Blog Posts by Dave DiMartino

As most of us know, the past weekend—beginning with the illustriously titled Black Friday and extending through the equally compelling Cyber Monday—represents the single best selling opportunity today's record labels have all year long!

So what does it mean if you're an artist and your album comes out…a week later?

Well, maybe it means all those crates of CDs were accidentally locked in a back room in Terre Haute, Indiana, or Mexico, or wherever they make those things! Or maybe it means the kind folks at iTunes and Amazon had a hard time personalizing the albums' digital metadata so that if you decided to upload them later on the Internet they could come and arrest you!

Or maybe it means that somebody somewhere simply forgot about this stuff!

Luckily, New This Week is here to remind everybody about this week's hottest new product! Unfortunately, as a blog, it's an inanimate object and doesn't talk much!

Alicia Keys: Girl On Fire (RCA)  It would be the height of snarkiness to say anything negative about the lovely Alicia Keys, particularly when her biography notes that she is "a 14-time Grammy® Award-winning singer/songwriter/producer, an accomplished

There's a particular time of the year when I feel completely at one with today's pop music audience--and sure enough, as always, it was this weekend, as I joyously watched the exciting American Music Awards!

For starters, the dominating presence of rock god Justin Bieber--the colorful youngster who has won America's hearts and minds thanks to his marvelous pop sense, his intriguing tattoos, and his righteous anger at, in his words, "all the haters who thought I'd be around for 1, 2 years"—won big! Bieber wisely realizes he's got perhaps three years and six months before he vanishes off the face of the Earth, so he's got a right to gloat at those who suspect him to be nothing more than a passing fancy! And how about that hair?

Other winners included Taylor Swift, Nicki Minaj, Usher, Linkin Park, Carly Rae Jepsen and…oh, crap, I lost that link to Hollywoodlife.com that listed all the winners and allowed journalists who'd rather watch reruns of Luther to pretend they actually watched the AMAs and had valid opinions!

In other news, journalists trapped on a nightmarish 7-day jaunt with pop goddess Rihanna are said to be drunken, filled with hate, and virtually gleeful that they didn't have to talk to her! "I'm not sure what she really does," reported one writer during a Skype interview minutes before passing out on an airline tray filled with caviar, flutes of champagne, and his journalistic ethics! "Hey, can I Tweet this?"

Rihanna: Unapologetic (Def Jam) All eyes are on Rihanna right now, as they certainly should be, following the legal troubles that have ensued since her recent "Last Girl On Earth" tour—after which it was revealed that, in fact, there were several more girls on Earth

Like most people, I have a hard time figuring out who's better: the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, or Christina Aguilera!

And here it is, scant weeks before the holidays, and they all have new albums!

So let's get methodical about it! The Beatles have just released a massive box set containing all their albums—in vinyl, no less! The Rolling Stones have also released a new collection, with loads of hits and a sexy gorilla on its cover! And Christina Aguilera—perhaps you've seen her on TV?—brings us Lotus, a brand new collection of great songs, featuring distinguished guests CeeLo Green, Blake Shelton, and a picture of her naked on its cover!

Shall we cut to the chase?

Beatles songs: Old. Rolling Stones songs: Old. Christina Aguilera songs: New!

Beatles: Old guys. Rolling Stones: Old guys. Christina Aguilera: Naked! Blonde!

Next week: Optometrists vs. Ophthalmologists! Who's sexier?

Susan Boyle: Standing Ovation: The Greatest Songs From The Stage (Syco/Columbia) As always, I like to start this blog off with the album I consider to be the week's best—and when it comes to the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Susan Boyle, who on earth could argue? The

On this historic night—Election Eve, 2012—I am compiling a list of this week's most compelling album releases and marveling at the history also on display!

Which is to say: Maybe half of these are by people who are really old or dead!

And while it would be easy to look inward, to perhaps say the blame is mine—for not keeping up with all that is cutting edge, to look for a familiar name to blather about semi-intelligently rather than to have to actually listen to stuff more than once—that would be inaccurate!

Between you and me? I'm just really into inoffensive stuff by artists with nice logos!

Aerosmith: Music From Another Dimension! (Columbia)  The long-awaited sequel to Thomas Dolby's multi-platinum masterwork Aliens Ate My Buick, this new Aerosmith disc—their first all-new set in 11 years—offers up an intriguing concept that is

It struck me the other day as I was reading Waging Heavy Peace, the fabulous new book by Neil Young, that only a book by Neil Young—obviously put together by the man himself, with little help from editors or other humans—would not only devote a significant passage to the merits of shopping at Costco, but also of his quest to buy new heads for his electric toothbrush, which, not incidentally, he considers quite fabulous.

My own copy of the book, coincidentally, was also purchased at Costco—at a fine price, I might add!—where I'd also return the next week to buy the new book by Pete Townshend. Also written by the man himself, with little outside assistance.

That I would purchase both books quite willingly, and with my own money, I found interesting. Though I regularly read e-books via my Kindle, in both cases here I wanted to buy the physical product—the tome, the pages, the cover picture, etc.—mostly because in late 2012, when record albums are likely as not wave, flac or MP3 files

Apologies to those who sought out this blog and noticed it missing last week: I forgot to write it!

But for those who keep track, I probably would've said nice things about the latest album by Jamey Johnson, paid half-hearted lip service to Benjamin Gibbard's newest, yawned at the Ben Harper compilation, made a joke that would involve driving on the 405 freeway about Brandy's new album, completely tore into Scotty McCreery's Christmas disc, wondered aloud what the new albums by Mika and A Fine Frenzy sound like, since their labels don't seem to want to promote them, and devoted a witless, large paragraph to the new set by Bobby V in which I would mistakenly pretend he was the early '60s pop singer and give it a rave review!

For kicks, I would end it all by asking you to follow me on Twitter!

These things don't write themselves, but sometimes they get awfully close!

Taylor Swift: Red (Big Machine)  I have two things to say about Taylor Swift! Just saw her in Las Vegas at the iHeartRadio Festival and, watching her image on the televised stage feed, was struck by the absolute certainty that this is one babe who has spent way too much

It's a great day in the world of new album releases when this week's highlights include new entries from such bold newcomers as Barbra Streisand, the Velvet Underground's John Cale, Kiss, The Beach Boys, ELO's Jeff Lynne, Motown legend David Ruffin and baby band Gary Lewis & The Playboys!

No need to worry, though: old favorites like the Wallflowers have returned with warm and reassuring sounds more than likely to calm troubled souls who find today's music scene jarring in its adventurousness and would like a dash of something familiar!

Further new releases by punk rocker Rick Springfield and artful instrumentalist James Bond—who has cleverly titled his debut album Best Of James Bond 50th Anniversary—might merit inclusion here if this much-loved 10-albums-only format permitted!

But like most of us, I find all these baby bands…well…confusing! And who among us doesn't need some stability in his or her life?

Barbra Streisand: Release Me (Columbia)  They say that sometimes albums take on

In a world in which new albums by Grammy winners like Nelly Furtado can sell a horrifyingly small percentage of her past work—perhaps because she took a six-year break—and much less radio-friendly artists such as Mumford & Sons can set new sales records, all bets are off.

Nothing matters whatsoever.

And that's why, in short, the words of music writers such as myself have taken on an cultural importance that is heretofore unprecedented.

What we say goes!

Sadly, I kind of like everything!

Muse: The 2nd Law (Warner Bros.) On one hand one of the most powerful live bands in existence, on the other a bombastic, also-ran version of Radiohead, Jr., with an even dopier name, Muse is nothing if not a rock band! Still, following their worldwide exposure via the Olympics and a pop music scene hungering for deep