Music: This Week's New Releases

Fresh from rampaging through downtown Boston Celine Dion assaults the ears with yet another album -- the new release titled Taking Chances. What sort of chances are the stick figure like Canadian thrush taking? She tells Billboard that "Maybe no one thought I was capable of doing anything else, but I've got Heart and Doobie Brothers and Janis Joplin and Creedence Clearwater Revival inside of me, too." Here's looking forward to her covering, oh I don't know, "Ramble Tamble".

Here's Jennifer Saunders doing Celine (not like that you pervs)


Alicia Keys, fresh off of her namecheck on Bobby Dylan's last album comes out with Songs in A Minor, a title that's perilously close to an R. Kelly disc.

Here's Alicia gabbing with VH-1 about the new album:



Duran Duran take time off from model hunting to release a new one, Red Carpet Massacre. Even though as my wife points out without Andy Taylor they are more like, well, Duran. This time they have drafted Timbaland (!) and Justin Timberlake (!!) for a different sound. As a man not named Taylor explained to Billboard: "I'm always personally really inspired by working with urban producers, moreso than rock producers" If you guessed that was keyboardist Nick Rhodes (rather than, say, Sasha Frere-Jones) then you are a pretty darn good guesser.

Here's a behind the scenes vid with aforementioned urban producer Timbaland:



Led Zeppelin are the band that cares. Despite a hurt finger for Jimmy page and a totally awesome album/tour with Alison Krauss for Robert Plant they have taken the time to repackage their catalog for the umpteenth time with the two-disc Mothership. Ka-ching!

The Hives don't cover Michael Jackson on their new offering Black and White.

Here's the video for new song "Tick Tick Boom":


Robyn Hitchcock gets some of his eighties catalog reissued with added rarities and slapped into a honking new boxset with the 5-disc set I Wanna Go Backwards. Missing are his A&M albums, back when A&M had cool bands like Hitchcock, The Mekons, and Soul Asylum to treat like crap. Still this ones a stocking stuffer/Hannukah bush berry/ Kwanzaa unicycle treat.

Here's the super cheapo vid for "The Man with the Lightbulb Head":