Electric Light Orchestra was formed out of the ruins of The Move by Jeff Lynne and Roy Wood, but after the first ELO album Wood decided the group was being motivated more by Lynne's orchestral Beatleisms than Wood's vision of Phil Spector meets the Count Basie Orchestra, and he left ELO to form Wizzard, initially storming the British charts with a string of brilliant singles that couldn't get a foothold in the U.S. This 1973 winner was one of those singles, a Spector cop from its wall of sound to its jingle bells, with a kids' chorus thrown in for good measure. Classic moment: just before the kids start singing, Wood yells, "OK you lot, let's hear it!" Wood revisited the genre with "Rock and Roll Winter" a few years later, with less chart success. And in 1991 he recorded "Sing Out the Old, Ring In the New," which looked to clone the success of "I Wish," right down to kids singing the chorus near the end. Then he hooked up with The Wombles for the mashup "Wombling Christmas Every Day"....
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Electric Light Orchestra was formed out of the ruins of The Move by Jeff Lynne and Roy Wood, but after the first ELO album Wood decided the group was being motivated more by Lynne's orchestral Beatleisms than Wood's vision of Phil Spector meets the Count Basie Orchestra, and he left ELO to form Wizzard, initially storming the British charts with a string of brilliant singles that couldn't get a foothold in the U.S. This 1973 winner was one of those singles, a Spector cop from its wall of sound to its jingle bells, with a kids' chorus thrown in for good measure. Classic moment: just before the kids start singing, Wood yells, "OK you lot, let's hear it!" Wood revisited the genre with "Rock and Roll Winter" a few years later, with less chart success. And in 1991 he recorded "Sing Out the Old, Ring In the New," which looked to clone the success of "I Wish," right down to kids singing the chorus near the end. Then he hooked up with The Wombles for the mashup "Wombling Christmas Every Day"....
From the cover, you're likely to get the idea this 1995 album is some kind of rockabilly Christmas deal, but you'll be disappointed. It's got a 1950s vibe all right, but a "Happy Days"-inspired one, as you might expect from a show band whose leader "travels with 50 costume changes," as listed on the website. Some of these tunes, like "A Christmas Wish" and "Merry Christmas to You," are just flat-out lounge music, "Winter Wonderland" is strictly from Lawrence Welk land, and the obligatory kids-singing number "Can't Wait Till Christmas Day" is about what you'd expect. "White Christmas" gets a nice "Blueberry Hill" arrangement, and "Christmas Just Ain't Christmas Without You" is a serviceable blues ballad, although the synth horns hurt it, and "I Wish I Was a Christmas Tree" is a half-decent novelty tune. The disc has its moments, but nothing to top the old masters from the early days of rock 'n roll.
This 2000 compilation is the real deal, original 50s rockabilly Christmas singles, not a single re-creation in the bunch. The liner notes aren't real comprehensive, but they do list the original label and serial number of every one of the 30 songs, along with photographs of some of the actual labels. In some cases, both sides of the same single appear here, like Johnny Preston's "(I Want a) Rock 'n Roll Guitar," which takes off from "Night Before Christmas," and "New Baby For Christmas." If you don't know much about original rockabilly, you'll hear the many influences of rockabilly, some more country, some swing, others more rock, still others pop and novelty records. Not to mention a few borrowed licks from some non-Christmas tunes of the period and a few imitations of more famous artists. The period recording quality and tape hiss on some of these might put off the young'uns, but there are lots of great candidates for a Christmas mix on here. An interesting artifact is the Outlaws' version of "Run Rudolph Run" with a writing credit to Chuck Berry shown on a picture of the original label. "Rock Around the Christmas Tree" by Big Bud is not the familiar song, but it's just as good. The Cadillac fixation lives on with The Four Imperials' "Santa's Got a Coupe de Ville" and Little Joey Farr's "Big White Cadillac." Barry Richards' "Baby Sittin' Santa" and Marlene Paul's "I Wanna Spend Christmas With Elvis" are probably the best-known tunes here. Oldies fans will snarf this up, but everybody's likely to find something they like on this collection. UPDATE: Hey, I just noticed Amazon uses this very post to describe this disc to potential buyers! (I didn't post it there, but at least it's properly credited to this site.)
