Category Archives: lounge

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??

Parodies Paradise: 1959 “Mack the Knife”

Bobby Darin rode Louis Armstrong’s hit to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and number six on the Black Singles chart, and earned him a Grammy Award for Record of the Year… Frank Sinatra and Simon Cowell have raved about this version descended from Brecht’s Die Dreigroschenoper, alienating Marxist theater. Most of us mack fun of the finger-snapping, cool-scatting lounge lizard it spawned.

Make way for Joel Kopischke’s “Santa’s Back in Town.” Yeah, i think it’s cool. ‘Cuz it is.

Parodies’ Paradise: 1959 “Beyond the Sea”

Bobby Darin adds to his streak o’ hits here reaching no. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100, no. 15 on the US R&B Chart, and no. 8 in the UK Singles Chart. Not bad for retreading a Jack Lawrence 1946 love song. Baby!

Joel Kopischke searched “Beneath the Tree” for presents. So should we all.

Behold a Star: Marilyn Monroe

Norma Jeane Mortensen was a foster kid bounced around homes and careers and men until she became a glossy prop for Americana. Whether or not she ever was allowed dreams of her own, she became the dream of millions and that’s all that needs to be said here. Sadly.

Lou Mencell and His Mambonicks has a listing January 1955 on Billboard for new pop releases. His hangdog nasal “All I Want for Chanukah is Marilyn Monroe” has been featured on my blog before. But come on. It’s cool.