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It’s Christmas Day! We Made It!

2021 was a year of hope, hanging like a fluffy pillow that might fall on our heads at any moment. I remained restlessly tossing (cookies) and turning (tables).

January began with a salute to the AFTER Christmas sentiments, from relief to resentment to realization it’ll start again in a bit.

But, I do like to take this time of the year to recommend albums the novelty aficionado MUST HAVE from the hundreds i’ve sampled. I am but a poor mouse and have few enough discs myself, but I gotta endorse what rings odd enough to my ever-lovin’ listenin’. Let’s Start with The Beatnik Turtle Christmas Album: Santa Doesn’t Like You. Folk, rock, honkytonk, punk, swing, bluegrass, cartoon music and easy listening all come together in one messy porridge of fun. It’s what you deserve.

As for hard-working salt-of-the-earth rock musician-ing, attention must be paid to Matt Roach’s Naughty and Nice, The All Original Christmas Album. Funky, earthy, intelligent unplugged messages. Try it.

A true original, Thomas Valenti’s “I’m So Glad Christmas is Over” stars Kermit and Zimmerman as one of the oddest duets to do it to it. Bouncy family fun.

February continues this ouroboros with ANOTHER Christmas, ‘cuz these holidays repeat like ‘Groundhog Day’ without our consent.

Many standards water down Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings’ It’s a Holiday Soul Party, but ‘Silent Night’ is gospel, ‘Drummer Boy’ is funk, ‘Silent Night’ is way down Motown, ‘White Christmas’ rattles the rafters with disco big band. The original tunes make me re-visit often, if you must know. Plus the missus is a big fan. Gift it!

Compilations are most random and most successful when an independent label features efforts from their unsung stable of not-stars. The Western Star Rockabilly Christmas Party is full o’ fun including Thee Elfmen, Elfish Presley, The Bad Detectives, The Go Go Cult, and Epileptic Hillbillies. If rockabilly is not your thing, steer clear. Or, then again, purchase and edjumicate yooseff as to why it ought be.

As i do enjoy a pretty song on occasion, I was given to repeated listening of Martin Rivas’s ’70s influenced pop retro “Another Christmas 78rpm” on the Victrola. It goes round and round and then round and round, y’see?

March hangs on to this theme for dear life with Christmas AGAIN. Inescapable, man!

You’ll get fewer sneers as a geek-head and more respect as a musicologist with The Irish Rovers’ Merry Merry Time of Year. Again–i eschew albums littered with standard carols, and yet ‘Angels We Have Heard,’ ‘Three Ships,’ ‘Marvelous Little Toy,’ and ‘Must be Santa’ don’t foul up this foreign fal-de-rol (well, maybe that last one–P.U.) as they lean into the Celtic celebratory vibrato. The whole house will shake with reverential ritual if you own it and play it.

The Mavericks bring us back Stateside with cool bluesy club music in Hey! Merry Christmas! Lots of heartbreak, but–hey, man, that’s music for you. Invest!

Blast from the past (1962) with Stanley Adams and Sid Wayne and The Chicken Flickers and “Chanukah is Here Again.” This other observance also cycles around so don’t you forget it!

April is full of shouting and attention-getting with a month of interjections + Christmas = songs. Hello, goodbye, oh, hey, that sort of thing for an exclamatory Xmas.

Craig’s All Star, Rockin’ Christmas, You Guys! is the album that comes back to me around now. Kyle Dunnigan is the peripheral comedian you’ve seen before–oh, oh, which one was he!? But this agenda-leaning coo-coo constellation deserves a spot in your novelty Christmas music collection.

The exclamatory backseat of “Hey Hey It’s Christmas” narrowly beats out some strange stuff that just irritates an ear. But, while The Go Go Cult dirges their folk-rock missive… of a sudden–Frankenstein, Dracula, the Mummy, Medusa come out to play. [–wha–? Did it already mention this album?!] {Must be that good.}

For May i gave in and gave Santa’s reindeer a spotlight. Wait, wait, it’s not ALL kiddies’ songs, and you may not have herd some of THESE. The first half of the month was about the Big Eight as recited in ‘The Night Before Christmas.’ Rudolph got a week of oddness as well. He deserves a good lampoon.

For a killer album full of solid rock covers with hilarious xmas context shoe-horned in, i haven’t mentioned Incense and Chia Pets enough from The ’60s Invasion. You need this to play for your disbelieving associates. (‘Rudolph’ sung to ‘19th Nervous Breakdown‘ is even better than when sung to ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit.’)

Love me a grand old ripping yarn, and Philly Cuzz delivers with “Blitzen Jones the Mighty Reindeer.” Pop shaggy dog love about that Xmas party when the wolves showed up to eat everyone.

Surely Santa doesn’t just have the eight/nine pullers! July began a roster of all the OTHER reindeer. There’s Dippy, and Ragnar, and Marvin, and Shadrack, and… so many more (this ran into July)!