The folks at Sanctuary have been busy beavers since they acquired the rights to the Trojan catalog; if you have a full-service record store near you, you've probably seen a couple dozen different box sets from Trojan in your reggae section. (UPDATE: Sanctuary was absorbed by Universal in 2007, so I guess Universal holds the rights to Trojan now.) Naturally, there had to be one dedicated to Christmas reggae, and this 2003 collection is it. There aren't a lot of surprises here, though; a fair proportion of the 50 songs on this three-CD set have already been mentioned elsewhere on this site, an indication that these songs have been compiled and re-compiled over the years. "Santa Claus Is Ska-ing to Town" by the Granville Williams Orchestra, for example, turns up pretty often. Still, fans will recognize a lot of folks on here, like Desmond Dekker and the Aces, Eek-A-Mouse, The Ethiopians and Lee "Scratch" Perry, not to mention The Maytals, presumably including Toots. The collection fills itself out in part by giving several artists multiple entries, among them Yellowman, John Holt, Jacob Miller and Ray I and The Tamlins. This set stands out because of its informative liner notes, which place the recordings between the mid-60s and late 70s and give some background to the individual artists. Like previous compilations, the recording quality of individual songs is all over the map, although it sounds as if it has been remastered, at least to my ears. If you don't have a lot of reggae Christmas music, this might just fill that hole in your collection. Still downloadable, but the hardcopy version is out of print.
This is the 2005 version of something we featured a couple of seasons ago, a hip-hop collective doing the whole DJ schtick on a collection of holiday tunes. Essentially it's a mix disc with the end of one song mashed into the beginning of another, using all sorts of found sounds from canned jingles to old radio bumpers recorded by British pop stars like the Police, Duran Duran, Paul Weller and Culture Club. Because of the transitions, you won't be able to extract tunes from it for your own collections, but if you want people to think you hired a DJ for your Christmas party, this is the way to go. Mostly hip-hop and R'nB stuff from the likes of Biz Markie, De La Soul, Kool Moe Dee, Run DMC, Biggie Smalls, Eazy E, Mary J. Blige, Destiny's Child, Donny Hathaway and more, but there's also reggae from Jacob Miller and Lee "Scratch" Perry, rock from The Ventures and Elton John, jazz from Billy Taylor's Orchestra, and inexplicably, three Lou Rawls cuts (but they're pretty good, so go figure.) Website seems to be history, however.
No running afoul of the consumer protection laws here, the title says it all. This 2001 collection, produced by Carla Olson of Textones fame, was specially recorded for Evidence. Rather than a collection of submissions by individual artists, Olson rounded up a house band to back a who's who of contemporary blues performers. The Mistletunes bias toward vocal music has been noted elsewhere on the site, but anyone inclined toward this kind of thing will have nothing to worry about; there's equal weight given to the original melodies of the songs as opposed to the riffing and improvisation that is so much a part of the blues. The song selection consists entirely of familiar carols and pop standards with strong enough melodies to stand up to a blues interpretation. It's really difficult to break out who's featured on each song, as the house band sometimes takes over from the lead musicians, so I'll just list some of the players: guitarists Denny Freeman, Otis Rush, Guitar Shorty, Rusty Zinn, Son Seals, Alan Youngblood Hart, Becky Barksdale, Albert Carter, Walter Trout, Joe Louis Walker, Tommy Castro and South Side Slim; harmonica players Kim Wilson, Charlie Musselwhite, Paul Oscher and Sugar Blue; saxophonists Ernie Watts and Tom Jr. Morgan; bass, Phil Upchurch; drums, Alvino Bennett; organ, Deacon Jones; and piano, Barry Goldberg.
