Category: pop music

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 tenth

Just supposing the end of all Xmas, what else could we be?

The so-called Christmas Collective raps the worry “If Christmas Got Cancelled.” Yeah, i get it. Okay, okay already.

Tunnel Tribe gives us a reason to rejoice despite the worst of no-times with “If Christmas was Cancelled,” a lively electro-pop synth of hope. Thanx!

Unreality BLUE ALERT

Is Xmas about the presents? You know better than to fall into that trick question trap. What should you really be into for the holidays? Well, imma tell you:

Lil B gets what for from his mama in “No Presents,” a rap battle of mediocre proportions. I do hope he learns to lessen.

The Sowell Family bands together for bluegrass and preachin’ in “It’s Not Christmas.” Turns out presents are the least of your hopes. No tree, nor snow, nor–i’m not sure but maybe not even–family matters. You better pray you figure out what does.

Pony Death Ride lands on what’s important with their “Nothing Beats Old People at Christmas.” No specifically eschewing gifts (they didn’t get you any bc they ‘thought you would be dead’), this BLUE ALERT irony must be heard, because millennials.