Year-round Yuletide oddities
I dunno.
This is on an Air Supply Christmas album… the slideshow makes it look like Christianity delivered… the sentiment is right.
Enh, count it as oddly a Christmas song.
“Love is All” by Air Supply. It’s slow dance time for your winter formal 1979.
Jars of Clay is a TN alt rock from a while ago. Not a follower, but gotta give them props for an early hit (“Rudolph Smells Like Teen Spirit“). It’s the old carol, y’see… but it’s sung to a goth rock… It made my nice list.
They also reinterpret the 1885 “Love Came Down at Christmas” which has been a minor holiday sensation, not yet a classic. Theirs is only one of the tunes the holy poem has been set to over the centuries. (For a classic version of the song, check out the Choir of King’s College at Cambridge.)
Valerie Capers is the first blind musician to graduate Julliard. She pairs well with Marian McPartland here singing “Christmas is Love.”
Never fade away… live fast, die young… angry looks foolish on the old.
I mean, when should the punk icons of back in the day just knock it off?
The MTV star of the ’80s (‘Rebel Yell,’ ‘White Wedding,’ James Marsters’s character in Buffy) helped mainstream screaming with piercings rather than hair. But, apart from a “comeback” album in ’05, Mr. Broad hasn’t been much of anything for twenty years. Here is his “Christmas Love” frumpy country growling from ’07. It’s easier to love him without an up-to-date jpeg, by the by.
“Give Love on Christmas Day” debuted on a Jackson 5 album around 1970. The cut was no ‘Up on the Housetop,’ but it has endured. In fact, 5’s Motown sound has inspired many a group to gospel heights. So this song has many aspiring children.
New Edition capture that Jackson 5 mellow richness in a near perfect echo to the original.
The Temptations go stratospherically falsetto with their version. Piercing.
SWV sing it like children, not beautiful adult women.
More recently, Johnny Gill has gone solo with the song. All the need for love, quintuple the soul.
The same year Ledisi leaned hard into the R+B of the song and gave us another present (just this side of disco).
And then Yolanda Adams did it. She’s done better. Hers is more pop than soul.
Slightly to the East are further interpretations (KathNiel, Sarah Geronimo, Danny Espanto), and oh about another dozen or so folks of all colors–everyone with an impressive vocal range wants to nail this slider.
But, let’s get back to basics with the original: Jackson 5’s “Give Love on Christmas Day.” (No directions on how to wrap it.)
Love makes us goofy.
When we exhibit goofy in love a bit too much, we probably need a deprogrammer.
Projecthappimusic seems to be run by Loren Lemon dedicated to bringing all human beings together into one big fat hug. Their Christmas song “I Love You! It’s Christmas Time!” endeavors to teach you to say the L-word in many languages. Yuletide’s in there, too, i guess. Maybe you should be sitting down for this one.
Duets sound less desperate as love songs, don’t they?
United Nations Messenger of Peace Stevie Wonder is known for ‘Superstition,’ ‘You are the Sunshine of My Life,’ and ‘I Just Called to Say I Love You.’ Blind Mr. Morris nee Judkins has been changing how music has been made for decades.
’90s serial back up singer Kimberly Brewer has been paired most successfully with Wonder.
Their number here (“I Love You More”) is from an old TV Christmas special. It barely mentions the holidays, even says he loves here more than Jesus (i think). But love makes us lose track of the seasons… right?
Seven Grammies, 67 million albums sold, the Queen of R & B knows how to communicate feelings.
Toni Braxton sings “Snowflakes of Love” wonderfully. Wish those instruments would shut up.
Happy Groundhogs Day, Bill Murray!
Sara Bareilles is a powerful voice in soft, meaningful pop music. She hit big with an iTunes free song of the day back in ’07 and has been nominated for Grammies several times. The Obamas have invited her to sing for events. She’s cool.
Check out her delicate, soulful “Love is Christmas.”
February means 1/2-way between the shortest day of the year and the equinox. And it means black history. And it means presidents.
And it means love–for St. Valentine’s sake.
The Godfather of Soul was 73 when he passed… On Christmas Day! (back in ’03). Although a drug user and domestic abuser, he shaped rock and roll in terms of the black man. He was one of the first inductees when the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame opened in ’86.
Best known for his ’60s breakthroughs ‘Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag’ and ‘I Got You (I Feel Good),’ our current love song, “Christmas is Love,” comes from the same time period, his same era of carnal power and strength.