Yes, we did review a song with this title not too long ago -- of all the Christmas titles to attract duplicate songs, eh? Dillon does his own singing and songwriting, but this classic rock-sounding tune from 2007 is apparently the first rock song written by Billy Joel in nearly a decade. No mistake -- the Joel connection is touted in the Gracenote info of the downloaded song, as well as the blurb on iTunes. The lyrics are inspired by letters home from Iraq soldiers, though they're woven into a first-person narrative that treads some of the same ground as Jefferson Pepper's tune. Proceeds from the song benefitted Homes For Our Troops at the time, but the song appears to be completely unavailable for now. Here it is on someone's homemade YouTube video:
"We came here to Fallujah to win your hearts and minds/But when we bombed your building your family was inside." Couldn't come over any more on the nose than that in this season of the Iraq Study Group. Pepper is described at his website as a songwriter of two decades' standing, but this is his first album, released originally in 2005. This alt-rock-country album isn't all Christmas oriented, but songs like the country lament "Bethlehem PA" are good to cry in your eggnog over. "Christmas Tree" uses the season as a metaphor for the life and death of a relationship, "Deceived" is about learning there's no Santa Claus, and "Plastic Illuminated Snowman" is a pretty good metaphor for what a country does to its returning soldiers after a war. And as for that title song, well, you'll want a little John and Yoko as a chaser after that one.
If the Twisted Sister disc is precisely what you might have expected had they recorded it back in the day, Idol's is the exact opposite of that. The former lead singer of Generation X and the guy who brought us "Dancing With Myself," "Rebel Yell," "White Wedding" and "Cradle of Love" has all but dispensed with his signature sound, presenting a Christmas album that owes a lot more to Vic Damone than Idol's own "Yellin' At the Xmas Tree," which isn't even on here. He does 15 standard Christmas songs and carols, fattening it up with two originals, "Happy Holiday" and "Christmas Love," both of which are pretty lounge-y. The two rock classics he does, Elvis' "Santa Claus Is Back in Town" and "Run Rudolph Run" at least, are worthwhile, and his "Winter Wonderland" at least has some rhythm and guitar riffing going on, and "Jingle Bell Rock" is at least on a par with Hall and Oates' version. But sincere versions of "Silent Night" and "Auld Lang Syne" really don't add much to the rock canon. This 2006 album was originally only sold at Billy's website and Best Buy, but it's in neither place right now, leaving eBay or Amazon independent vendors with pricey import copies. There are two different covers for the import and the original version.
Best known for the Top 40 hit "Sailin'," Cross was always most comfortable in that "adult contemporary" mode, which was radio-speak for easy listening aimed at younger audiences than the old masters like Sinatra and Bennett. This 2007 disc is solidly in that tradition. Cross puts two originals into the mix, "Does It Feel Like Christmas" and "A Dream of Peace at Christmastime," and throws in the old standard "Count Your Blessings Instead of Sheep." A good gift for a parent or a much-older sibling but nothing to get worked up over. Originally available only from his website, it was reissued as Christmas Time Is Here for 2010 as an import. Amazon has both versions, which differ only in cover art.
One minute their song "Walking on the Sun" is everywhere, the next they're an oldies band. Nevertheless, Smashmouth is still alive and kicking, and they did a holiday CD for 2005, available only at their website or on iTunes at first, but if you click the album jacket you can download it from Amazon too. They didn't put a lot of elbow grease into this, as nearly everything on it is rock 'n soul covers, but they exhibit pretty good taste nevertheless -- they cover the Raveonettes' "Christmas Song," rock up the O'Jays "Christmas Ain't Christmas (Without the One You Love)," Ringo Starr's "Come On Christmas," the Ramones' "Merry Christmas (I Don't Want to Fight Tonight)," the Sonics' "Don't Believe in Christmas," the Kinks' "Father Christmas" and the Spector album's "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)." They also take on "Snoopy's Christmas," "Zat You, Santa Claus" and throw in a pretty cool original, "Baggage Claim." There's not a lot of variety in approaches -- this rocks out from start to finish. That's a very good thing.
