Sales Rank:7 List Price: $18.98 Lowest New Price: $7.49 Lowest Used Price: $8.00 Artist(s):
Britney Spears
Tracks:
Womanizer
Circus
Out From Under
Kill The Lights
Shattered Glass
If U Seek Amy
Unusual You
Blur
Mmm Papi
Mannequin
Lace And Leather
My Baby
Radar
Circus is the seventh album by Britney Spears. It rolls into town on the heels of an MTV VMA awards sweep, where Britney walked away with three Moonmen awards for 'Video of the Year', 'Best Female' and 'Best Pop Video' for 'Piece Of Me'. Circus is the follow up to her critically well received album, Blackout, just in in time for her 27th birthday. The lead single, 'Womanizer' (produced by the up and coming Atlanta production team The Outsyders) has already created a frenzy amongst Britney fantaics, radio and the media alike-underscoring Britney's continued reign as one of the Queens of Pop.
Sales Rank:44 List Price: $13.98 Lowest New Price: $9.24 Lowest Used Price: $8.45 Artist(s):
Rascal Flatts
Tracks:
The proof can be found in Greatest Hits, Volume 1, a compliation that comes as close to bottling magic as it's possible to get. The CD brings together the best of the first four of Rascal Flatts' five studio albums, and its 13 cuts--7 of them #1 singles--bring into clear focus the path Gary LeVox, Jay DeMarcus and Joe Don Rooney have taken to the top. Even as Greatest Hits, Volume 1 catalogs the first part of their journey, Rascal Flatts continues to make music that thrills fans in arena after arena and continues to bring to the airwaves one of country's most distinctive and well-loved sounds.
Sales Rank:64 List Price: $13.98 Lowest New Price: $7.92 Lowest Used Price: $7.25 Artist(s):
Duffy
Tracks:
Rockferry
Warwick Avenue
Serious
Stepping Stone
Syrup & Honey
Hanging On Too Long
Mercy
Delayed Devotion
Scared
Distant Dreamer
The most hotly anticipated album release of this New Year comes not from someone rammed into the collective consciousness by their media ubiquity. Duffy is an unknown quantity at this point, having performed but a small number of gigs, mostly in support of The Magic Numbers, and having only just begun to be seen on TV, most notably with recent appearances on Jools Holland's Later and New Year Hootenanny.
Yet her soulful voice has already beguiled many of the nation's musical tastemakers and news of its beauty and of the strength of her songs is spreading by word of mouth even as you read these words. Radio One's Jo Whiley chose Duffy's title track and album taster `Rockferry' as her Single of the Week in late November, further adding to the momentum. Now, as the comparisons fly (Dusty Springfield has emerged as the favourite), it's time to discover her for yourself.
Duffy was born and spent her childhood years in the north Wales coastal community of Nefyn, a place too remote to be driven by style wars or opposing music factions (the nearest record counter was a bus ride away and only stocked the Top 40). The upbringing she describes is one in which everyone had to rub along together, making do and mending, accepting each other and their tastes without prejudice.
Having no CD collection of her own, her first real musical memory is of walking into the kitchen unannounced to find her mother and stepfather dancing to Rod Stewart. The first steps she took towards defining her own personal identity came when she borrowed one of her dad's VHS tapes of the `60s TV show `Ready, Steady, Go!'. "It had The Beatles, the Stones, the Walker Brothers, Sandie Shaw and Millie singing `My Boy Lollipop'. So sexy and exciting! I played it again and again until finally it disintegrated." Says former Suede guitarist and record producer Bernard Butler of this artlessness, "Duffy managed to grow up without any concept of what was cool or current, what she should or shouldn't like, how to behave or even how to sing. For her, coming to London at all was the stuff of fairytales."
"And to come here to write songs with some random bloke who'd been recommended to her, me? It meant taking two buses and then two trains and took all day. Then she'd do the same in reverse to get home, playing the music she'd just made to old ladies she encountered on the journey. It's hard for cynical music industry types to get their heads around just how far removed she was from our world, geographically and in every other way. But what you've got as a result is someone who acts and sings completely and unselfconsciously from the heart. That's a rare and magical thing."
Butler was introduced to Duffy by Rough Trade's Jeannette Lee who,in August 2004 and after hearing demos recorded in this or that mate's home, became the singer's mentor and manager. For Duffy, to have not just a friend but also point of both safety and reference in the strange new world she found herself in was crucial to her own musical development and sense of self.
