Music for Christmas

One of the best things about the Holidays is getting some down time to listen to music with family and friends. Here is my Christmas listening list for this year. It's a mixed bag of genres, from alternative to jazz to commercial pop. Not ranked in any particular order. These are all great ways to celebrate the season with fresh sounds. Rest assured, I will be listening to the old favourites too!

Verve Presents: The Very Best Of Christmas Jazz
This was released in 2001 and the songs are all recorded much earlier, but this is an excellent way to keep Christmas and your good taste. It contains the classic The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting etc.) by Mr. Mel Tormé and he actually wrote it too, along with Bob Wells.

The Boy Least Likely To: Christmas Special
Pete Hobbs and Jof Owen are the English pop duo TBLLT. It's twee but wonderful.
Here is their original Christmas song about Wham! Called George and Andrew. Weirdly great…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5CJpVUYOY8

Low: Christmas
From 1999 this album was a free gift to their fans. Low is from Duluth, Minnesota so they know a bit about Winter. This is a great record.
Listen to the song Just Like Christmas for a taste:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IippcraBPKA

Scott Weiland: The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year
Warning: Not for everyone. This 2011 recording features traditional arrangements and a traditional Christmas repertoire with the distinctive voice of the Stone Temple Pilots singer. I think I like it… I think.

This Warm December: A Brushfire Holiday, Volume 2
A mostly fun compilation that's worth a listen for a number of tracks. Check out G. Love's Christmas Cookies, Paula Fuga's Winter Swell Blues, and ALO doing Let It Ride.

Carole King: A Christmas Carole
If you've ever wanted to hear My Favorite Things sound just like It's Too Late then this album is for you. The amazing Ms. King has a way of making many of these Christmas classics sound like she wrote them. Here she is performing Carol of the Bells
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JdSGrSoVA4

The Good Lovelies: Under the Mistletoe
Easily my favourite to play for a mixed audience, this 2009 release from the lovely Good Lovelies is full of beautiful harmonies and clever arrangements. The Juno award winning trio hails from Toronto, Ontario. Santa Claus is Canadian you know ;)
It's not on the album so I include it here, The Good Lovelies performing Gordon Lightfoot's Song For A Winter's Night
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7T6sqfHjfE&feature=related

Sufjan and friend

Sufjan Stevens: Songs For Christmas, Vol. VI: Gloria!
He's from Detroit, Michigan (again, a land of snow and ice) and you pronounce it SOOF-yahn if you're in the know. This album brings together songs previously released as EPs. Mainly originals but he does include The Coventry Carol, Silent Night, and Auld Lang Syne. Quiet, pretty, and with banjos.

Indie/Rock Playlist: Christmas (2011): Various Artists
A hit and miss compilation that will simultaneously please and irritate. Kate Rusby's Kris Kringle is a charming discovery, while Zee Avi's reworking of Frosty The Snowman will drive purists crazy. There is also some overlap with the This Warm December collection discussed above. And the She & Him song on this one is more than enough for me.

And finally, one to avoid unless you just can't help yourself…

Him & She standing wrong way 'round

She & Him: A Very She & Him Christmas
Zooey Deschanel is cute and I loved her in Elf. But her voice gets on my nerves (and a lot of other people's too) pretty quickly. She & Him is Zooey and M. Ward. So enjoy the picture and leave it at that!

I wish you a Very Merry Christmas, a politically correct Happy Holidays, and a Wonderful New Year.
Peace and Goodwill,

Mark

Pop On Pop: More songs about music

What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?
Rob Gordon, High Fidelity

Okay, just to set the record straight (and clean, preferably with a new stylus) I READ LYRICS. I think the words are important. Sure, lots of great songs have stupid, nonsensical words. From Papa Ooh Mow Mow to Gabba Gabba Hey rock music has its fair share of lyrics that are all about the sound, and not about the deeper meaning. And there is no shortage of poorly written lyrics in pop, but that usually puts me off an otherwise good song anyway.

The words, especially if you are young, in love, feeling disenfranchised or lonely… think "teenager" and you know what I mean… the words are HUGE. They say what you probably can't articulate. And because they are also there for your own personal torture, the words seem to be reaching right into your heart, soul and mind. You think "Wow, that says exactly how I feel right now!"

Lyrics in pop music are there to be interpreted by the listener. That's the beauty of it. The less specific they are the better too. I've often heard people talk about a song they love and what they think it means, only to think to myself, I didn't get that from the lyrics AT ALL. No problem. It's all good. Just don't start investigating what the writer was actually trying to say if you want to preserve your personal spin.

Here is a short list of pop songs written specifically about pop songs, with my comments:

Rubber Ring by The Smiths: Morrissey and gang wrote this one about pop songs that saved your life. Best lyric: "Yes you're older now and you're a clever swine, but they were the only ones that ever stood by you."

I Write the Songs: Yep, the Barry Manilow number. You'd think he actually would have written it too, but you'd be wrong. Composed by long time member of the Beach Boys Bruce Johnston, I Write the Songs is a cheesy but wonderful expression of love for pop songs. I've been alive forever…

Sir Duke: Stevie Wonder has often confused me as a lyricist, but not on this extraordinary tribute to the pop songs from a generation previous.

Heart Songs by Weezer: This ode to the soundtrack of Rivers Cuomo's youth lists all of the frontman's artists and records that have influenced him. He told MTV News that it ranged from "From Gordon Lightfoot's 'Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald' when I was 5 to Nirvana's Nevermind."

http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=11879

There are so many more of these. Send me some of your favourites and I will include them next time :)

Did I tell you I love music?

I know, almost everybody says they love music. Those that say they don't are (thankfully) few and far between. But I can remember as a very young boy being painfully shy about letting anyone know just how much some of those pop songs on the radio meant to me.

My parents loved music. They played it around the house, went to see shows, Mom was an accomplished pianist and was already teaching by the time she was a teenager. And we lived in a musically rich part of the world, right across the Mersey River from Liverpool. I actually got to take the Ferry Cross the Mersey while Gerry & the Pacemakers had the song on the charts. I think there was an even bigger band out from there at the time too…

It took a long time before I could tell people I was "crazy about music". Sure, I said I "liked" it and even sang along, but I can't remember any of my little friends freaking out when Windy by The Association came on, or needing to get away from any other noise when Mary Hopkin started singing Temma Harbour or Those Were the Days.

I knew I was… different.

By the time I reached my teens I had found my kindred spirits. And for the rest of my life (so far) I continue to gravitate towards those to whom music isn't just a part of their lives. Music IS life.

Next time, some of my favourite songs About music.