Aimee's been creeping up on a Christmas CD for several years now, as you may have been following on this very website. The odd cut turned up from time to time, and in 2005 she put a four-song collection on iTunes. For 2006, she sat down to record an entire 10-song CD from scratch. From her own MySpace posting, she says, "I don't like to hear the modern stuff. I like a good old-fashioned Christmas record that has the chestnuts roasting and the really standard Christmas songs. ... The songs have old-fashioned arrangements but are played with a smaller combo that gives them kind of a modern twist." So this is actually a bit mellower than the Mistletunes standard of rocking out Christmas. Still, we like Aimee here, and in terms of creating something with a longer shelf life, her choices are probably the most astute ones from a commercial standpoint. She's done some of the tunes before, like the Mel Torme "Christmas Song," "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" and Michael Penn's "Christmastime," but these are all new performances and arrangements, though not wildly different from their predecessors. The most noticeable change is that "Christmastime" is now a solo piece rather than a duet with Penn. The one new song on here is "Calling On Mary," which could fit seamlessly on any of her past few albums, a lonely search for love at the holidays. Grant Lee Buffalo guests on "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch," a combination spoken word and sung version that renders the book's text alongside the familiar song. Jimmy Webb's "Whatever Happened to Christmas" kicks off the CD, setting the tone, and the rest of the songs are classic carols like "White Christmas," "Winter Wonderland" and "I'll Be Home For Christmas," all rendered in Aimee's patented poison-valentine delivery. Not exactly the soundtrack for a Martha Stewart Christmas, but OK by us here.
UPDATED ENTRY: This 1994 CD EP has been long out of print, but Parker recently uncovered several unsold boxes of this brief classic containing three original holiday tunes, "Christmas Is For Mugs," "New Year's Revolution" and "Soul Christmas," the latter featuring co-vocalist Nona Hendryx. If anybody should have the attitude to do a rockin' Christmas record, it's Graham, and these are solid. Demos of the three songs also are included on the CD. The full story behind the original recording and release of this EP is related at Graham's website, and while you're there check out the other rarities and reissues from the more recent years of his fine, fine, superfine career. My copy is the British edition, released on Demon. Anyway, when the current batch of these discs is sold, that's probably it -- back to eBay and auction prices. The disc cover links to an Amazon page that has new copies available. UPDATE: Graham branched out to another holiday on his 2004 Your Country CD with "Almost Thanksgiving Day."
Matthew Edwardson tipped me to this pair of tunes, a solid acoustic rock arrangement of the traditional carol paired with a blues-rocker with plenty of slide guitar and single-entendres. Don't know the exact date these were released, but I'm guessing it was sometime during the oughts. Good work, and freely downloadable from former Bro Damon Johnson's website.
Can't tell you a single thing about these guys, as they have one of the least informative websites in captivity, although there are a few laughs there anyway, which may be all that matters. UPDATE: Apparently these guys are a Boston-based parody band, with such hits as "Lay Some Pipe," "Italian Ice (Go Guido Go)" and "Drink Till You Want Me" to their credit. What we get here starts off as synthpop with attitude, a bit of rap, and some giggles. "Robert Goulet is Looped" is a comedy piece with a bad Goulet impressionist singing "Silver Bells, Christmas smells..." "Too Cold" has a bit of Beastie Boys' sound with gags separating the chorus, and it returns later as "Extra Cold." "Who's Been Naughty" demands a Christmas gift "the size of Jennifer Lopez's ..." well, you know. "Santa Copped a 'Tude" drops the synths for a Bob Dylan impression in a song about the jolly elf's travails with slacker elves and burglary charges. "It's Christmas Time Again" makes fun of the Beatles' Christmas fan club messages and "Merry Christmas" is an Elvis impersonation. Fans of blasphemy will enjoy "Come Back to the Catholics" set to "Happy Xmas," and they wrap up with a gospel tune, "On Your Knees." Parental Advisory for occasional lyrics, but otherwise pretty enjoyable. Unfortunately, this appears to be completely unavailable anywhere in the current day. And don't go by the website's discography; all those albums are made up. According to Artist Direct, they've only released this disc and Meat the Stools, both in 2000.