Otis Gibbs has cornered the market on modern-day cool Depression back-o-the-barn blues. His holiday album Once I Dreamed of Christmas has to be heard to be believed. Own it to belong to the believers’ club.

The Wenatchee Valley Boys get win, place, and show this month. Amazing retro boy rockers with surf, doo-wop, folk, cowboy and more. Not with just silliness, these professional pop artists earn a special place in my heart with their novelty newness. Get Nightheart on Ice, and–to see what I’m mean–zero in on “Donny the Reindeer,” that pop song rapscallion is certainly a handful!

July continued reindeer as a collective cultural note.

What about Chuck Picklesimer, though? Ever since Pete the Elf intro-ed this transcendent troubadour to moi over a dozen years ago i’ve mined the depths of Dead Ninja Christmas with unbridled Nirvikalpa Samadhi. Get it.

While we’re at it, have you got just the right holiday party album–?! If you’re cool and young and happening then you might acquire The Rusebuds’ Christmas Tree Island. Quick before it’s just old stuff. (It’s nine and counting!)

But, if you want to know about reindeer… Nick Naylor’s Animal Facts runs over all the “Reindeer” life. Not rap, not didacticism, but a rock lesson that will let you bone up for erudite cocktail banter this holiday season.

Unable to leave beating a dead source, i pivoted into flight. Christmas songs about flying tend to be reindeer-esque, though a few about planes, pigs, angels, and babies helped round out August.

Arne Hansen and The Guitarspellers have crafted a party-giving bash of an album Reindeer Can Fly. And i’d like you to consider it on its merits, not on my babbling. So, buy it. Then report back.

Been a minute sine i luxuriated in pure Xmas parody (or, as it like to call pop songs appropriated for jolly times, caroldies). Try out the Elton John gone wrong of Syrpyntyne’s “Reindeer Man.” Ahh, that’s just right.

Here’s a terrible idea: find all the Christmas songs with numbers in them. There’s twelve days (or months in a couple other songs as well), three wise men–that’s all, is that not correct? Well, if you waste time on lyrics-finding search engines… there are a few others. (Gang, this led me down many white-water rabbits… and many of these songs appear on NOT-XMAS albums.) Was it worth it?

Well, it gave me a chance to reference one of my heroes, Jonathan Coulton (here with John Roderick), who can make any topic a musical marvel. Look at One Christmas at a Time to see what i mean. I ran into more than one song about My First Video Game for Xmas, but “2600” rocks. Then there’s Chanukah, romance, the aftermath, crappy relatives… and on and on. My sis got me my copy on the table outside one of his concerts. Yeah.

The Benefit have been noted already as having a great Christmas record. If you haven’t got it yet, here’s a prompt: “T-Rexmas (A Nativity Story 65 Million Years in the Making).” Now comes the story of the king of king of dinosaurs who gave his God-given time to rule. Not like that turn-the-other-cheek guy. Count it.

The big digression in my countdown of Christmas numbers began with the current year. The number of the year turns out is a milestone. 2019 Xmas was not the same as Christmas 1920. As The Futureheads like to point out, “Christmas was Better in the 80s.” So, it got competitive–which i dig.

A rockabilly punk turn by Vista Blue checked me out to the point where i had to listen more than once. Their Christmas Collection includes some covers, but mostly twists my ear in all new ways. Just check out their set list (Zombies, The Ramones, ‘Home Alone,’ Booster (the doll)…). You’ll want it then.

A brief screamer of an album, Holiday Heat, features Holiday Roger, a dramatic pop fanatic. He may be fluid, he may be on the spectrum–still, he is as entertaining as an elf orgy. Join in. But don’t follow that elf-making recipe….

Megathruster made my year with “1985 Sears Christmas Catalog.” This childhood ‘wish book’ as epic pop ballad is as serious as it wants to be. (P.S. you can view more of the actual catalog on YouTube. [As well as the one from the year you were ten.] ) What can i say but thanks.

Christmas Countdown: 1970

Thingmaker multi-mediates an experimental “Xmas, 1970” to reveal he is not too big for toys. Yep, that’s 1970 awreet.

Christmas Countdown: 1971 BLUE ALERT

Paulo Furtado, The Legendary Tigerman, lays down the blues from Christmas the year he was born (he got shoes) until now. “Fuck Christmas Baby (I Got the Blues)” is less casual BLUE ALERT and more musical hoedown.

Christmas Countdown: 2600

Jonathan Coulton and John Roderick hearken us back to 1977 and the best present a kid could hope for, the Atari Computer Video System–a game you could play on your TV that wasn’t Pong. Also known as the “2600,” this quantum leap in technology began the decline of Western Civilization. Who didn’t want to be the first kid on the block with one?! Repetitive pop madness.

