Wait for Poop

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.

Wait for Disaster

Let’s try this again. Rather than dwell on the imminency of Christmas, we shall talk about our feelings concerning waiting for Christmas. Is it delightful? Is it excruciating? Is it just something we do while the end invariably approaches?

And instead of filing through bad, mediocre, and good songs each day, try we all the smelly, then all the okay, then all the bearable, etc.

Commence:

Music with Quinn dares to improvise a Christmas carol on-the-spot. When improv (accidentally) stumbles upon sense, we laugh with relief. “I Can’t Wait ’til Christmas” is not that pop success. The falsetto doesn’t help.

Swing band jazz promises cool. But The Chocolate Jazz Band knows too few licks and gets stuck in a rut of tempo through “You Tell Me Why I Wait for Christmas.”

Another who means well is Lambert Wilson. His electric piano rhythms, his thick accent, his monotone–they all make “I Can’t Wait for Christmas” fun for his immediate family only. This calypso easy listening polka mashup is the casserole left in the corner of the buffet.

A Near Thing -1 & done

Did i save the best proximal Xmas songs for last? You be the supreme justice!

Garage angst makes a smirkery of the season when King Lazy Bones waxes punketical about what it means when “Christmas is Just Around the Corner.” Check yourself, consumer.

The message-laden pontification of “It’s Almost Christmas” by Neil Werden is betrayed by the fluffy folk timpani and fun of the delivery. Wee hah, knee slapped! He feels bad! Haha haha ha.

Leave it to those wacky Canadians to open my eyes to the real meaning of irony. “Christmas is Almost Here” is a schoolyard chant by Arrogant Worms, wherein the agony and screaming is offset by the fancy fiddling and increasing tempo. A whirling dervish of delightful suffering.

A Near Thing -2

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.

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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.

A Near Thing -5

The closer Christmas gets, the further happiness happens. For some, the overshadowing omnipresence is a ruddy reminder of regret. Bummer.

The Twang slow rock a drinking song “On the 24th.” He loves her, he’s trying to forget her, there’s the tavern…. (I need a hug.)

Carla Hartsfield gets metaphorical with skates and wings and dogs but her “Almost Christmas” is despondent impatience waiting for him. Tinkly woman folk. Maybe my y-chromosome excludes my appreciation….

Droesem garage symphonies about the aftermath of domestic conflict. “Almost Christmas Time” sounds bleak as it is. I don’t think he’s going to make it….

Raggs Gustaffe (feat. Panama Scarrett) lays a Carrib dirge of dire proportions with “Christmas Just Around the Corner.” Now it’s scary.

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I honestly shouldn’t pop this can of worms, but i have a special circle of halo reserved for the truly awful. Whether intentionally wisecracking or unenlightened and untalented, bad singers give me pause–like that first sip of seasonal nog. You shouldn’t like it….

Having consumed too much Fred Figglehorn, Mr. Crainer hyper-raps imbecilically “Merry Almost Christmas.” It’s all in fun. Are you having fun?

I pair that with the intentional atonal chaos from BERU “Almost Christmas.” Garage punk thinks it can do whatever it wants, because–I guess–that’s what defines it.

On the other stump, the amateur Sweet Sisters are just kids corralled into a synth-storm of recording “It’s Nearly Christmas.” Keep this for THEIR grandkids to hear later. I mean keep it, don’t share it.

Oldsters also need stricter parenting: piano impresario Malcolm Simpson hatchets open the jazz-rumpus “Christmas is Just Around the Corner.” Look away.

Dai [day] is a rambling randomizer, but he’s no rambler. “Almost Christmas” might tempt you into the it’s-so-bad-it’s-good territory. Recalibrate.

A song can show promise yet be marred by technical cruddiness. Veghalen posts a family Christmas song “Christmas is Coming” with wit and warmth. But the sudden religious pitch near the end makes this messier than it oughterbe.

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Riffling through my rolodex of musical genres i come across hymnal. Well, perhaps a bit more golspel-ish, these songs herald in the Advent of Xmas.

Sounds honkytonk rather than church, but Wild Bunch lays a gospel vibe on their odd “Almost Christmas,” a smoky, sultry psalmody. (Just had an Ally MacBeal flashback.)

Piano banging out the sins, raising voices to the rafters, nearly harmonizing, Michael Mills leads the group with a rousing “It’s Almost Christmas.” Can i get an exclamation point?

Just as disjointed, Stan Davis & Friends clomp into rock riffing “It’s Nearly Christmas Night.” The chorale is moral, oral, floral. I have no quarrel with it.

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Are you clued-in to check the beat? These swingin’ verses are straight from the ‘fridge, daddy-o. And they also pertain to the neighborhood of Christmastide.

If you try too hard, swingin’ cool gets loud and loungey and–gasp–showtune-like. Hence David Tobin’s “Almost Time for Christmas Day.” He’s one Hep C cat.

Marrying gospel and John Prine, John Field is his own man with “Nearly Christmas.” A bit loud, but my head’s a-noddin’.

Billie and The Haint plug in garage nonchalance with “Almost Christmas.” It’s a beatnik banger, a hippie howler, a millennial meltdown.

Actual big band swing is still a genre of historical note, so let’s apply ourselves to the sweet girl gang The Morning Report in their “Christmas is Just Around the Corner.” Wartime was warm times way back then.

A jugband ragtime lassez-faire meandering, “It’s Almost Christmas” ups the ante of local in-the-know dead on time. Hats off (then back on, ‘cuz its Chicago winter!)!