"People keep saying to me, `You've made a great record' but I can't take that in because I didn't do it on my own. Jeannette and I made `Rockferry' together and she's been with me every step of the way, broadening my horizons, introducing me to people I can trust." Butler was just one of them: having written the glorious, chorus-free, utterly hypnotic `Rockferry' together at the beginning of the project, they then worked on a further three of the ten tracks on what is already being talked about as 2008's most important debut release. Jimmy Hogarth & Steve Booker are the other collaborators on this classic-in-waiting.
What can you expect to hear? The title track and album opener, as atmospheric, slow-building and idiosyncratic song as you could hope for, leads into a collection of original material that some might call retro in feel (those Dusty flavours, that girl group vibe) but which Duffy herself prefers to identify as classic. You'll find arrangements as sparsely effective as those against which Dionne Warwick told her Bacharach & David-wrought tales of heartbreak in the early 1960s. You'll find lush choruses and swooning hooks (as perfected by the late Miss Springfield and various distinguished others). But this is far from pastiche.
What you'll find instead is irrefutable evidence of a significant new talent, and one that has developed in splendid isolation, not in reaction to market forces or the input of focus groups and industry experts. Duffy is the real, unspoiled original deal. "People keep asking me where my voice comes from and the fact is I don't know," says the brightest new star of 2008. "Why are your eyes the colour they are? It's no answer at all but it's the only one I have."
Sales Rank:51 List Price: $15.98 Lowest New Price: $9.49 Lowest Used Price: $9.20 Artist(s):
Adele
Tracks:
Daydreamer
Best for Last
Chasing Pavements
Cold Shoulder
Crazy for You
Melt My Heart to Stone
First Love
Right as Rain
Make You Feel My Love - Adele, Dylan, Bob
My Same
Tired
Hometown Glory
Limited enhanced pressing of this 2008 debut album from the singer/songwriter featuring the enhanced video for 'Chasing Pavements' added as a bonus track. Citing her influences as diverse as Etta James, Jill Scott, Bjork, Dusty Springfield, Billy Bragg, Billie Holiday, Jeff Buckley, The Cure and Peggy Lee, Adele is a truly unique new artist. With her mix up of R&B and Soul served up with a healthy dash of feisty London attitude, she spins beautiful dark stories of loves won and lost and sometimes just daydreamed about. 12 tracks. XL
Sales Rank:50 List Price: $18.98 Lowest New Price: $9.99 Lowest Used Price: $14.36 Artist(s):
Amy Grant
Tracks:
Jingle Bells
It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year
I Need A Silent Night
Winter Wonderland
Baby, It's Christmas
Sleigh Ride
Count Your Blessings Instead Of Sheep
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
Silent Night
Breath Of Heaven (Mary's Song)
Joy To The World/For Unto Us A Child Is Born
Grown-Up Christmas List
Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree
Tennessee Christmas
A Christmas To Remember
O Come All Ye Faithful
A Mighty Fortress/Angels We Have Heard On High
Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
Amy is pulling out all of the stops with a 2008 collection of the best Christmas songs from all three catalog albums plus four new songs. Christmas music is synonymous with Amy Grant. Her classic arrangements, stirring original Christmas songs, TV specials, and widely attended Christmas tours over the years have all contributed to over five million Christmas albums sold. In 2007, all three of Amy's classic Christmas albums were digitally re-mastered and sold over 50,000 albums in just three months.
Sales Rank:334 List Price: $24.98 Lowest New Price: $17.77 Lowest Used Price: $15.88 Artist(s):
Tracks:
Filmed over two performances in Rotterdam, Holland in October of 2007, Rush's new DVD Snakes & Arrows Live captures the legendary band in peak form, performing classic Rush material and nine new songs from their critically acclaimed 2007 CD Snakes & Arrows. The 2-disc concert DVD is presented in both 5.1 audio and stereo, and also included is a bonus disc of four songs added for their 2008 American tour, including "Ghost of a Chance," filmed here for the first time.
Since the release of their eponymous first LP in 1974, Rush has continually expanded the definition of "progressive power trio." Guitarist Alex Lifeson, bassist/keyboardist/vocalist Geddy Lee and drummer/lyricist Neil Peart combine dazzling virtuosity, laser-beam intensity and unbridled creativity to create a cohesive whole that's infinitely greater than its parts. The Toronto-based group has become one of Canada's leading exports, with a catalog of genre-defining releases including 2112, Permanent Waves, Moving Pictures, Vapour Trails and Snakes & Arrows and a live show which combines musicianship, showmanship and multi-media effects that engage all the senses. Following their previous best-selling DVDs Rush in Rio and R30, Snakes & Arrows Live presents a band not resting on its considerable laurels but still earning its reputation as one of the world's best live bands - one night at a time.
