Year-round Yuletide oddities
Is the day after Christmas just another notch on the calendar?
Joanne Mackell is just watching traffic “The Day After. Christmas.” Jugband style honky tonk pop peps up the ennui.
Slower, but still bangin’ the folk-blues, James Hersch samples the neighborhood on that “Day After Christmas Day.” He concludes: it’s all right. Okay then. Next.
The Sixth Great Lake puts a fine point to it with hand-clapping ’70s pop. “Always After Christmas, Boring.” You heard it here.
Maybe Santa’s on his extended weekend after Xmas. Maybe it’s all boatdrinks and hula girls. Celebrate, come on!
(Quick detour into criminality first: GreenPoint Blue try the (cheesy electronic piano) pop humor route with “Santa’s Late for Christmas” because of a run-in with the law. Presents only while on parole. Devolves into an agenda.)
Florida Keys require partying by law. “‘Twas the Night After Christmas” by John Jay Martyn is the calypso about unwinding that you’d expect. (And yet… reindeer games, and–Hemingway sighting!)
Horace Peterkin & Friends bring the actual parang with “After Christmas” asking Whatchoo gwinna doo after Christmas? Scolding again, for the privileged. Santa may have spoiled us, but now that it’s done let’s all love one another. And dance!
Santa’s Helpers take us another route with “The Day After Christmas.” In this ’70s inspired pop doodler, Santa finds a letter he overlooked and dives down the rabbit-hole of what life means.
Perhaps the top of my checklist for what a great song needs to impress me is… layers. Nothing too shallow for my wintry mood, nay nay. If there’s a twelve page paper needed to explicate the musical entry, i’m half-gone already. What do i mean–?
Perhaps tangential, “Waiting for the Snow” by Of Monsters & Men portentously takes on human industry, existence, and love. Good stuff to listen to while looking for Christmas music.
A revisitation of ‘Baby, It’s Cold’ “Can’t Wait for Christmas” is a sneaky electro-garage tipsy-doodle of a song. Jamir Fork keeps the listener off balance with his aggressive whimsy, all the while charming with his clumsy metaphor.
The great works of art are just out of reach of our understanding, yet so close as to seem embraceable. Just when you think you get it, whoops! What IS that?! Alison Sudol’s lullaby “Christmas will be Waiting” is the folk pop to soothe and ease to sleep. But it’s plaintive yearning is so musically loose and fun (is it that tambourine??), i don’t know how to feel–except with the goosebumps. Brava.
What winds my Christmas countdown clock? Feast your ears….
Kid song works remarkably well when a breathy jazz siren shimmies through suggestive song lyrics, case in point Helen Austin’s “Can’t Wait for Christmas Day.” Woo hoo hoo hoo.
Amateur basement tapes can attain greater altitudes with an overgenerous allotment of musical aptitude. Emma and Charlie’s Radio Podcast gorgeously poprock “Can’t Wait for Christmas Morning” with hand-popping, garage swinging playfulness.
Soul, backed up by the gospel-intended choir, moves a stubborn curmudgeon (as am i). So Jacksoul’s “Can’t Wait ’til Christmas” outstrips all imitators and delivers the mmm-soo good mood.
The nuance of a gentle rock romance reminds me how emotional the caring world can become. Summercamp’s wholesome, homely ballad “I Don’t Want to Wait ’til Christmas” to love you keeps hope alive.
Intentional pop doesn’t have to be repetitive pap, it can drop rhymes as clever as rap. Toby Mac (feat. Relient K) excites my tenterhooks with “Can’t Wait for Christmas.” As parts, not my bag; as a whole, holy cow. I’m gonna listen to it again.
When is pop music a hit? When i say so! (Actually when i buy so, but ima too poor for that.)
The Histories make a basement tape out of the pop piano banging “I Can’t Wait for Christmas,” a near serious anthem undermined by the head nodding nothingness of the music. Sign me up.
Boy band butteriness ups the pitch for The Forge Tops with their earnest smirk “I Can’t Wait for Christmas.” Howling and clashing, they somehow reach euphony. For charity.
Emphatic beat, important enunciation, Summer Camp professes love in the downbeat pop ballad “I Don’t Wanna Wait ’til Christmas.” What could be, what should’ve been… don’t make me slow this party down with your introspectin’!
Wandering off Celtic pub folk into a joyous progressive rock, Johnny Reid dances around the genres in “Waiting for Christmas to Come.” Call it pop. Enjoy.
