Category: pop music

Baby It’s Coal: doubling down

Some kids go beyond the piss and moan about getting coal for Christmas, they take a stand.

I don’t blame ’em. Jay Richwine (and friend) dig deep to worry if there’ll be enough “Coal for Christmas.” This kid-friendly pop folk leans in to how much fun it is to dirty the stockings with anthracite.

The Truth Is… may be a pop band or a delivery platform, but they give us a bouncy scheme to get even with Santa “Letters to Santa” (perhaps don’t tip the present-er to your ‘Home Alone’ gimmickry). But, have fun.

Baby It’s Coal: no more Mr. Santa

Why wail about the coal for Christmas when you can character assassinate the red delivery system itself?

Rolling into a massive BLUE ALERT after almost a minute of comic buildup, The Misfit Toys hollers about who put “Coal in Your Stockings“! This is rollicking mod rock illustrated with a video sporting messy mascara and a Santa sniper. Whoa.

HeatleyBros allow for some parody fun with “Santa Loves Coal.” This pop-rap mishmash-up gives us the POV of the big stinker who didn’t have to be so vengeful on the wee ones.

Baby It’s Coal: origins

One of the oddest traditions of Christmas is how bad children still get a little sumpin in the form of a lump of coal.

Let’s not rehash the various histories that various nations claim to originate this Santa shenanigan. Let’s dwell in the hearth that laments and lauds this practice until we finally get into the ore of the mine.

Although previously hailed as a novelty masterpiece, The Killers (w/Jimmy Kimmel) open our journey from the POV of “Joel the Lump of Coal,” allowing us to see the peripeteia the innocent may project over the mean machine of Christmas to a happy ending. Love that alt-pop.

Yee Haw-liday: cowboy walks into a bar s ranch….

Let’s break early for the funny. I mean, cowboys and Christmas. Laff riot, eh wot?

Liam and Mason (milph, perhaps) showcase an hilarious “Cowboy Christmas” full of Freudian associations and ad libs. I suspect basement such slackers as these appear to be stole it. But it’s still novel. And they do great post-modern shtick.

Brad Paisley tries the gentle approach to intolerance with “Kung Pao Buckeroo Holiday.” In the guise of cowboys (true Americans), Brad and friends curmudgeon about how sensitive some folks are about what you can sing. I agree, joke with ’em if that can’t fuckin’ take it. But no war, please.

The Funny Music Project (FuMP for insiders) play amateurishly fast and loose with the Lone Star state in “Christmas Time in Texas.” That’s tongue in cheek, not chaw.

Yee Haw-liday: Mr. Rocky Mountain

John Denver popularized the soft rock of hard country living way back when. His “Christmas for Cowboys” (words and music by Steve Weisberg (1975)) is a standard of Christmas songs for cowboys. Most covers imitate best as they can. (JD’s one of those you can’t quite improve on.) (Sorry, Jars of Clay, just leave the original alone.) (Unless you’re willing to interpret.)

Smearing on some honky tonk, Jimmy Rankin ups the party factor.

Crowding the quiet with strings and yodeling, Wylie Gustafson refits the CW genre into something less pop.

A mournful version with washed out vocals from Wasted Rock Rangers barely keeps it together.

Most odd, Drunken Ramblings fingers some of notes but misses the vocal synch in some alt-folk guitar warm-up. It’s just the right amount of off-putting.

Born this Day, twenty-nine (X)

Let’s leave this topic confused and perplexed. Christmas is Christmas, not some birthday. That’s different!

Jimmy Eat World rock meekly with “If You Were Born Today” a recrimination of how we’ve messed up. But in the sweetest harmony.

Kids’ country joke up the Christmas Story in Animal Band’s “Birthday Party on Manger Street.” Make animal noises all together now!

Notsoape gets Goony and Awful with “happybirthday,” a slight offering or awkward praise. Huh?

Born this Day, twenty-three (Son of God)

In praising the All-in-One we need some kind of theme, so paste a date to it and raise the streamers for the birth of God, the Sequel.

Setting the party mood, Mojo Nixon celebrates (incl. warm up) (and name-calling) “Happy Birthday” with his own earthy smarm.

Bah & The Humbugs gets more kid friendly with “Birthday Boy,” an offkey meandering ragtime/pop explosion of joy. Blow out the camels!

Born this Day, twenty-two (Son of Mary)

Since this is such a half-baked idea (others born on Xmas), we’ll spin out a week on Mr. Christ’s own observance. Many make hay with the Happy Birthday wishes for the Messiah. It’s the humorous concept of the banal contrasted against the divine. Har-de-har, God’s got armpits… like that.

We’ve already tasted Bob Rivers’s “Jesus’ Birthday.” As a postscript to “Wonderful Christmastime” Barenaked Ladies hail the King of Ks. With comical timing Wendell Ferguson bemoans “Jesus Christ It’s Your Birthday Again.”

New to the blog: Do You Heat What I hear (feat. Joseph Cimino) sings “Jesus It’s Your Birthday” with electronic pop fervor. Or folk experimental temper. Or just doowop weirdness. Check it.