TRACK LISTING:
Disc 1 1. Limelight 2. Digital Man 3. Entre Nous 4. Mission 5. Freewill 6. The Main Monkey Business 7. The Larger Bowl 8. Secret Touch 9. Circumstances 10. Between the Wheels 11. Dreamline
Extras: 1. What's That Smell (DVD Content) 2. 2007 Tour Outtakes 3. What's That Smell Outtakes 4. Far Cry (Alternate cut featuring rear screen footage) 5. The Way the Wind Blows (Alternate cut featuring rear screen footage) 6. Red Sector A from the R30 Tour
Disc 2 1. Far Cry 2. Workin' Them Angels 3. Armor and Sword 4. Spindrift 5. The Way the Wind Blows 6. Subdivisions 7. Natural Science 8. Witch Hunt 9. Malignant Narcissism - De Slagwerker 10. Hope 11. Distant Early Warning 12. The Spirit of Radio 13. Tom Sawyer
Encore: 14. One Little Victory 15. A Passage to Bangkok 16. YYZ
Disc 3 Oh, Atlanta - The Authorized Bootlegs 1. Ghost of a Chance 2. Red Barchetta 3. The Trees 4. 2112/The Temples of Syrinx
Sales Rank:71 List Price: $18.97 Lowest New Price: $10.59 Lowest Used Price: $9.99 Artist(s):
Brad Paisley
Tracks:
Huckleberry Jam
Turf's Up
Start A Band (Featuring Keith Urban)
Kim
Departure
Come On In (Featuring Buck Owens)
Playing With Fire
Kentucky Jelly
More Than Just This Song (Featuring Steve Wariner)
Les Is More
Pre-Cluster Cluster Pluck Prequel
Cluster Pluck
Cliffs Of Rock City
Let The Good Times Roll (Featuring B.B. King)
What A Friend We Have In Jesus
Waitin' On A Woman (With Andy Griffith)
Brad Pailey won his first GRAMMY Award in 2008 for Best Country Instrumental Performance and he is believes in 'more music, less talk' with his 2008 album, Play, which promises to increase axes across the board, alongside some of the guitar world's great heroes. Featuring guest vocal and musical collaborations with B.B. King, Keith Urban, Steve Wariner, and Buck Owens.
Sales Rank:107 List Price: $13.98 Lowest New Price: $9.75 Lowest Used Price: $5.34 Artist(s):
Sugarland
Tracks:
All I Want to Do - Sugarland, Bush, Kristian
It Happens
We Run
Joey
Love
Genevieve
Already Gone
Keep You
Take Me as I Am
What I'd Give
Steve Earle
Very Last Country Song
Mercury Nashville's super duo Sugarland will release their third studio album entitled, Love On The Inside, July 29. Sugarland's Jennifer Nettles and Kristian Bush co-wrote all tracks and have teamed up with Byron Gallimore again to produce.
Sugarland premiered the album's debut single "All I Want To Do" live on the Academy of Country Music awards. The single is available at Amazon MP3.
Sales Rank:75 List Price: $13.98 Lowest New Price: $7.39 Lowest Used Price: $4.89 Artist(s):
Snow Patrol
Tracks:
If there's a rocket tie me to it
Crack the shutters
Take back the city
Lifeboats
The golden floor
Please just take these photos from my hands
Set down your glass
The planets bend between us
Engines
Disaster button
The Lightning Strike - (i) What if this storm ends? (ii) Sunlight through the flags (iii) Daybreak
SNOW PATROL - A Hundred Million Suns - (Polydor/Fiction/Geffen Records)
The album is preceded by the fantastic single "Take Back The City", which comes with a video shot in East London courtesy of acclaimed video director Alex Courtes (White Stripes "Seven Nation Army").
Gary Lightbody (vocals/guitars) says, ""I'm so proud of this record. Everybody played out of their skin. Garret (Jacknife Lee) continued his progression from maverick genius to one of the best producers in the world. Musically, lyrically and sonically the best record we've made"
The Grammy-nominated band's fifth studio album was recorded throughout the Summer of 2008 in Hansa Studios in Berlin (where Bowie recorded "Low," "Heroes" and "Lodger") and at Grouse Lodge deep in the Irish countryside. Written by Snow Patrol, the album was produced by Garret "Jacknife" Lee (Bloc Party, REM, U2).
Snow Patrol are one of the biggest selling UK bands this decade and A Hundred Million Suns follows up the 2006 Number One, seven-times platinum phenomenon Eyes Open which sold 2.1 million copies in the UK and over 1 million in the US. Eyes Open achieved platinum awards across the world from the US and Canada to Germany, Australia and beyond, selling over 4.5 million copies. Their single "Chasing Cars" has just received its 2 millionth download in the US.