Delightful Young Men, a Portland OR band of little prominence, have pulled off a child-like song of Xmas with xs on the eyes. (Try to overlook the overwrought video accompanying it.) (Try not to love the toy piano.)
Category: altrock
A Month of Love: The Rescues
More TV music.
The Rescues have rescued several musicians from other not so successful bands, and put them in honorable mention status. If you watch teen-twenty teevee you’ve probably heard them.
“All I Want for Christmas (Is to Give My Love Away)” is from Private Practice or something like that that i never watch….
A Month of Love: Big People
Some songs earworm you into submission.
I can’t tell you much about the alt rock band Big People. I know this song appears on a great collection entitled Yuletunes: A Collection of Alternative Pop Christmas Songs (love it). Oddly it also appears on Trailer Trash Christmas, and Redneck Christmas Party (say whu–?)
I can tell you it’s about wanting more than peace on Earth, more than a new bike, more than a mistletoe mwah… but this sadly earnest complaint (“Piece on Earth“) bypasses the creep factor (barely) with its catchy whininess (and the dogs acting out the bits from Lulu’s Christmas Pudding).
A Month of Love: Jars of Clay
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.)
A Month of Love: ProjectHappiMusic
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.
The Future: Aliens! (3)
Kids love aliens of all kinds, even big scary ones. So, some novelty Christmas songs are for the children.
Sometimes all we need to do is retell a Christmas carol with the occasional gloss for SF alien terms in place of the traditional holiday words. Bill Michaels tells us ‘The Night Before Christmas’ as “Alien Christmas.” Creepy. Get the guy a lozenge.
Professor Steve believes the funniest sounds to make for kids are from the Road Runner and Batman’s Penguin. His “Alien Christmas” is appropriately annoying and approachable. Nanu nanu.
About the best kid-lovin’ alien/Xmas song around is by Fountains of Wayne. Known for ‘Stacy’s Mom,’ this is one of those emo-rock groups continually featured behind emotional TV series moments to set the mood. In other words, successful whether or not you buy their stuff.
Here is “I Want an Alien for Christmas” off their album Out of State Plates. (Some dope animation, illustration, and skitting out there for this song, but i dig the lyrics verzh ’cause i keep mishearing them.) It’s so cute and ET and crap.
State Fifty: Hawaii
well, gang, that’s fifty… so far. Okay fiddy-tree since i threw in D.C., Virgin Islands, and Lakota Nation. After the actual holidays which are nearing i’ll get back to PR, Samoa, Guam, N. Mariana (but probably not the little islands nor atolls: Wake, Midway, Palmyra, Johnston).
NEXT TIME: CHANUKAH
State Thirty-Six: South Dakota
Okay, some of the Amerinds take pity on the genocide-curious and sing our trads in their language so we can have some kind of pity/guilt annunciation. Jana Sampson, a North Carolinian with a psych degree, has become a pop/R&B singer of some note. I’m not saying she cashed in on her Lumbee and Tascarora heritage to make an album entitled American Indian Christmas, but I am saying I don’t know how good her Cherokee (“What Child is This?“) or her Apache (“Joy to the World“) accents really are. But The Plains were once the land of Lakota, so you might consider “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” in that language. And consider Jana (now) Mashonee, too. She’s an absolute babe.
The Rockford Mules line up next with “Merry Christmas, South Dakota.” Finally “loud rock music with a dash of Gospel, Southern, and Stoner” (says their Facebook page). These are fine Minnesota boys with one album. But you can tell they’ve toured through the Coyote State (suffering, missing loved ones, barely tolerating the road and weather conditions: as depicted on their ‘tube view). (I can’t think of too many music videos that cure you of ever wanting to strap on a guitar, but this one–boy howdy what a drear existence!) Christmas is often depicted as depressing (not JUST because you’re in SD), which is why we try to cheer you up so much. Don’t worry, have candy!