McLachlan greatest hits coming

Quick: name the last solo female artist to have a Top 5 on the Billboard modern rock charts.
That's right: Sarah McLachlan, "Building a Mystery," 1997.

And McLachlan is bringing the Lilith Fair days back with a greatest hits album, out next Tuesday, and a few tour dates (find them here).

Here's a remix of "Sweet Surrender," a Top 15 modern rock hit in 1997:

Glen Campbell does the '90s.

I'm kinda digging this new Glen Campbell album, where the "Rhinestone Cowboy" star does covers of songs by Green Day, Travis, and the Foo Fighters. It doesn't hurt that a couple of the guys from Jellyfish are in the backing band. Listen to samples here. Buy the thing here.

This week in reunions...

*Blessid Union of Souls are back? We need more from the poor man's Hootie like "Hey Leonardo"*?


Do you realize that band had FOUR Billboard Top 40 hits in the late '90s?

(*Should we give props for the inclusion of a line about "my collection of DVDs" in a song in 1999?)

Not much else in reunion news this week, unless you care that Led Zeppelin are not getting back together (at least until 2010). Guess this means the Foo Fighters hiatus was not scheduled to allow Dave to take John Bonham's throne.

More new Chris Cornell, and David Cook's first grunge single

Here's another track from the Timbaland / Chris Cornell collaboration, "Scream":


The comments at Idolator likened it to a God Lives Underwater b-side. Now THAT's an obscure '90s reference!

And in other Chris Cornell news, David Cook's first single, "Light On," was co-written by Cornell. See if you like it better than the Cornell solo stuff here.

9/24 UPDATE: Apparently, Cornell performed with Pussycat Dolls, Timbaland, and OneRepublic on Fashion Rocks a couple of weeks ago (video on the Squib Central site). ARGH.

From the Cutout Bin: Heather Nova - Siren

Welcome to From the Cutout Bin, where we dig up old CDs that have been forgotten for whatever reason and can now be found in the dollar (or quarter) bin at your local used CD store (if your community still has a used CD store). This installment features 1998's Siren, by Bermudian Lilith Fair vet Heather Nova.

Heather Nova made her bones in the US with 1995's Modern Rock hit "Walk This World."


But that song's not on Siren, which I found for 50 cents at my local used bookstore. Instead, this is the follow-up, which was obviously expected to be a hit. There are three different producers, including Jon Kelly (known for his work in the UK with British adult-friendly pop stars like Kate Bush and the Beautiful South) and Youth, who was fresh off producing the Verve's 1997 masterpiece Urban Hymns. Superstar mixer Andy Wallace (whose credits include Nirvana's Nevermind, Soul Asylum's Grave Dancers Union, Screaming Trees' Sweet Oblivion, Jeff Buckley's Grace, The Toadies' Rubberneck, Rage Against the Machine's Evil Empire, the Wallflowers' Bringing Down the Horse, Everclear's So Much for the Afterglow, etc.*) worked on 12 of the 14 tracks. And as soon as it came out, Nova went on tour with Lilith Fair II.

(*Seriously, that list could have been twice as long, and still would have included nothing but platinum albums. Someday, I may do a post on Andy Wallace and the Lord-Alge brothers, the great mixers of the '90s.)

The problem is, it wasn't really a hit, at least in the US (unlike a lot of artists, Nova's Wikipedia page is pretty scarce, so I don't know how these songs charted overseas. Apparently, she's pretty big in New Zealand). It hit the 170s on the Billboard Top 200, the same as the previous album, and landed one track on the Adult Top 40.

Two songs on this album are great, in that "summer road trip when the only radio station you can find is one playing hot adult contemporary" sense: "London Rain" (that aforementioned Adult Top 40 hit) and "What a Feeling." The rest are pretty generic, inhabiting that gray area in between trip-hoppy stuff like Beth Orton and straightforward singer-songwriter stuff like Sheryl Crow.

Siren certainly didn't end Heather Nova's career; she segued over to the V2 label, was featured on the I Am Sam soundtrack among much more high-profile artists, co-wrote a comeback single with Dido and the Matrix that flopped, and then went the indie route. A new album, The Jasmine Flower, comes out Oct. 10 and then she'll do a two-week tour of Europe. She's worked with Moby, had her songs placed on a number of movies and TV shows, and earned a coveted spot on Divas of the Court: Songs from the WBNA. And hey, I already resold this CD on Amazon for a cool 15-cent profit, so I guess the demand's still there.

Foo Fighters headed for a break

Dave Grohl said on the BBC last week that the Foo Fighters are headed for a long hiatus.

Does this mean another Probot album? Perhaps more Taylor Hawkins and the Coattail Riders? A Sunny Day Real Estate reunion? Watch this space...

Links roundup

Sometimes stuff just doesn't warrant a full post. To wit...

* A reflection on Beck's varied career, over at Idolator. I've never really been able to get into Beck. Sure, I liked the Odelay stuff, I enjoyed "Debra" ironically, and I sort of liked the newer singles when I heard them on the radio, but I don't own a Beck album. I've never seen him live. I probably won't buy his greatest hits, and if I never hear "Loser" or "Where It's At" again, I'd be OK.

* Third Eye Blind may be close to finally putting out a fourth album, says this (fairly-old) post by their new guitarist. As far as original members go, they're down to Stephan Jenkins and the drummer. I didn't like much of the third album or the non-"Never Let You Go" parts of the second album, so...

*A celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Billboard Modern Rock charts, along with some nice YouTube videos. I especially liked "I'll Be Your Chauffeur," from 1990, which I'd never actually heard before.

* There's a nice interview with Robby Takac of the Goo Goo Dolls over at Alternative Addiction. They've just built a studio, put out an odds-and-sods album, and are writing the next album. The first taste is a track called "Real," which was part of the AT&T promo for the Olympics: