Category: show tune

Line Up-starters

All the reindeer get named in some songs.

Autry, Gene Autry returns with Will It be A Hit? “Thirty-Two Feet and Eight Little Tails of White.” Kidsong before his Rudolph deal. (But THIS song comes out two years after.)

Where’s Rudolph? is the R+B question of “Reindeer’s Christmas Song.” The Stocking Fillers wail on it seriously.

“Now Dasher Now Dancer” is a musical interlude in the Mickey Rooney elder-recital of ‘Night Before.” Bouncey kidsong.

More kidsong from Candy Cane Lane: “Eight Reindeer” is bebopping lite rock about the names.

Starting the refrain, the reindeer list fills in Chris Commisso’s need for lines in the hyperactive pop number “The Christmas (All I Really, Really Want).”

The Sandpipers give each a voice in “Santa’s Other Reindeer (We are the Reindeer Who Work for Santa Claus).” This kidsong personalizes all but the ninth with mucho gusto.

“Dash Away All” is the hyper showtune from Sounds Of Blackness’s ‘The Night Before Christmas – A Musical Fantasy.’ Tempo to race ’round the world (never mind the going on strike twist).

X-claim: cheers

Time to raise a cry and a cup for the holidays. Cheers is an appropriate greeting, wish, and toast. Let’s find out who sings what.

The MacDonald Brothers dadrock the blues hand-clapper “Three Cheers for Christmas.” You can hear the hip-hip hooray if you listen at all. Almost silly.

Jen Hanson’s “Three Cheers for Christmas Time” is a sultry jazz rhumba. Drinking is definitely happening.

Downer from Hermione Lund in the form of “Cheers to Christmas.” Missed opportunities, missing loved ones, i think there will be quaffing to come. Symphonic, emotional show tune.

ad silentnitum, unbroken

Still feeling deserted around the holidays? Still?! Sing with brimming eye!

Jim Caliendo soft rocks “Another Blue Christmas” as homage to The King. Stellar effort, decent song.

Steven Acker could take pointers, as his “Another Blue Christmas” is limp rock with empty lyrics. Elvis’s coattails can’t carry this.

Shredding blues guitar stretches “Another Blue Christmas” from Andrew Mellor to the breaking point. How many anothers can a man take?

Sweaty club jazz from David George and The Crooked Christmas Orchestra sneaks “Another Blue Christmas” up on you from expecting Santa to getting shafted.

ad silentnitum, continual

Done yet? No way, Hay-seus!

Those American Girls are not so happy with “Another Christmas.” there’s chores, and other people get to go to Aruba, and–well, YOU know. But there IS theremin. Odd electro-pop.

And then Gary Glitter swooshes in with an insistent backbeat to herald the kissing and singing and presenting of “Another Rock ‘n’ Roll Christmas.” Throbbin’!

“Just Another Song” is the swingin’ Stephen Colbert addition to the canon. And this time, my ad infinitum reference is used!

Life After X-please

Some lunatics out there admit that they look forward to the after-times from Xmas. What–? How–? Hoo boy….

Woebegone of folksy tune, John Caroll has mostly glad feelings now that “Christmas is Over.” There’ll be another one…. for those who even care.

Cardboard Box Thieves jig about with bluegrass pop confessing how little they like Christmas. “After Christmas” is preferred. ‘Strue.

Karen Jacobsen also complains about the hair-tearing-out pace of the holiday, so with a showtune turn she exalts “The Day After Christmas.” She even calls it Boxing Day, like that’s a thing.

But, to keep you off balance, Kermit & Dylan (impressionist Thomas Valenti) harmonize about how “I’m So Glad Christmas is Over” and it’s all back to normal. Music hall enunciated comedy.

Wait for the Show

Christmas is a big deal, a big show. Let’s bounce in our seats in the audience waiting for curtain time.

We’ve celebrated the Teresa Brewer big band version, now let’s try “I Just Can’t Wait ’til Christmas” as a torch song with back room bluesiness. That’s a better cover, mother. Madison O’Neill for the win.

But, I do admire a jazz tempo big band serenade. See what Jenny Daniel’s (cover again) of “We Can’t Wait.” I shiver so much i hear the tinkling of a two drink minimum.

Legit overorchestration arrives via The Kindie Songwriting Club (In the Nick of Time) and their slow building “Can’t Wait for Christmas.” This erstwhile kid song elevates the genre to showstopper.

Wait for the Lounge

What are you waiting for? Party like it’s Christmas! That is–in the manner most consistent with your observation. Oh, just so? The lounge it is….

“Can’t Wait!” is the jazz diva turn of white girl Esmee Denters. But the twirly shrill twists on her endnotes belie her down-ness. Piano bar mellow times.

Mindi Abair wootchi-cooes the jazz experience with “I Can’t Wait for Christmas.” Sure a whisper in my ear perks up my Xmas spirit, but where’s all the other partygoers?

Amateur piano bar bounciness gives Charles Szabo to sing out of both sides of his mouth. “I Can’t Wait for Christmas” is also kid-centric, with an oldster bent. But it means so well, it borders on kicky.

On the mainstage of the Yuletide Room, the showstopping ragtime barn burner is “I Can’t Wait to Fly on Christmas Eve” by John Gannon. Rockin’, in a retired guy kind of way. Yet, it warms me like chicken soup.

Wait for the Sellout

Some musical genres lack authenticity when they are merried up too much for more family-friendly sales of holiday songs.

Country music has done nothing but run away from the hills and stalked the pick-up driving suburban teen since 1967. Selling out is ka-ching for country. So no surprise that Aaron Kelly soars to vocal heights with “I Can’t Wait for Christmas.” The identification of this song as country is circumstantial at best.

Punk, however, should rage ‘against the machine. So Robert Neary’s repetitive “I Can’t Wait ’til Christmas Day” is particularly mind boggling. Pop punk may be a thing, but this is bubblegum punk.

Royalty Free Music is this thing you can sample for your videos or parties, and it is just a sound curtain not meant to be heard. So when i turn up DJ Quads’s “Waiting for Christmas” i feel a bad trip coming on. R+B stumbles.

Rock’n’roll is steamrolled by cover bands, upandcomers, and even the downandouters. Dadband The Animal Band valiantly attempt the cool rock kid song, but “I Can’t Wait Anymore” comes off as too carefully constructed to wail.

In the same vein Lovetrain rocks slightly harder (for the kids) “I Can’t Wait ’til Christmas.” The cutesy factor may help parents feed this to their offspring, but it murders the spirit of the music.

Even the over-achieving showtune is undone by the misguided gushing of the amateurish. “I Can’t Wait ’til Christmas” is Sherry Allen’s play for posterity. The modulations do more harm than good. Get this unplugged and a cappella and ill revisit my judgment.

Mall World: my type

Chubby Chasers Anonymous, let the meeting begin. Who would like to admit their wandering gaze has seared a mall Santa recently? Anyone?

The FuMP’s Amy Engelhardt’s reels from the department store sitter’s inappropriate selfies in the slightly obvious comedy showtune “Saint Nick Dick Pic.” Sorry.

Sarah Lynn Strange dials up a diva storm on Jill Louise Leger’s “Mr. Mall Santa.” This show tune stops when the panty drops.