Yes, Led Zeppelin fans, this is exactly what it looks like. Fleming McWilliams and John Painter have had two albums out on Universal, have played Lilith Fair and worked with Ben Folds, and are currently working out of their home studio. They posted this item on their website about 2000 along with a breathy "Carol of the Bells." The Zep homage has its lyrics tweaked a bit to match up with the season, and Fleming does a pretty good Plant impression. Unfortunately, it's long gone; maybe they'll post it again when the holidays roll around.
Aimee finally came out of the Christmas closet with this brief 2005 collection I found on iTunes. It consists of fairly mellow covers of Joni Mitchell's "River," a song that fits her like an old shoe; the Mel Torme "Christmas Song" previously heard on the Q Division compilation; and last year's limited-availability cover of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," along with the instant classic from 2005's The Forgotten Arm, "I Was Thinking I Could Clean Up For Christmas." The latter features bright, funky rock band playing, cheerful melodies and a downer of a story about cleaning up and leaving a lover behind. Dark but warm, sort of like the dive bar around the corner from your apartment. (You have to get to the next and last song on Forgotten Arm to reach the somewhat happy ending.) The only thing missing is Aimee's duet with hubby Michael Penn, "Christmastime," from back in the mid-90s. The EP eventually vanished and isn't even listed at her website, although the Q Division collection remains available and "Have Yourself" was re-recorded for her eventual full holiday album One More Drifter in the Snow.
Everything I said about these guys elsewhere on the site holds in spades -- your basic old-school progressive rock opera dressed up in holiday clothes and now turned into quite the money-making machine; two separate TSO troupes tour the USA during November and December to give you the live version of their oeuvre. This 2004 CD, their third Christmas album, has 23 cuts but it also recycles some of their older material with new performances. And if you're just coming around to these guys, all three of the holiday CDs are now available in a boxed trilogy set that also includes a DVD, "The Ghost of Christmas Eve." Oh, and for those of you still in thrall to the oft-aired "Metallica played with these guys" rumor, it's not true; the story is in the "elsewhere" link above.
This four-piece British outfit decided to put together this holiday single for 2004, a nice mid-tempo number about the Bridget Joneses among us, whether male or female. They cite Roy Wood's classic "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day" as an influence, and that's not too far off. The second tune, "Please Ring," is not a Christmas number but is about the longing for that one phone call. Was only available in Old Blighty at the time I got it, and that appears to remain true. Also, the band's website is long gone and an alternate site provided by Google failed to load when I went there. Too bad, it's a good pop-rock Christmas song.
This bit of festive semi-punk thrash with the edges ground off just a tad comes from a local London, England band that is looking to snag a recording contract by billing themselves as the "Kings of Broadband Rock." No, I don't know what it means, but I say whatever works. These middle-aged guys know how to have fun, and you'll probably appreciate this 2003 tune if you manage to get a hold of it, as it's not for sale anywhere. You can play it from the website, however. They sent me a demo with four non-holiday songs and this on it, fastened inside a Christmas card. If you found this by Googling for "Crocodile Hunter," this has nothing to do with that.
Originally just a download from the band's website, this late 2004 song remains available from iTunes when you buy the single of "Little House of Savages." (Click the album art to go there.) It's bracketed with spoken-word holiday sentiments and jingle bells, then it goes into a medium shuffle with a duet vocal reminiscent of the old Nuggets days -- or the latter-day garage movement, whichever you remember better. They like their wine in this song, too. On their Bows and Arrows album, they have two songs, "No Christmas While I'm Talking" and "New Year's Eve," neither of which appear to be holiday related as near as I can hear. UPDATE: 2008's You and Me album features "In the New Year," which is a bit more overt of a holiday song.
These folks (Tony and Kimberly Paglia of Georgia) came to my attention via the Christmas Underground compilation and their acoustic take of "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear." From 2000, this just finally crossed my desk. I might have waved it away as being a folkie deal rather than the rock 'n roll aesthetic we're looking for here, but despite the mellow sounds, no backbeat and the selection of all traditional tunes (except the original "Tony in Toyland"), this CD definitely has its own vibe, a little bit of Low, a bit of 60s psych-pop with an occasional touch of Melanie, and lots of instrumentals. Some out-of-the-way selections, including the title song, "Somersetshire Wassail" and "Good Christian Men Rejoice." Not a barn-burner, more of a thought-provoker. The band appears to be moribund, but the website is still up and offering this disc for sale.