Ringers: Boudreaux

If you wondered who was the most Cajun reindeer of all, Eric Stone has a tune-appropriate answer: “Boudreaux the Cajun Reindeer.” He apparently saves Mardi Gras by making the beer run. Wild piano solo.

X-claim: hey (pt. 3)

Who do we really Hey around Xmas?! Is it Santa?! (Listeners, a whole month-load of songs exist to call out Big Red; let’s reduce our consumption to a handful of odd ‘uns.)

The Something Awful people (well, Kruxy) take on Carnie & Wendy Wilson’s pop nonsense with an unending hell of “Hey Santa.” DJ = demented jokery.

Awkward girl rap from Jocie Dena, “Hey Santa” is neither angry nor profane. Nor do the rhymes bust.

Pleading ’80s style lite jazz relays a personal message to help repair a bad breakup. Pricey Diggs’s “Hey Santa” is wet snow on the carpet.

Better is the dad rock of Kerr Donnelly Band’s “Hey Santa.” Elvis fossils.

Beating out Brian Setzer by the hair on my chin chin chin, Royal Crown Revue lays “Hey Santa” into jazz band heaven. You brazen hussy.

Sweet, Hot and Sassy take the ‘Santa Baby’ bit to swing nightclub lengths with their “Hey Santa (Hey, Daddy).” Cue the bluegrass fiddle!

Well, The Moonglows might just own “Hey, Santa Claus” in terms of doo wop, heartbreak, and overall cool. Dig that licorice stick.

So many more… Then there’s the alias–

In all their music video finery Showaddywaddy pop out some 1974 party fun with their hymnal “Hey Mister Christmas.” It’s all fun and games until somebody puts out. Vice Squad improves this with a touch of punk.

Life After X-and if I catch Santa– [BLUE ALERT]

Has Santa ever let YOU down? How does that make you feel after Xmas?

Johnny Setlist has got those “Post-Christmas Blues” for the reasons that no Santa, no presents, and even no snow inflict upon him. Humming, strumming actual blues. But ironic. (Which is not a blues thing.)

When Young Tom doesn’t get what was on his list, Same Time Tomorrow hard rocks the response in “The Day After Christmas.” Careful! When he still doesn’t get it another year after THAT, (BLUE ALERT) he’s even less satisfied.

Life After X-wah

The letdown of the end of the year is post-seasonal depressing. No matter how great Xmas was, the wind-down is a wet blanket in comparison.

Jerry Becker begs, Please don’t let “The Day After Christmas” turn cold. He reasons, It’s just another day. And his tuneless muddling is just another song.

More British, Quadband adds a symphonic backbeat to the message–“The Weekend After Christmas” shatters every childhood dream. Harsh, but well rehearsed.

Michael DeLong magics a guitar while reciting a laundry list of what you don’t get in “After Christmas Blues.” It’s a lot. More folk than blues, though.

The least wonderful time of the year, begins “After Christmas (Januarysong).” Wisherkings slows time and melody to make us face the end of joyeaux noel. Symphonic folk weirdness. Damn.

Isn’t the Sun a Star Too

This is an oopsie entry. Didn’t realize i skipped a day. But there’s always one more song to list for any theme.

Sia diva pops “Sunshine” about how good you’ll feel with my comfort. What?

Even more metaphorically, Hot Hot Heat rock the state of mind in “Christmas Day in the Sun.” I’m guessing it’s SoCal burnout.

More funnily, Joel Kopischke parodies up a storm with “Christmas in the Sun.”

Family friendly rock from Aussie Kids Rock with the geography lesson “Christmas in the Sun.” Thirty degrees, Bruce!

The Stage Crew reggae rocks “Christmas in the Sun” like they’re south of the equator (Jamaica isn’t quite the ticket). It’s all love, though. Check the sing-along fervor.

Star of Bethlehem

According to The Gospel of Matthew, the Nativity was backlit by a moving miracle. The star in the East drew the Magi, but not Herod, who was looking to murder prophecied Messiahs. And stars are a great symbol (pentagrams include all five elements, cf. Bruce Willis). And they’re pretty when you don’t have so much urban light pollution. (It’s a miracle to see any stars anymore.)

[Sidebar: “Star of Bethlehem” is such a symbol, Neil Young sings about needing help to get through a bad breakup in 1974. So, not so much Jesus.]

[Besidebar: German experimental band Can pinballed the weird folkrock “Little Star of Bethlehem,” but heavens if i can tell you what it’s about. Drugtrip for Froggie and Toadie?]

The “Star of Bethlehem” will show the way, according to the popified country from Danielle Rose. Yeah, it’s gonna be pretty Christian this month.

The Children’s Chorus sings “Star of Bethlehem” in the ‘Home Alone’ movie. Yeah, that’s John Williams’s churchy music. Lots of good stuff from this star: filling with hope, viewing with love, bettering our hearts, making us wiser. Star power activate.

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