Category Archives: lounge

“Jingle (Bells)” …keep dancing (older now)

Add the word JINGLE to your number and Xmas hits the spot. Bells may be implied.

Andy Beck and Brian Fisher bring you another kids’ assembly pageant with “Jingle Bells Jukebox.” Jumping and shaking to follow.

“Jingle Down the Christmas Tree” is PJ Parker’s sultry euphemism for the best gift ever–the oldest form of dance there is.

Michael Hurtt & His Haunted Hearts cowboy up the slide guitar with “Jingle Bells Boogie,” a quite danceable honky tonk wonder. Asleep at the Wheel don’t quite bring it to their tired version.

Almost a word-for-word rendition, Wayne Newton manages to demolish the family joy of this traditional song with his smarmy lounge version “Jingle Bell Hustle.” Only one word has been added to the original. Can you spot it? Should you?

ël-No, the twenty-second

The intrinsic suppliers of the poverty paradigm involve shit-out-of-luck parameters that seem out of our control. No Christmas for you and your loved ones, ‘cuz–just ‘cuz.

Scott Anderson honky tonks the blue grass with his spiral into bad luck “Ain’t No Christmas Round Here.” It’s the usual country-western lament, but that banjo just keeps me from cryin’.

Yulenog blows smoky jazz lounge for the gambling addict who leaves it all on the table and “No Christmas” follows his sorry ass home. Pretty messy.

Baby It’s Coal: okay

On opposite day the kids want coal for Christmas. How goofy can we make this trope?

Pete McPherson is feeling the chill, so he wants country swinging “Coal for Christmas.” To hedge his bets he slurs ol’ Santa’s name, and also readies the shotgun to get what he wants. Damn, that IS cold.

Yulenog gets environmentally conscience-less when lounge swinging how much they want “Coal for Christmas.” (They’ll take oil, for that matter.)

Yee Hawliday: missing home

When you’re not home on the range, you probably have a home to get to. So out there, you’d miss it more’n a trucker come Christmas day.

Praying for a way back, The Brymers add soul to country for their “Cowboy Christmas Day.” Sad one.

Mary Kaye brings out the pathos with an old hand who knows when it’s time for “Goin’ Home for Christmas.” Friends, i’m not sure she means above ground… (sniffle).

Hey wait, is that lounge music for a “Cowboy Christmas“??? Starlet Knight dives deep into diva to tell a tale of not being home in time. —little girl.

Yee Haw-liday: corn pone

Everyone’s jumping on the cowboy Christmas song bandwagon and talent is no prerequisite.

Donna and Carroll Roberson strangle out “A Cowboy Christmas” stringing together cold, God, and cattle with little emotion, just pop plodding.

With ladles more orchestration, Wayne Newton lounges up “Cowboy’s Christmas” for the casino-goers. The attempt to psychoanalyze the loner goes awry with the coconuts clacking as horse hooves missing the beat of the electric bass.

And a Party in a Pear Tree: staff affection BLUE ALERT

One of the consequences of office Christmas party ribaldry is the casual hookup and subsequent shame spiral that can cripple a corporation. It’s the reason for the season, or at least a good way to win money betting on the office Xmas scorecard. (Gillian undressed in the copy room before 5 PM! 50$ for me!)

Johnny Fritz ushers in the ‘what-the-heck’ with “The Office Christmas Party.” Easy listening light rock just shows to go how naive is this guy. Romance isn’t that easy, bra.

Mickey John bull has a sing along darkly pop number in “The Office Christmas Party.” Get HR on the horn, pronto. We need more sensitivity training.

The predatory approach from Samantha Fields makes the easy listening pop of “The Office Christmas Party” sinister, like a 1930s man-hungry cartoon character.

Nastiness without the obscenity, “X-Rated Christmas Office Party” from Lil Poverty Angels is electronica rap that reads as more wish list than rap sheet.

The aftermath of messed up assignations may result in “Office Party Blues” an electric piano rocker of petty proportions from the Jacobsen Brothers.

A broken heart mars We Grow Up’s “Office Christmas Party,” in which alt crash-and-burn begins at the company revels. How ironic.

Now that we’re depressed, let’s dive into the dumps with the scratchy folk of Fugitives and “Christmas at the Office Party.” Ah, nihilism for Christmas. BLUE ALERT

Rudy Casoni brings the Sinatra-style mash with the progressively crazier “Office Christmas Party.” Yikes. Lounge BLUE ALERT

As Seen on TV: Gossip Girl/Riverdale

Let’s just imagine the show by the music it picks, ‘kay?

“Oh It’s Christmas” by The Rosebuds is bouncy alt-pop fun, setting the instamood to light and flirty.

The Weepies garble through “All That I Want” for a contemplative but moody thinky scene.

“Chrismakwanzakah” by The Dan Band gets our party rebel on, but fun-sized and definitely not threatening.

Again, play the hormone level of these tunes off the will-they/won’t-they tensions of the show i won’t get around to.

Fascinations Grinds Chorus adds a pop ‘billy (shudder) to “This Christmas (Underneath the Christmas Tree)” so i guess at least one of ’em are hopin’ to be humpin’.

“I Know You’re Real St. Nicholas” is lounge folk with whispery undertones. Must be during foreplay.

As Seen on TV: Animaniacs

A contender for overall best wit for the young, this ’90s Steven Spielberg produced foray into WB Kids attempted to bring vaudeville to the end of the century. Middling results.

“The First Noel (parody)” is much more comic than previously sampled songs so far. Punny!

Their pinnacle is their ‘Christmas Carol’ takeoff (Wakkoff?) trying to moralize capitalistic Taxman Plotz, with the songs “Ghost of Christmas Past,” “Ghost of Christmas Present,” and “Ghost of Christmas Future.” Love the all-out orchestration.

Parodies’ Paradise: 1983 “Every Breath You Take”

The Police had their biggest US and UK hit with this… topping the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart for eight weeks… their only number-one hit on that chart… #1 UK Singles Chart for four weeks… also topped the Billboard Top Tracks chart for nine weeks… nominated for three Grammy Awards, including Song of the Year, Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals, and Record of the Year, winning in the first two categories… Sting received the 1983 British Academy’s Ivor Novello award for Best Song Musically and Lyrically… Rolling Stone critics and readers voted it “Song of the Year”… in the US, it was the best-selling single of 1983 and fifth-best-selling single of the decade… Billboard ranked it as the number-one song for 1983… ranked number 84 on the Rolling Stone list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time… included in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll… also ranked number 25 on Billboard‘s Hot 100 All-Time Top Songs.

The Mistletones play the music and make the funny with “Every Wish You Make,” but they don’t quite get the gravity of the song.

So let’s have Robert Lund unpack its mysticism with a paranoid screed about Santa watching “Every Toy You Break.”

Parodies’ Paradise: 1978 “Copacabana”

Also known as “Copacabana (At the Copa),” Barry Manilow’s familiar tune was released as the third and final single from his fifth studio album, Even Now… peaked at number 8 on the Billboard chart… peaked at number 22 in the United Kingdom in 1993 in a remixed version… is considered Manilow’s third-greatest hit… his first gold single for a song he recorded and released… the lyrics earned Manilow his first and only Grammy Award for Pop Male Vocalist in 1979.

Joel Kopischke plays it cool with “North Pole Cabana”–who gored who??