Year-round Yuletide oddities
Then there’s just bumming out… because–Christmas!
Club rock by The Nigh is starting to get the party started, but the dirge-like ‘tude unplugs my tree and steps on my dog. “It’s Nearly Christmas” is nearly angry.
Three Day Threshold & Summer Villains reveal that “Almost Christmas Time” is time to cry. Missing you outweighs all the presents, baby. Despite someone else. Swinging folk outlined in garage.
Thus have we syllogized that home is where the hard on. So let’s get loving with the proximity of the holidays.
Peter Vesth is softly romantic with his strummy, yummy “Almost Christmastime Night.” But something’s lost in translation, and he comes off as Scandi-awkward. I keep hearing Arnold Schwarzenegger in his stylings.
The Whispers do that creepy synthelectric echoey Motown soul that stinks of leftover disco when they lay down “It’s Almost Christmas.” A newer arrangement ought to clear that up.
Pop chortling about being in love AND It’s “Almost Christmas Time” makes Dwight Twilley sound like a boy band with aspirations. But, Britpop gets me (nearly) every time. It’s that bass beat, baby.
The love of inter-species close friendship just makes my cut, so “Merry Almost Christmas,” the charming kidshowtune from ‘A Year with Frog and Toad,’ ensorcels me. The original cast (Mark Linn Baker, Jay Goede) know what they’re doing, and they do so with Bway elan.
You know it’s love when you’re spending it with the ‘rents-in-law. Nick Flora’s alt-folk mystical journey is over before it’s begun, but “Almost Christmas” is transportive and trance-inducing. For me, anyway.
Time travel time! Let’s listen to old times stuff about being close to the day of Christmas.
Reeking of ’60s TV specials, Larry Nestor’s “Christmas Day” claims to be not so far away, but the retro best buy date here was somewhere in the ’90s. Room temp pop.
Old World is the same as old, right? So let’s bask in the sad Irish family chanty “Christmas is Just Around the Corner” jigged by Finbar & Maura Dennehy. God bless you and keep you far away.
While we’re on the international subject, a quieter strummer allows for a more intimate moment. So “Almost Christmas Time” by The Bluegrass Brethren scores higher on the novelty-o-meter here. Still cheesy though.
The Celtic quality of the kidsong “Almost Christmas” here by Elizabeth Hanney brings a haunted, understated happiness to the repetition of joyous well wishing. Simplify thy carols!
Let’s throw the (good) book at the topic: a little religiosity while we circle in on the 25th of December is appropriate. Don’t just go to church at midnight Mass and call it good. Keep kneeling all the days.
Playful soul R+B is fecund ground for a gospel message, but “Almost Christmas Time” by The Willing Workers (feat. Lil D, The Candyman, Chynosoul & Big E) is hard to take seriously. Thanking JC for the underbelly of culture with a joyous swing, however understated, sounds off.
The Kumbaya folk lilt of Joanna McMorris sells the message better. But “It’s Almost Christmas” comes in as too measured and carefully worded to reach into the soul and produce awe/dread/love. It’s just a pretty song.
The over-ochestrated showtune quality of “I Love When Christmas is Just Around the Corner” brings the power of the sacrifice of god-as-man into the restrained gentility of a hummable tune. Marina Pierce and Christopher Puckett run arpeggios of notes ’round the reason for the season. Not getting it–
I do get Jason Gray’s over-produced joyous “Christmas is Coming” (Will You be There?). It’s a call-to-arms to be innocent and hopeful with enormous chorus back up. A bit modern, but successfully done. (Maybe it’s the pop country overtones….)
Laurie Klassen bangs the piano ragtime style (add synth-trumpets!) to beat the drum for “Christmas Time is Almost Here.” It’s folk pop that preaches with syncopation (how many syllable can YOU get out of Amen?).
Okay, less is more. Jars of Clay sneaks the Savior in poetically to “Almost Christmas.” It’s a plodding folk walk in the snow that evokes mystery and loneliness. But it’s soft as a pop prayer trailing promise and passion in its waltzing wake. Thanks.
