It’s about time that the Quiet Beatle was rewarded with a compilation that was worthy of the thirty-odd good years of music he gave us. For the longest time, the only hits album Harrison had was “The Best of George Harrison”, and that cut off somewhere in the mid-Seventies. Today, that changes. “Let it Roll: Songs by George Harrison” contains not only Seventies classics like “My Sweet Lord” and “Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)”, but adds in Eighties favorites like “Got My Mind Set on You” and “All Those Years Ago”, and tosses in a few tracks from the Harrison-founded Concert for Bangladesh. Don’t know why it took so long for something like this to (pardon the pun) come together, but George fans can now rejoice. If only they’d thrown in a couple of Traveling Wilburys songs. Oh well, beggars can’t be choosers.
Here’s some other stuff hitting record store racks (real and virtual) today.
Jonas Brothers Lines, Vines & Trying Times: I bet you guys were expecting this to be the new release of the week, eh? Well, I try to slot albums I actually have a chance at buying in that space (which is why The Black Eyed Peas didn’t make it in last week), and I can’t say that you’ll ever catch me buying a Jonas Brothers CD. Not that they need any help, mind you. Aside from it’s cutesly rhyme-y title and the threat of a “darker” Jonas Brothers, this album contains a cameo from the rapper Common. I hope he got paid a LOT of money to destroy his own career.
Don Henley The Very Best of Don Henley: The last Don Henley hits compilation came out in late 1995. Since then, Don’s released exactly ONE studio album. So the point of this album is…so we can hear “Taking You Home” alongside “The Boys of Summer” and “Dirty Laundry”? This album comes in a regular 14-track version as well as a deluxe 20-track version, which contains four extra tracks as well as a DVD containing six videos. I still don’t get why anyone would want this. If you have the last Henley comp, “Actual Miles”, you can get his one other studio album, “Inside Job”, for less than five bucks used. Oh, the mysteries of the music business…
Michael Buble Michael Buble Meets Madison Square Garden: In lieu of a new studio album, fans of the standards-crooning Canadian can feast on this CD/DVD combo, which features Buble adapting his smoove pipes to songs ranging from Billy Paul’s “Me & Mrs. Jones” to Queen’s “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”, from one of his sellout dates at the World’s Most Famous Arena. Thank God for concerts, because no one’s going there to see the sports teams anymore.
Will Downing Classique: Speaking of smoove, Downing has been one of R&B’s more consistent balladeers, picking up the slack after the loss of legends like Barry White and Luther Vandross. He was diagnosed with an auto-immune disorder that briefly confined him to a wheelchair (is it me or do male R&B singers have shitty luck?), but now he’s back and still as romantic as ever. Unlike his normally covers-heavy albums, “Classique” contains mostly original and self-written songs.
A complete list of this week’s releases can be found here.
According to published reports, Michael Jackson is holding a press conference on Thursday during which he will announce a multi-night residency at London’s O2 arena. The King of Pop’s last tour was in 1995, and his last live performance appearance was in 2006 at the World Music Awards. Personally, I hope Michael brings his act home to the U.S., not only because his American fans deserve it, but because I don ‘t want to have to travel all the way to London to see my favorite entertainer. And you’d better believe that I’m considering it.
I must say, it’s a bit difficult to drum up the enthusiasm to put this column together when there isn’t a damn thing coming out that I’m interested in. For as long as I’ve been buying music as an adult and following release dates, I don’t think I’ve ever gotten this far into a year while buying so little music. Even worse, I’m strangely ambivalent about most of the music that I’ve bought. Weird, huh?