealth, repeats from last week will not be discussed here.
Mariah Carey, "E=MC2." The pop diva's follow-up to the Grammy-adored "Emancipation of Mimi."
Grammy possibilities: Carey's "Mimi" marked a huge comeback for the artist, a much-needed return to form after the commercial/critical disappointments that were "Glitter" and "Charmbracelet." Recording Academy voters were apparently delighted that the megastar rebounded, and responded by awarding Carey 8 Grammy nominations, including album of the year. "E=MC2" closely follows the "Mimi" template, and at times feels like a track-by-track response (substitute "It's Like That" for "Migrate"), but audiences don't seem to mind. The album is still in the top 25 on U.S. pop charts two months after its release, and the album has already spawned two hit singles in "Touch My Body" and "Bye Bye." Carey will undoubtedly be awarded with a bevy of Grammy nominations, but don't bet on "E=MC2" scoring as many as "Mimi," and it likely won't be a favorite for an album of the year nod. It too closely sticks to the "Mimi" template.
Grammy deserving: Does it really matter? One of the best-selling artists of all time, Carey is more than critic-proof, and "E=MC2" likely didn't do anything to change anyone's mind about the singer. It's finely-produced dance-pop crafted by an assortment of the industry's highest-paid producers, and the strongest tracks are worthy representations of mainstream trends. But as a whole, "E=MC2" is responding to pop fashions rather than defining them.
This is not a true midyear Top 10 list. The Grammy Awards, as noted last week, is ending its year a little early, with the eligibility period for next year's awards coming to a close on Sept. 30.
What follows is a look at some of the more notable releases of late 2007 and the first half of 2008, and how they may fare come Grammy time. Some are major efforts from established artists, and others, while Grammy long shots, are simply albums deserving of more recognition.
Five albums are discussed in this post, and five more will be discussed later in the week. Any favorites you want to highlight? Please share in the comments below.
And click here for a look at some of the notable new artists of 2008 ... thus far. It should be noted that some of the newcomers, such as Duffy, may also figure into the album-of-the-year discussion, but in the interest of spreading the wealth, repeats from last week will not be discussed here.
Gnarls Barkley, "The Odd Couple": Sophomore effort from the duo of Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo, and the follow-up to the album-of-the-year-nominated "St. Elsewhere." Grammy potential: Any act that's already released one album-of-the-year-nominated album would certainly figure into the Grammy conversation. However, "St. Elsewhere" was a bit of a phenomena, and was driven largely by the success of crossover smash "Crazy." "St. Elsewhere" has lacked such a hit, and while certainly a success -- the album is still in the top 200 of the U.S. pop chart more than two months after its release -- "The Odd Couple" is an album that showcases Gnarls Barkley's weirdness ahead of its mainstream appeal.
Grammy deserving: Without "Crazy," "St. Elsewhere" was a spooked, R&B-flavored psychedelic headtrip. "The Odd Couple" is even more out there, filtering '70s soul through an assortment of out-of-this-world effects, and coming off like a gleefully cartoonish nightmare. But it's also a wonderful showcase for Cee-Lo, and his growth as a soul vocalist (Check out the scorching album-opener "Who's Gonna Save My Soul"). It's one of the finest albums released this year.
The cut, really one 44-minute album, is available for 49 cents. It's essentially one long, scruffy, low-fi melding of a dozen-plus Westerberg songs. 
