song of the week 40: frank sinatra - have yourself a merry little christmas

I've heard a few grim old versions of this song in the last week or so.

First up against the wall is My Morning Jacket whose half-soaked wheeze sounds like they didn't even get out of bed to record it. Chris Martin has learnt a couple of new jazzy chords which he can't really shoe-horn into the usual Coldplay oeuvre but which godammit he's going to bang out here even if they don't quite fit in. We wouldn't expect much of Kenny G but his version is perhaps not as bad as it might be. Michael Bublé over-eggs it a bit with those gushing strings but then we never did like him. And Lord save us from Christina Aguilera whose yelpy melismania is almost the polar opposite of the My Morning Jacket version but just as unlistenable.

Why not just content ourselves with this more thoughtful version from a bloke from New Jersey who could carry a tune or two and from a time (1957) when the song's overfamiliarity hadn't yet bred contempt:

(Also recommended: Judy Garland's original version from the 1944 film Meet Me in St Louis.)

Happy Christmas.

yool choons

Getting festive here and, as is popular in these parts, there's one of those new-fangled Spotify playlists to reflect the fact with a selection of recommended festive listening.

Some of these tracks are pretty obvious examples of syrupy fifties schlock, a few are slightly further off the beaten track. Many of the regulation Christmas musical cliches feature at some stage: there are chimes (track 4), a couple of "Jingle Bells" intros (tracks 9 and 22), a fair few unashamedly schmaltzy string arrangements and I can count six tracks on which sleigh bells appear. There is though, as far as I can tell, no children's choir.

Here's another Christmas song, cliche-free, and one which you can only get on YouTube, unless (shudder) you are prepared to spend some money, and we certainly don't want any of that kind of extravagance, particularly at this time of year.

Happy Christmas...



(See also: David Hepworth's Christmas playlist which also manages to steer clear of most of the usual suspects--Slade, Kirsty & The Pogues--but doesn't have a single choice in common with my own.)

no really, i'm done now...

...but I just couldn't let the opportunity pass--following my Carpenters fixation of late--to share this fantastic mix of snippets of various tracks by the terminally un-cool seventies easy listenin' duo in a crazy Christmas dub reggae stylee:



Thanks again to the man from Planet Mondo for this.

Merry Christmas!

christmas: enough already

The last of my pre-Christmas YouTube selections just goes to show that even coked-up multi-millionaire rock stars in Beverley Hills can have their festive season spoilt if it's all gone a bit pear-shaped girlfriend-wise...



This is my final "Best of Christmas" line-up then:

1. Jackson 5: Santa Claus is Coming to Town
2. Darlene Love: Winter Wonderland
3. The Ronettes: Sleigh Ride
4. Darlene Love: Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)
5. Attic Lights (feat. Cerys Matthews): Santa's Girlfriend
6. Donny Hathaway: This Christmas
7. Aimee Mann: Whatever Happened to Christmas
8. Low: Just Like Christmas
9. Aimee Mann: Christmas Song
10. Carpenters: Merry Christmas Darling
11. Carpenters: Santa Claus is Coming to Town

More Christmas music ideas at Carnival Saloon and 77 Santas, amongst others...

soul christmas

Today's Yuletide selection is the late Donny Hathaway's soulful "This Christmas" from 1972.

Love it...



...and if it's soul you want, check out this mix



from Planet Mondo. (Thanks to Cocktails for bringing this to my attention.)

more christmas schmaltz

I think this is a great laid-back arrangement of the (usually-upbeat) Christmas classic "Santa Claus is Coming to Town". It has all the ingredients of the best of the Carpenters: the unusual chord progressions and their trademark multi-layered vocal harmonies which really make the song their own (although it's not, obviously), the orchestral arrangement (featuring Bacharach-esque trumpets), groovy sax solo, and of course Karen's silky pitch-perfect alto.

Depending on your tolerance levels for 1970s US light entertainment, you might feel the need to fast-forward through the Jack-Benny-as-Santa skit from Perry Como's 1974 Christmas show. I recommend starting at roughly the 2:10 mark...

the ghost of christmas past

I've been reading this week about guitarist Joe Satriani's complaints that Coldplay's "Viva La Vida" is a rip off of his own "If I Could Fly" (the YouTube evidence seems to find pretty conclusively in Satriani's favour).

Hunting out some more Christmas songs today, I'm struck by the similarity between Darlene Love's (rather too upbeat) "All Alone This Christmas", viz.



...and this slower, gloomier and generally more profane offering from Caledonian Flavours-of-the-Month Glasvegas:



Are they by any chance related?

christmas is coming...

...and with it come musical advent calendars. A new one on me, but suddenly they're all at it - well, at least The Guardian and Word Magazine are at it - and so you don't have to trawl the web the good ole Guardian has put together a list of the best.

Entering into the spirit, here's the first of my Christmas musical selection box:



Just like Christmas: Low