Blog Posts by Dave DiMartino

I don't know about you, but as far as I'm concerned this must be the most exciting week in music history!

Why? Well, because the recently televised award show by the Academy of Country Music featured an array of guests that proved to be the most enthralling ever!

Why? Because in the tradition of Hank Williams, Patsy Cline and other celebrated country greats, America was blessed with a batch of guest stars that finally put country music on the map of American popular culture!

And thus--if you'll forgive me for breaking with a layout tradition that this blog has maintained for 186 consecutive posts--I'd now like to introduce a special guest star that may make this the most widely-read blog in New This Week's history! Ready?

This week's special guest star: Rihanna!

Next week? Rather than focus on new album releases, I've decided to devote next week's post to the best carwashes in California's San Fernando Valley! And I don't want to promise anything I can't deliver...but I understand

It's tough to complain when the vagaries of the music business bring a rising British star whose debut album premiered at #1 on the UK charts face-to-face with the Y! Music cameras--all in a small hotel room in Austin, Texas, during the recent South By Southwest conference.

But so it is that young Ellie Goulding, whose debut album Lights has managed to excite critics and consumers alike in her homeland, sits, speaks and sings for Y! Music and provides one of the personal highlights of this year's gathering.

Goulding's intriguing blend of intelligent lyrics, melodies incorporating both acoustic and electronic textures, and overall catchiness mark her as one British success likely to be welcomed Stateside with open arms.

At home, the singer's rise to fame was comparatively swift: After recording some acoustic home demos a few years ago, a pair of musical relationships with cutting-edge producers/musicians Vincent Frank, aka Frankmusic, and Fin Dow-Smith, aka Starsmith, laid the

This week's new albums by Britney Spears, Radiohead, Willie Nelson & Wynton Marsalis and Snoop Dogg drive home a point many of us may have--perhaps accidentally--overlooked!

That point?

Incredibly, word is that the last decade has in fact been a horrible dream--that's right, all this oil spill, earthquake and natural disaster stuff, let alone that weird business going on in Northern Africa, never actually happened! It was just a test--admittedly a grisly one--put forth by a mysterious power greater than humankind's, apparently just to see how we'd react to it all!

And you know what? Word is that our reaction--going out and getting ice cream, zealously downloading music for free on the Internet, and watching certain television shows--was enough to scare the daylights out of Him! So He decided to rip it all up, start again, and see how we'll get along without His interference!

So now that it's 2001 again, what say we enjoy this week's great new music and share a laugh about the idiotic

It's great to be back!

I just spent two weeks away from our luxurious Santa Monica offices, toiling in the wilds of such cities as Miami--where I was forced to write my previous blog, in, horrifyingly, a Starbucks that closed at 11 pm--and Austin, Texas, where the celebrated South By Southwest festival drew countless thousands of sweaty humans and even more sweaty corporate sponsors!

Worst of all: When I came home yesterday...it was raining!

The final indignity? I'd forgotten to set the clock ahead an hour when I returned, since Daylight Savings Time arrived during my trip--and thus returned to work, after a two-week absence, an hour late! Luckily, no one noticed, as I planned!

Come to think of it, no one noticed when I left at the end of the day, either!

Just for kicks, I ended the night alone in my home office, drinking and staring at the ceiling and listening to records no one has ever heard--and if they did, they probably wouldn't like them, either!

So I Googled myself for a few

I'm pleased to announce that this week's New This Week post comes to you courtesy of a Starbucks in North Miami, Florida, is being written Monday night at roughly 9 pm Eastern Daylight Time, and--unlike every post you've ever seen by me--is being composed under the influence of two very large black coffees!

The result? You'll never read anything by me that's more clearly reasoned!

Sadly, neither will I!

Rise Against: Endgame(DGC/Interscope): "It's about a dangerous time in civilization, the end of life," says vocalist/guitarist Tim McIlrath in this album's product description. "What if the life that we're living right now is this unsustainable bubble that cannot go on and perhaps does not deserve to go on? What if the world we created is a place that is so unnatural and ugly that it is a world that needs to come to an end, so that we could have a world that is better for everybody? It sounds very utopian, but it's not about a perfect place, but maybe some of these things we're doing,

Devotion to duty now sees me writing this week's blog--even though today has been the first day of my vacation, and my satellite television provider the Dish Network has just graciously sent me six gift certificates to view any movie of my choice!

But to be frank, when it comes down to either watching Machete, My Soul To Take, and Resident Evil: Afterlife or spending time discussing pop star Avril Lavigne...well, let's just say I know which side my bread is buttered on!

Besides, movies come and go...but the Season Two, Vol. 5 Glee soundtrack will last forever!

Avril Lavigne: Goodbye Lullaby (RCA)  If, like me, you're a big fan of Hilary Duff and you buy most of your music from Amazon, you've probably already been notified this album was coming! And boy, has it ever come! Bearing juicy songs with titles like "Black Star," "What The Hell," "Not Enough" and "Goodbye," and featuring a cover photo depicting the well-groomed Avril splayed atop a grand piano, Goodbye Lullaby has all the

It's been an eventful week!

Here in California's San Fernando Valley, where the thermometer often cracks 110 in the summer, it snowed!

Trent Reznor won an Oscar!

I must've heard about the 15th different live version of Emerson, Lake & Palmer's "Pirates," and I didn't even want to!

I just read John Kordosh's Framed blog, and it suddenly struck me he's getting paid for writing it!

Also: Apparent problems in Libya!

Luckily, this week's Blu-Ray release of Burlesque--starring both Cher and Christina Aguilera--puts everything in perspective! What did people do before DVDs?

Aaron Lewis: Town Line (Stroudavarious)  I think we all knew the lead singer of Staind had a great country album in him! Admittedly, most of us thought it had been shoved in his mouth due to personal differences with an angry tattooist, but what the heck! There's a lot resonating here: Lewis is a convincing singer, and seeing this album released the same week it's announced that Styx's Tommy Shaw is about to release his

In case anyone is wondering why this blog appears live on the Y! Music pages a day later than usual today--and, in fact, a day later than usual every week no one has to work on a Monday--it's because, er, I didn't have to work on Monday!

And while admittedly I could spend the final night of an extended vacation sitting in front of a computer and writing a blog about the week's new album releases, I could also sit on my couch, sip a drink, think about all the humorous things I might mention if I can still remember them, and fall asleep while Chuck plays on my TV and my cat continues her mad quest to lick my forehead for God knows what reason!

Or I could trip and fall while bending over to insert the DVD from the Used's marvelous 2007's Berth package into my Playstation 3 and simply glare at the ceiling in resentment for hours on end!

Or, perhaps most realistically, I could get up off the couch, be momentarily puzzled because I know I'm supposed to do something and I don't know what, and