Here’s a more appropriate holiday sickness: black-fingers, old nosey dropoff, necrosis of the toes-is. (Warning–songs contained make light of this life-threatening condition.)
daKoda Langford spins a tinkly tale of Christmas illness with his melodic synth rap “Frostbite.” He might be a genre-switching genius. Or twelve.
This danger is not to be confused with being bitten by monster snowmen. Let Myrrhna explain in a Bah & The Humbugs’ “Frostbite.” Haunting pop
Canadian weirdos Jakalope party up the pathologies in “Frostbite Kisses.” Better access to health care makes them more candied cavalier, i guess. Electronic alt.
Christmas is a time of socializing, no one wants to be hiccoughing or sneezing or hacking or unable to catch their wind. Conversate like a good fellow! In out in out!
The Branches Youth Choir bring us “The Coughing, Sneezing Blues” for Christmas. It’s white people, so blues with privilege.
Yet Monica Sottile has bless(you)ed us a fine dreamy alt-piece “Christmas = Mine (cough cough)” not exactly about illness (altho there are some fine undernotes of throat clearance), but certainly about December’s malaise.
Well, footwear… but if you find “Santa’s Boots” under her bed–not so jolly. The Crusty Jugglers bring the maudlin to honky tonk for a country downer.
Kinky boots continues with Diane Gee wanting to wear “Santa’s Boots.” Kidsong, so i’m sure it’s innocent as all get out. But when she crows about bein’ ‘jolly’ after ‘strapping on’ the gear–i dunno.
Gleefully naughty HB Radke puts the big band in gay apparel with “Shiny Red Boots.” It’s not cross dressing so much as Xmas dressing.
Also alternative, Greg (guitar) Case strums and hums through “Santa Wore Cowboy Boots.” This Santa identifies as ‘scoot.’
bennie accounts for this anomaly with “Santa’s Got Daddy’s Boot on.” Guess it was a shortchanged quick-change. Frolicsome kidsong.
Joe Teig brings the rock’n’roll to kidsong with “Santa Claus’s Boots,” a measure of how big a man he is. (As in, i could never fill those boots.)
Metal now with “Black Boots on” by Billy Scream. This inventory of apparel gets dark fast.
Just as disturbing is the disco hip hop from Marc Schaefgen “Black Boots n’ Red Pants.” This is not natural.
BearRon (Rob Barron) sees too many Santas when he sings “Oh Santa Pants.” This slow country two-step ends badly when he finds discarded Santa pants… eek!
Brian Greene (in not quite a sequel) polkas up his phone call to the North Pole to report “How Santa Lost His Pants.” Where will the operator connect him? Child services?
Where will this end? “Santa’s Panties” by Valley of Love, Dan Barbanel, Anu Junnonen, and Joy As a Toy round robin sing about that piece of costumery that must not be mentioned. Experimental pop. Be cautious of learning too many details….
Little Encyclopedia Browns roam the front room figuring out it’s someone else in the getup, like Dr. Elmo with his bluegrass folk “Grandpa in the Santa Suit Show.” Nice pickin’.
Falling for the man in the uniform, but this time the man, Christiane Bjørg wants to know “Who’s the Hunk in the Santa Suit?” Who’s your umpapa? (Ja ja, beerhall pop, das ist gut.) (But Danish.)
Wait, is that YOU in the Santa suit? Filipino Dream Girls puzzle out how when you go get the “Santa Suit” on, you transform. You are Christmas. Funny folk rock worth opening your minds towards.
Maybe i have NO idea who’s in that two-piecer: “Somebody Stole My Santa Claus Suit” wails Dan Hicks and the Christmas Jug Band. This trip through instrumentation winds up Christian anyway.
Fountains of Wayne document the woes of “The Man in the Santa Suit” at the mall. Fine alt to celebrate the season. (Or a retelling of the first The Simpsons episode.)
The Christmas sweater may have begun with Andy Williams and his televised holiday specials, but the BBC co-opted Christmas jumpers through the ’80s. THE joke gift of the ’90s, the so-called ugly hand-crafted relative-bestowed woolly overdecorated pullover fell by the wayside, only to become an ironic champion to the millennials in the 2010s.
We’ll cover a few days with the lovely songs about them, from sweetest to sourest.
The Ghost Script (Matt Thompson) countdowns the traditions that make December Christmas. With blaring jazzy pop, he finds his “Favorite Christmas Sweater” and becomes the hero.
Coloring outside the lines helps bands brand with their own sound. It’s not exactly rock, or folk, or metal… WTF?
But i loves so much of it.
It’s folk! It’s the blues! It’s country! Henry Cyr worries about sending that “Christmas Card” to you. He’s crying and crooning.
Blending symphonic easy listening with jazz and pop, Nancy Kelly likes her “Christmas Cards.” Seductively persuasive.
BLUE ALERT: driving rock + light folk + playful pop = “The Christmas Card Song” by Craig L. McEachern. Do i smell some punk aftertaste?
Alt is often thoughtful and heavily poetic. In the words of a “Christmas Card” Jonathan Reuel considers his life. And yours. Folk, garage, blues.
Dismissively garage and sorta punk, the minimalist “Christmas Card” embodies the empty sentiment of buying that damned thing, or anything. Henry Kroll III jazz free associates the insanity.
Pop jazz country R+B, Christine Anu’s “Christmas Card” is honestly full of love. Take heart!
The Many-Splendored Things take the time to describe “A Christmas Card (In My Heart)” with some colorful detail, sprightly jazz, flirty folk, and pop back ups. Thank you.
Did i mention how important the Christmas card list was? Who’s on it, who innit, it’s a horserace of favorites and disappointments.
Peter Ward sloshily rides the rote “Christmas Card List” with yelling folk and boinging sound effects. And a laff track. Roll with it.
Dick Dedrick does that weird country music thing where he lectures out his song “Cards that Count/My Kind of Christmas.” It starts with the importance of who’s on the list. Then… well, take notes, aliens, if you want to recreate this fantasy no one ever lived through.
Narrowing down that list to that one special name, the person you only have “A Christmas Card Relationship” with reveals an important purpose of the list: casual regret. The last vestige of contact you have with someone who may have once been instrumental in your life is that address and name–still current? Chris Davidson flies this flag with alt pop sincerity and tugs some heartstring. Thanks, man, now’m sad.
Well, i can’t pass up another Todd McHatton: “A Christmas Song for Harry Nilsson.” This must be the third time i’ve foisted it on you.
Bored housewives from Portland, The Fallen Angel Choir went political with “Sing a Song for Benjamin Linder” a victim on Nicaraguan Contras (and others). Whew.
A LOT lighter, Carolyn Mark offers a “Song for the Girl with Two of Everything.” For children of divorce get too much, don’t they?
By calling out how it’s “Just Another Christmas Song” Stolen Moments takes a step out of the hearth warmth and holds us aloof and lonely (you’re not here). But is that empty spot a lost love… or God?? Country cornball over-orchestrated pop/slop.
Fundraising from home Lins Honeyman is singing “Just Another Christmas Song” to jumpstart your spirit. Redeem for his cause. I mean now.
Jethro Tull gets poetical/political (what else is new?) with “Another Christmas Song,” but this one’s to convince world leaders to quit the warring and give us world peace. Songs do that, you know.
Let’s skip ahead to “The Best Christmas Song” by Jon Lajoie, the Canadian stoner musician comic. While this is one of those blurred lines that is more song than about-a-song, it has the golden ratio of irony (-1:1) in that it is a bad song about mittens and necks, than the best song (presumably about peace and orgasm).
