New Releases: Getting Down To The Weirdoes And Best-Ofs

11/06/06 6:30pm

by Noah Love (CHARTattack)

A funny thing happened to release schedules this year. The Strokes broke the rules by releasing their record on January 3, and everybody followed their decision to do so by fast-tracking their early 2006 albums into January and February. As a result, the typically busy spring release schedule mostly dried up by late March, which shifted fall's schedule into mid-August. So where we would usually have a number of major records to look forward to in the first two or three weeks of November, now we have only but a few. This week is particularly sparse, with only a pile of best-ofs, live releases and the odd bizarro artist to kick around.

We'll start, for comedy's sake, with Brooke Hogan. If you're not familiar with Hogan, she's the reality television star, aspiring pop starlet and daughter of wrestler Hulk Hogan. The perky blond with no fashion sense's first LP is called Undiscovered. If anything, the record will be discovered by many, who'll later undiscover it by littering it throughout the used bins of the world.

Isobel Campbell had a record out this year with Mark Lanegan, but now she has a true solo release ready. Milk White Sheets was recorded before the Lanegan collaboration, and it's leagues quieter than its predecessor. It's also on store shelves on Tuesday.

One-named George is the protege of Backstreet Boy Howie Dorough. I guess Shawn Desman didn't want to work with Howie, because he went out and got Desman's exact double. It'll be interesting to see if the Backstreet washout can successfully take Desman's sound outside Canada with another Toronto popster.

Here are some of this week's other releases:
BOWLING FOR SOUP The Great Burrito Extortion Case (Jive/Sony BMG)
DAVE MATTHEWS BAND The Best Of What's Around (RCA/Sony BMG)
EL PERRO DEL MAR S/T (The Control Group/Outside)
FOO FIGHTERS Skin And Bones (RCA/Sony BMG)
JOSH GROBAN Awake (Reprise/Warner)
PJ HARVEY The Peel Sessions 1991-2004 (Island/Universal)
NELLIE McKAY Pretty Little Head (SpinArt/Fontana North)
 PAVEMENT Wowee Zowee: Sordid Sentinels Edition (Matador/Beggars)