Also veering away from garage folk into something soaringly harmonious, Charlie’s Hand Movements beats the drum for “It’s Christmas Time (And I Don’t Want to Wait.” Downbeat for pop, but that’s the way i like it.
Unapologetically, Ben Niven, Sid and Tracy Sosa crank up the hand clapping uptempo for no other purpose but to throw up the hands in “Can’t Wait for Christmas.” Pop qua pop.
The excitement we have waiting for Christmas ranges on a spectrum from antsy to peepeepants, so what’s the correlation of enthusiasm to quality in the songs that feature angst?
Well, some pop just bangs the tambourine and sways in place, très European. So with An Hours Thought Elton-John tribute “I Can’t Wait for Christmas.” This repetitive song can cure insomnia due to overwrought waiting.
Singing about the children for the children Rudd Young peps us up with a rock pop “I Can Hardly Wait for Christmas.” Raging guitar in the back, monotone in the front. Danceable.
Glory-waving, iMaronn joyously bring the voices together with gospel garage pop and “Wait for the Happiest Day.” More foreign influences to remind us to crack a smile.
Oslo Soul Children shout and cheer their pop “Can’t Wait for Christmas Day.” Mostly it’s for Jesus Christ, but they are in lock step harmoniously. Militant fun.
Sometimes i feel songwriters sleepwalk through their work. Here’s a list of topic points, ba-dooba-doo: there’s a song. Stringing cliches together don’t send me. But it probably sells.
J Robert Spencer runs some grandpa+grandma+presents through some gospel country pop and delivers “Waiting on Christmas.” Does it say something besides Next! ?
Wildson (feat. Ed Mills) runs more easy listening band-style with their “Waiting for Christmas.” Socks… snow… radio singing = song. Questions? Class? Wake up!
Bryan White whitens the depth of the holidays with his pop sashaying “I Can’t Wait ’til Christmas.” Tinsel-miss you-misteltoe-love you… less and less imagery, more and more feels. And the singsong aftereffects.
I’ve been on the kids’ soap box before about the condescension toward the developing with music for children: brash, cacophonous, repetitive… it’s like a seizure. Of joy. Sets my hackles to rising.
Mercifully short, Gerbert’s “I Can’t Wait ’til Christmas” is that forced funny voice of childlike moronity, with a tinkly pop rhythm that’s almost music.
When it’s YOUR kids, the holiday assembly at the elementary school is breathtaking, except for how your precocious pre-adult ISN’T featured center!! “If You Can’t Wait for Christmas” is one of those milquetoast bits o’ schmaltz that by offending no one entertains everyone. Thanks to Denise Gagne.
Even worse, is the amateur prodigy thrust into fame. Holly Collins gets no technical support while shouting and slurring through “I Can’t Wait for Christmas.” This country/pop gospel barn burner has a seed of promise, but it’s hard to feel it through the stink.
Oh. Christmas. Soon. Ho hum.
Diederick Van Eck strums a cowboy guitar for “Almost Christmas,” but his sauntering through the kids’ happy cries really brings down the joy. (He even says, ‘Hey, don’t shout.’) Quite matter of fact, but not in a hip way.
Strumming out some Devo-folk Black Cherry monotones “Christmas is Almost Here” so you’ll have to dig the meaning out of this druidic chant yourself.
Living room becomes coffee house for Cassidy Brennan, whose folk musings play low key in her “Almost Christmas.” Pretty vocals. Woeful tone.
Almost amateurishly recorded, Johnny Bennett layers in some blues lament with the folk to dampen the dark “Christmas Time is Almost Here.” Dread it.
The Automatics get more pop lively with “It’s Almost Christmas Day.” But the punk overtones and interweaving imagery make me lose the traditional wonder and stare at my navel. Good, if inappropriate.
Sometimes a hidden agenda, an urgent message worms its way into the excitement of Christmas’s border.
Entaune play it straight with a soaring, spiritual celebration of the bric-a-brac of the holiday’s imminence. Then: help the homeless! Outta nowhere! Bait and switch! “Almost Christmas Eve” survives its pop platitudes nonetheless.
Frearson pulls a 90 degree turn within “I Can’t Believe It’s Nearly Christmas” to admit failure at dieting, family planning, ambition, and general self actualization. Dude, take a breath. Slow pop. Mad fun.