Year-round Yuletide oddities
Joyce Manor can’t go wrong on “These Kind of Ice Skates.” Or can they? Hard garage. So just quit.
New Lenox is ready to quit as well. It’s that last moment with here, on the frozen lake, with the parents’ borrowed “Ice Skates.” Then we hear cracking. Powerful alt.
Angry and BLUE ALERT OK Cool doesn’t want any part of this exercise, bc “I Can’t Stand in Ice Skates.” Bitching alt to bring us to a close.
.Icky got a boothang who loves my music and figure skates to me rappin’. That’s “Winter Love” y’all. I mean he’s enunciating and like that.
“Ice Skates or…” is a thought game about breaking with the world. Skating will lead you away i guess. Sorry Snowman gets all indie and alt about it. Stay away.
Jazzy Ash envisions a lazy day on her “Ice Skates.” How lazy? Saxophone lazy! Alt fun. (& scat!)
Les Patineurs, or The Skaters’ Waltz, is a standard for winter backdrop music. Still few lyrics have been pinned to this French ditty. Here is one of the best, The Golden Orchestra and Singers performing “The First Skater’s Waltz.” Kidstuff, but terribly amusing–with real ’60s orchestration.
Skating goes with dating, for some. Gloria Estefan is “Thankful” for you at that time of year: Skating with my crew in the park (cause school is out, yay!). Gospel-ish pop sung by thinkers Gloria Estefan, Emily Estefan, Sasha Estefan-Coppola.
Burnt trees, unread letters to Santa, a shaken snowglobe with skaters suffering vertigo… Bnny Rbbt declares “There’s No Christmas in Hell“–hell being your absence from his love. But this filtered alt is a gorgeous cry for help. Play it again!
American rocking it hard, Noxtrain remembers the old days (with you), which somehow involved ice and tobogganing. “Twenty-Six Seventy” is a journey of maudlin proportions. Good stuff.
Carl Dixon a cappellas to ‘Chopsticks’ about how “Snowflakes are Dancing.” Then it gets jazzy! There are horses, buttoning up coats, snuggling… and then: Some like toboggan or seed cataloguing–not a rhyme i expected!
Hawksley Workman hits the novelty marching rhythm acutely for the alt-pop “First Snow of the Year.” First panic, then consideration, then all-day tobogganing! Magical (and not just ‘cuzza the whistling solo).
Techical Ecstacy shrieks garage about their “Sled” until the bombs start falling. Really.
Sophie Villanelle balances the musical scales with banjo New Age in “The Sled Dog Lament.” It’s a dog’s life.
He sled, she sled from Josh Walther (feat. Robyn Lista) in the easy listening country “Making Christmas Ours.” Basic but danceable.
Percussive alt-pop from X-mas Donkey & The Glittering Balls makes “I Wanna Ride My Sled” a jingling masterpiece. Sax solo!
Lunatic Soul plays with our expectations in “Gravestone Hill,” an alt-folk place for remembering, finding love,–and SLEDDING!
When there’s “No Snow” there’s no sledding. Moira and Claire dum da dum dum through the folksy pop of missing it. But, then– [adorbs]
“What Does Christmas Mean to You” invites a lite-rock laundry list of snowing, caroling, gingerbread… and sleds by Jesse Reid. Yeah, my kid could’ve penned this.
Oh Geronimo stretches the metaphor in “The Sled” to include trust, love, relationship, and, oh, i dunno, descent. Alt prettiness.
Sled Kennedys storm the garage with their “Sledding,” a raucous assault on the hills. Better watch out.
More historical than holiday-ical, “It’s All Who You Know” from Newsboys traces cause and effect. The sled does get snowbound, but it might be Scott and it might be Amundsen. Either way, rocking alt.
Luke Stanage uses new age alt to sculpt a musical landscape in “New Sled (Christmastime is Here).” Tinkling and plonking arrange the snow scape of mind, although whooshing over the scenery seems wanting.
1 Trait Danger raps “Sleds for Christmas” as a diss to the other kids. BLUE ALERT!! This elf-built, silver behemoth works better when the operator is under the influence.
Stephen Sharer’s pop number “Snow Day” repeats for us due to the awesome sledding. Catchy.
The Mountain Says No wanted nothing more than a “Christmas Sled.” This alt-pop sparkler puts us in the driver’s seat, all right.
Not every sled for every kid was an overturned garbage can lid… the big want (since around 1900) was the Flexible Flyer, that plank-y top with the wrought iron runners that could slice an obstacle up. Watch out!
Cori Connors goes deep with childhood nostalgia and folk/pop in her “Flexible Flyer.” This sad’un is full of regret, like adult memories are wont to do. Sigh.
Pete Sinjin also hollows out the earth for the dead memories of forgotten winters in his alt-bluegrass “Flexible Flyer.” Existential sing-along!
Brian DeWan’s “Flexible Flyer,” however, is the alt-slick trip down the snowy slope. Childish threats of violence! Wot fun!
Almost time for the good stuff.
Chilling on the lanai, Styles Dangerfeld is not big on lyrics. “Merry Christmas, I’m Going Surfing” is the title AND the libretto. Still, pretty cool for light rock.
Gray sings us a lovely love song with alt-garage emotionality, but “Fall v2” mentions Christmas lights wrapped around something, and some silliness with a rented surfboard in Galveston. So let’s sneak a peek at it.