Let’s turn down the lights and turn up the R+B. What is essentially a rap number gets the smoove treatment by Jamie Foxx. It’s slow, sensual, and essential for the giving mood. “Christmas List” here may take an odd turn to percussion, but it spotlights the home and hearth, y’all. Fulla love.
Christmas List: item five (a couple bucks/love)
Mo’ rap, mo’ wrapping. These guys want it all. Quad City DJs (incl. 69 Boys, and K-nock) run it past ya (get a pencil!) with “What You Want for Christmas.” Catchy, hey.
Ever suspect only the slow can rap? Exhibit B: Krispy Kreme with his “Christmas Wish List.” Don’t forget what you learned about girls’ butts!
Self appointed rap master EKOH would like you to visit him on Facebook. If you are suspicious of yet another white dude busting’ a rhyme, try to keep up with his “Christmas List Rap” (nominally set to the theme music of the movie ‘Elf’). He even juggles.
Christmas List: item four (transformers/world peace)
Let’s tone down the irony just a scratch with some heartfelt 1980s folk rock.
First, a retro She & Him evaluation over what a “Christmas Wish” ought to be for.
Then Timbuk3 lay into your merciless mercantilism with “All I Want for Christmas.” It was on TV and everything.
Christmas List: item three (robot pelican)
I can understand the big irony here: rough and nasty rebellious music for a childish idea about writing to Santa.
Showboats try to keep commercial rap alive back in the ’90s with “All I Want for Christmas.” Their list, when they finally sample their way to it, is pretty dope-y.
But let’s party with the coolest wannabes in rock metal–Tenacious D and Sum 41 going all gonzo with “Things I Want.” Mildly blue, gang. Hey–when are you going to use that bee bee gun in your time machine? Hitler? Cool. (Oh, yeah, and it’s a tiny bit blue.)
Christmas List: item two [BLUE ALERT] (anti-gravity gold boots)
Mo’ Midwestern guys, mo’ funny rap.
Not so much wink this time, hardcore The Basement Boys want to fit as much swag into garbled fast talk as they can. They want man-stuff and they want it now.
[For a hilarious version of awkward rap, Rappy McRapperson was tagged last Christmas by me singing one of my favorite grabby numbers: “Gimme Stuff.” Damn that’s funny.]
Christmas List: item one (backup singer)
If you haven’t drawn up your greedy agenda in columnar form yet, let me clue you, kid–IT’S TIME
To put you in the mood, let’s visit some motivational tallysheeting.
Invinceable has fun with “All I Want for Christmas (Is a Bangin’ Ass Beat).” They give rap a good name.
I previously had to mention Biggy G and K David as exemplary Iowans, but the strength of their “Christmas List Yo” is in the itemization. And dub step. Picture Kevin Smith and Bruce Campbell (younger) white-rapping to the run-down downtown with an OCD backbeat and you’ll have
Xmas Dance Party: rag
Stylized marches or cakewalks from the 1890s and since have featured ragged syncopation. Ragtime music usually results in swing dancing. (I recommend doing the robot.)
The Heftone Banjo Orchestra (featuring Brian Heffernan) really brings out the complex footwork with their “Santa Claus Rag.”
Country Joe and the Fish attempt to add a message in their “Dirty Claus Rag.”
Xmas Dance Party: disco
Mix up funk, soul, and salsa and you’ve got pop music that inspired dancing like there had never been dancing before. Clear the floor–it’s disco!
Sure it’s all a big joke. So let’s over enunciate and do funny voices. You’ll get the irony! The Superions don’t even add a disco rhythm for “Santa’s Disco.” What kind of joke is that?
Venezuela’s VST’s “Boogie Woogie Christmas Day” also have something lost in translation. It’s not boogie woogie like i know boogie woogie.
BLUE ALERT Guinea Worms goes electric garage to express their surreal disappointment with the “Christmas Disco Pillow.” And compare it to naught naughty body parts.
More on fleek “Disco Christmas” by Grub Dog Mitchell lugubriously spells out holy night fever. It’s not the party you were hoping for (but–tubular bells!).
Let’s put up or step down. Raindolls take the laser tight choreography seriously with “Disco Santa Claus.” Practice your steps and you’ll get into Santa’s bag of cheer, too.
Village People also foretell of that great “Disco Santa/Santa Claus NOEL”–but it’s only a parody of YMCA. Why they gotta?
Oh, you were hoping for disco moves that were COOL! Well, just a bit R+B, just a bit doo wop, “The Christmas Slide” is too cool for you, fool. The Winstons don’t waste time on cliche disco beats, they have a Real Dance here. Step to it or get off the dance floor–they’ll call it.
A number one most excellent disco song for this best of holidays which must always be listened to is “The Rocking Disco Santa Claus” by The Sisterhood. Even grandma and grandpa–uh huh uh huh.
Xmas Dance Party: hokey pokey
Let’s make it easy on you and do one of those 200 year old call-outs where the steps are explained to you. The Hokey Pokey hit the charts back in the ’80s as a popular foot mover, but you know it as kid line dancing
So… It’s Debbie Doo. It’s “Christmas Hokey Pokey.” I’m so ashamed. (But thorough: you also get “Reindeer Hokey Pokey” by The Kiboomers–that’s what it’s all about.)
Xmas Dance Party: gangnam style
Psy’s 2012 cultural phenomenon ‘Gangnam Style’ spawned as much laughter as dance. So here come the parodies. (I can only stand a few–there are dozens!)
Supposedly Psy does his own “Santa Style.” But i’d sashay past if i were you.
Just as pointless, but with the moves demonstrated NYC Santa and friends (the guys in Time Square who want 20 bucks for a photo) skit out “Oppa Santa Style.” Not much to it.
Imitator Tots list out Christmas symptoms to the beat with their “Christmas Time (Gangnam Style).” You can feel the dub step. It’s a 4 on the fun scale.
More clever, “Santa Style” by nyrbness delivers the sound, the wit, the feeling of dancedancdance.
I guess my favorite, is an AM radio gasser parody (Mark and Brian) with drunk pointlessness. “Christmas Style.” I love over attention to detail without an exit plan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHH-NF-9ELo