It's a week filled with familiar names! Larry, Bob, Otis, Mike, Linda, Anne Marie and Belinda!
Similarly, many of this week's new releases are by familiar names as well!
I'd like to think it's pure coincidence! After all, if the middle of 2012 brings us a batch of music releases by artists who've been around the block a few times, perhaps have a few gray hairs or, even less tactfully, are dead--what does that say about today's biggest hitmakers?
Could it be that many of them are talentless fops unworthy of any press coverage whatsoever? Could it be that rather than recording albums and making music, today's best and brightest talents are making millions of dollars as computer programmers and entrepreneurs by exploiting the recorded works of other, lesser individuals--directly taking from them whatever small pittances they might make as recording artists until, heartbroken, they begin new careers as short-order cooks who could have once had promising careers but now work the late-night shift at Denny's?
Nope! It's just a crummy week! And hasn't it been hot?
Zac Brown Band: Uncaged (Atlantic) There's no denying that the Zac Brown Band are one of country's music's brightest stars: They're award-winners, they have serious musical chops, they don't worship at the altar of country radio, and, any way you look at it, they rock. This latest set, their third, features an intriguing array of