Don't know much about these guys, except they're from Atlanta, they saw this website, e-mailed us back in 2000 and told us they had something we might be interested in featuring. They were right. A sharp, well played rocker, and give it extra points for sneaking in the Bryan Adams quote in the bridge. Almost forgot: Hanukkah Alert! Go click the art, what are you waiting for? The song was featured on two compilations, the 99X holiday album, and a Red Cross benefit album. Both are out of print, but Amazon has the song, and that's all that's necessary.
Jill sold this EP directly from her website, and it's worth having, even if you're not one of her fans. "Merry Christmas From the Family" is the Robert Earl Keen song she performed on the You Sleigh Me compilation, "Christmas Is the Saddest Day of the Year" was out on Velvel's A Christmas to Remember, and I don't know where else you could find "Jesus Was a Dreidel Spinner," a witty little slice of thrash-klezmer. Oh, I know: see below. As a bonus she throws in "Mom," a bit of social commentary that ends up as an ode to the title character. As this was a private issue, it's not surprising that it went away. The tunes, however, got another life on a subsequent Jill issue; read here and here.
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Electric Light Orchestra was formed out of the ruins of The Move by Jeff Lynne and Roy Wood, but after the first ELO album Wood decided the group was being motivated more by Lynne's orchestral Beatleisms than Wood's vision of Phil Spector meets the Count Basie Orchestra, and he left ELO to form Wizzard, initially storming the British charts with a string of brilliant singles that couldn't get a foothold in the U.S. This 1973 winner was one of those singles, a Spector cop from its wall of sound to its jingle bells, with a kids' chorus thrown in for good measure. Classic moment: just before the kids start singing, Wood yells, "OK you lot, let's hear it!" Wood revisited the genre with "Rock and Roll Winter" a few years later, with less chart success. And in 1991 he recorded "Sing Out the Old, Ring In the New," which looked to clone the success of "I Wish," right down to kids singing the chorus near the end. Then he hooked up with The Wombles for the mashup "Wombling Christmas Every Day"....From the cover, you're likely to get the idea this 1995 album is some kind of rockabilly Christmas deal, but you'll be disappointed. It's got a 1950s vibe all right, but a "Happy Days"-inspired one, as you might expect from a show band whose leader "travels with 50 costume changes," as listed on the website. Some of these tunes, like "A Christmas Wish" and "Merry Christmas to You," are just flat-out lounge music, "Winter Wonderland" is strictly from Lawrence Welk land, and the obligatory kids-singing number "Can't Wait Till Christmas Day" is about what you'd expect. "White Christmas" gets a nice "Blueberry Hill" arrangement, and "Christmas Just Ain't Christmas Without You" is a serviceable blues ballad, although the synth horns hurt it, and "I Wish I Was a Christmas Tree" is a half-decent novelty tune. The disc has its moments, but nothing to top the old masters from the early days of rock 'n roll.This 2000 compilation is the real deal, original 50s rockabilly Christmas singles, not a single re-creation in the bunch. The liner notes aren't real comprehensive, but they do list the original label and serial number of every one of the 30 songs, along with photographs of some of the actual labels. In some cases, both sides of the same single appear here, like Johnny Preston's "(I Want a) Rock 'n Roll Guitar," which takes off from "Night Before Christmas," and "New Baby For Christmas." If you don't know much about original rockabilly, you'll hear the many influences of rockabilly, some more country, some swing, others more rock, still others pop and novelty records. Not to mention a few borrowed licks from some non-Christmas tunes of the period and a few imitations of more famous artists. The period recording quality and tape hiss on some of these might put off the young'uns, but there are lots of great candidates for a Christmas mix on here. An interesting artifact is the Outlaws' version of "Run Rudolph Run" with a writing credit to Chuck Berry shown on a picture of the original label. "Rock Around the Christmas Tree" by Big Bud is not the familiar song, but it's just as good. The Cadillac fixation lives on with The Four Imperials' "Santa's Got a Coupe de Ville" and Little Joey Farr's "Big White Cadillac." Barry Richards' "Baby Sittin' Santa" and Marlene Paul's "I Wanna Spend Christmas With Elvis" are probably the best-known tunes here. Oldies fans will snarf this up, but everybody's likely to find something they like on this collection. UPDATE: Hey, I just noticed Amazon uses this very post to describe this disc to potential buyers! (I didn't post it there, but at least it's properly credited to this site.)
