Following last year’s Beatles reissues, the folks at EMI/Capitol are commemorating what would have been the 70th birthday of the great John Lennon by remastering and reissuing his entire eight-album catalog. If you have the scratch and/or are a tremendous Lennon fan, there is also the 11-disc [amazon-product text=”Signature Box” tracking_id=”popblerdcom-20″ type=”text”]B003TVMIDO[/amazon-product] that contains just about everything the man ever recorded and released. As John Lennon is one of the most iconic figures in popular music, I can think of quite a few people who would get a kick out of seeing this box in their stocking come Christmas. As for me, the reissues might be the kick in the ass I need to add “Walls & Bridges” and “Mind Games” to my collection.
This week’s new release report continues with the hotly anticipated debut album by Bruno Mars. “Doo Wops & Hooligans” (yeah, I don’t get the album title, either) contains the current #1 single in the country “Just the Way You Are”, as well as other melodic treats from the guy behind B.O.B.’s “Nothin’ on You”, Cee-Lo Green’s “F— You” and Travie McCoy’s “Billionaire”. Long as homeboy stays away from the booger sugar, he should be all right.
Faith Evans has put together a consistent 15-year career, although she’s probably still best known to the general public as the widow of Biggie Smalls. That might be partially due to the fact that she’s never released a totally solid album, at least not since her debut, which languished in the shadow of Mary J. Blige’s “My Life” (an album for which Faith contributed background vocals as well as songwriting assistance). The blond bombshell’s sixth studio album, “Something About Faith” , immediately loses points because of it’s regrettable cover, but Faith is certainly capable of creating melodic goodness when she isn’t trying too hard to be “down”, and she certainly has the skills vocally, as first single “Gone Already” demonstrates.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IliRIgtg9Kk
The rest of this week’s new release schedule includes the sophomore album of new material from “American Idol” imp David Archuleta, as well as “Bullets in the Gun”, the latest set from country mook Toby Keith. Finger Eleven tries to extend their already overextended fifteen minutes with “Life Turns Electric”, while jam-band fans will rejoice about the new albums from Guster and Donavon Frankenreiter. Former Mavericks vocalist Raul Malo (whose solo albums are pretty damn interesting) returns with “Sinners & Saints”, while in non-Lennon related Beatle news, Paul (The Cute One) McCartney guests on “Wreckorder”, the first solo album by Fran Healy, the lead vocalist of the perennially underrated Britpop band Travis. Finally, Dhani Harrison, the son of George (The Quiet One) teams up with singer/songwriters Joseph Arthur and Ben Harper for a project entitled Fistful of Mercy. As someone who’s never quite understood Harper’s appeal and only has a passing interest in Arthur, I’ll probably skip this one, but a lot of times, the whole turns out to be greater than the sum of it’s parts-so this may be worth checking out.
As usual, get an exhaustive list of this week’s new releases from Pause and Play, and Happy Tuesday!!