Category: pop music

Love Bells

Christmas is love. Christmas is bells. What to do when you feel close at the holidays…

Well, okay, there’s love for all and JC and children and maybe the beasts and bugs and whatnot. The Steeles ring “The Bells” with R+B gospel for Love. It’s like climaxing, but more appropriate for church.

Definitely not religious, Erasure rings the “Bells of Love (Isabelle’s of Love).” It’s barely even about the holidays it’s so heart-eyed.

The Drifters tell us that “The Bells of St. Mary’s” ring out for you and me. This is doo wop you can make moves/movies to.

Peter Dunne’s “Ring Out the Bells” is a grinder of seduction that invokes the child is born as a sign We Were Made for Love. Raunchy pop. Too much?

The Infini-teens say “Ring a Bell” for a loved one. This soft pop is so close to kidsong that i can’t even fault it with a PG. Handholding sweetness.

Family Bells

How sad to ring the holiday bell all by your lonesome. Better instead to flock the family ’round those ringers. Christmas bells bring us home

Kenny and Dolly belt out how they’ll be home “With Bells on.” It might be fashion de jure, or it might be merry making mischief. Regardless, they mean it. You can hear it in the pop sorta-country rhythms.

Loreena McKennitt charms “The Bells of Christmas” with whispery hymnalistic come-hither-ness. It’s all about calling you home, baby. Come on now.

The blues will be cured by the baby coming home, that’s just a fact. So Aaron Neville has “The Bells will be Ringing” to signal her home. Raunchy blues just this side of pop.

Sylva itemizes the trappings of the Nativity with “Christmas Bells,” but it’s all about coming home. Jazzy marshmallow-mouthed pop.

Sleigh Bells, for the pop

A couple more songs about the ringing of the horse drawn carriages for Xmas.

Jane Hutton big bands up the saccharine silliness of “Song of the Sleigh Bells.” It’s a whirlwind of tympani.

Charity Shop Sue drives through her “Sleigh Bell Time (Again)” with an insistent increasing tempo garage backbeat that suggests you better defuse that bomb–NOW!

Another luscious li’l nugget, this time from The Benefit, who unfairly grouse about having their beach blanket bingo song ruined by the addition of “

ël-No, the twenty-eighth

Credit where credit is overdue. We all enjoy Christmas because of–? Well, JC may have rebranded an ongoing festival… Santa only came into the equation late… Hmm.

“If It Weren’t for Girls, There Would be No Christmas” croons The Want to a peppy rock backbeat. Sure, it tries a bit too hard and as such overcompensates with stereotypes and some back-handed flattery. But who else is taking the time to appreciate, i ask you?

ël-No, the twenty-sixth

Stretching out of pop music smarm, alternative music also dwells in the wallows of emotionality. The lovelorn cancellation of Christmas is ripe for writing in this universe.

“Empty Christmas” is the alt cry of The Wheels. Waffling between with you and without you this tinkly charmer sets you at arm’s length.

El Dorado croons to warbly synth in “No Christmas This Year,” a pop song in everything but word choice. Just a bit off kilter for the commoners. (So, yeah, i like it.)

Hyper garage from Brandon Harrod plays out the broken relationship as psychological number-line with “Christmas is Cancelled.” Well, you tell me, then.

Pop-punk from Bankrupt is heightened by the grindhouse footage backing “Christmas is Cancelled.” Leaving me is like a tree murdering. Or zombies. (Blue Alert)

Driving Brit-pop is as far from mod-pop as The Monkees, ‘tho The Long Blondes remind me a bit more of Blondie with their “Christmas is Cancelled.” That bangin’ guitar is the heartbeat of heartbreak.

ël-No, the twenty-fifth

Pop goes the Christmas cracker… and also the pretty tune about how there can be no Christmas without us together. Bay-bee.

Syncopated synthesized pop from Ricardo Munoz spells out that “Once Christmas is Gone” so are you. But you’ll be back, yeah?

Zee Avi plays pretty with the dreary in “No Christmas for Me.” Try to imagine why he doesn’t want to spend the holidays with her.

From his Holiday Pop album, Nicholas Markos paints by the numbers to synth up “No Christmas No More.” It hops, it bops, it stops.

ël-No, the fourth

Dysfunctional families are famous for forgetting to observe the important days on the calendar.

The Partitioners warble some shoo-be doo-wop rock with the falsetto truth of “There is No Christmas.” If you listen carefully, you may be offended.

ël-No, the second

The lack of Christmas must be the result of the lack of goodness and hope and innocence. That’s right… isn’t it?

Cutesy kidpop from Dandyland makes this sad syllogism into mopey music with “No More Christmas.” Don’t you dare enjoy this.