That’s one find slab of holiday ham, that mall Santa. Objectify!
Sean Revoltah grunge party pop the “Mall Santa” with some grrl grabbiness. Fun.
Too Cute! exclaims Matt Roach in the American rock folker “Sidewalk Santa.” He’s one smitten kitten. (Even says ‘please’!)
When is enough enough for a mall Santa? When it’s time to unionize!
5 Chinese Brothers bring the rollicking blues folk to bear when ‘Larry McGroot’ organizes “The Department Store Santa Claus Strike.” It gets dirty, gang. But, great Arlo-esque palaver.
After a time or two, kids are resigned to see the department store Santa. It’s just a job, after all.
Joshua Creek details the critical three-year-old’s concern about “Santa’s at the Mall.” This folk-grass strummer weighs down the youngsters with mythos angst.
Whit Hill and Latini steel guitar the rock blues in “Going with My Cousin to See Santa at the Mall.” Their lassitude is exceeded only by their drawl.
Some of those modern singers lament their existential blues with bourgeois frippery in the periphery. Xmas lights? Whatever, the world’s a hole!
Urban rap takes this to heart, evidence MaRlo with “Christmas Lights.” Even if you get killed, man. Lights.
Swagkasper23 calls out the indifference of those “Christmas Lights,” even if he dies… Again rap for the loss.
Closed Heart Surgery rounds out our rap needs with “I Hope Christmas Lights Burn Your House Down.” I suspect girl troubles started it.
Young Statues echo alt “When the Lights Go Up” as a surrender to the inevitable.
Austin Hartley-Leonard dreams about being “Under Christmas Lights” as a symbol of emptiness (echo echo echo). Resigned maudlin folk.
Sometimes the lights are in your face, all over the place, too fast to chase… and you can’t draw a bead on their meaning. It means that your meds aren’t working, or that lights have outgrown their symbolic roots and have become the new reality. Cope!
Monica hypnotically chants about Christmas night and how “I Saw Light.” I’d give it a BLUE ALERT if i could understand it.
Darlene Como similarly warbles and creates, now with fewer actual words, a strange world for the holidays with “Twisted Christmas Lights in Romantic India.” May i presume so much that all is not well here?
FoloSound colors outside the rap lines with a story of love(?) and heartbreak(?) (or just music) with “808s & Christmas Lights.” The 808s from aught i can gather is the electronic beat machine setting the rhythm here.
Eric Lichter gets coffeehouse beat poet in “Christmas Lights for Matadors.” This balletic word salad may yield to explication, but i’ll swim and sway happily regardless (mostly to the banjo parts). Fine alt-folk.
We’ve embraced several light sources into our ragtag theme of Christmas Light Songs. So, why not the home’s hearth? It’s where the stockings are hung and Santa appears. And–the Yule log (which should be so dambig that you burn only part of it each of the twelve nights of Xmas)!
Dave & Jeannine rascal the country fiddlin’ for a bad recording “Put Out the Ol’ Yule Log.” Seems forgetting to darken the fireplace will cause some down home regret. Or some two-steppin’.
Black Oak Coven’s album The Homebrewed Book of Pagan Carols offers a “The Yule Log” song about blessed light in the home. It ain’t Christian, but it is holy. Medieval throat boxing.
That, natch, brings us to Prof. Peter Schickele’s “Throw the Yule log on Uncle John.” This parody of Dark Aged chorale ronds is great fun for all teen-aged ironists, including Emerald City Voices.
Also outre, Hot Buttered Elves get psychedelic garage with “Larry was a Yule Log,” in which the holiday centerpiece is anthropomorphized with horrifyingly danceable results.
Let’s retire with a sprightly folk pop piece about the fireplace in the work-a-day world. Sure I could include some random anonymous spoken word piece from the 1960s (hi-fi test album??) about how-to make a Christmas fire…
…but let’s cut instead to Joshua Hyslop’s “Winter’s Night.” The ambience is vibrant, and i’m pretty sure all is well in this world–thanks to the smoldering hearth.