The folks at Sanctuary have been busy beavers since they acquired the rights to the Trojan catalog; if you have a full-service record store near you, you've probably seen a couple dozen different box sets from Trojan in your reggae section. (UPDATE: Sanctuary was absorbed by Universal in 2007, so I guess Universal holds the rights to Trojan now.) Naturally, there had to be one dedicated to Christmas reggae, and this 2003 collection is it. There aren't a lot of surprises here, though; a fair proportion of the 50 songs on this three-CD set have already been mentioned elsewhere on this site, an indication that these songs have been compiled and re-compiled over the years. "Santa Claus Is Ska-ing to Town" by the Granville Williams Orchestra, for example, turns up pretty often. Still, fans will recognize a lot of folks on here, like Desmond Dekker and the Aces, Eek-A-Mouse, The Ethiopians and Lee "Scratch" Perry, not to mention The Maytals, presumably including Toots. The collection fills itself out in part by giving several artists multiple entries, among them Yellowman, John Holt, Jacob Miller and Ray I and The Tamlins. This set stands out because of its informative liner notes, which place the recordings between the mid-60s and late 70s and give some background to the individual artists. Like previous compilations, the recording quality of individual songs is all over the map, although it sounds as if it has been remastered, at least to my ears. If you don't have a lot of reggae Christmas music, this might just fill that hole in your collection. Still downloadable, but the hardcopy version is out of print.
This is the 2005 version of something we featured a couple of seasons ago, a hip-hop collective doing the whole DJ schtick on a collection of holiday tunes. Essentially it's a mix disc with the end of one song mashed into the beginning of another, using all sorts of found sounds from canned jingles to old radio bumpers recorded by British pop stars like the Police, Duran Duran, Paul Weller and Culture Club. Because of the transitions, you won't be able to extract tunes from it for your own collections, but if you want people to think you hired a DJ for your Christmas party, this is the way to go. Mostly hip-hop and R'nB stuff from the likes of Biz Markie, De La Soul, Kool Moe Dee, Run DMC, Biggie Smalls, Eazy E, Mary J. Blige, Destiny's Child, Donny Hathaway and more, but there's also reggae from Jacob Miller and Lee "Scratch" Perry, rock from The Ventures and Elton John, jazz from Billy Taylor's Orchestra, and inexplicably, three Lou Rawls cuts (but they're pretty good, so go figure.) Website seems to be history, however.No running afoul of the consumer protection laws here, the title says it all. This 2001 collection, produced by Carla Olson of Textones fame, was specially recorded for Evidence. Rather than a collection of submissions by individual artists, Olson rounded up a house band to back a who's who of contemporary blues performers. The Mistletunes bias toward vocal music has been noted elsewhere on the site, but anyone inclined toward this kind of thing will have nothing to worry about; there's equal weight given to the original melodies of the songs as opposed to the riffing and improvisation that is so much a part of the blues. The song selection consists entirely of familiar carols and pop standards with strong enough melodies to stand up to a blues interpretation. It's really difficult to break out who's featured on each song, as the house band sometimes takes over from the lead musicians, so I'll just list some of the players: guitarists Denny Freeman, Otis Rush, Guitar Shorty, Rusty Zinn, Son Seals, Alan Youngblood Hart, Becky Barksdale, Albert Carter, Walter Trout, Joe Louis Walker, Tommy Castro and South Side Slim; harmonica players Kim Wilson, Charlie Musselwhite, Paul Oscher and Sugar Blue; saxophonists Ernie Watts and Tom Jr. Morgan; bass, Phil Upchurch; drums, Alvino Bennett; organ, Deacon Jones; and piano, Barry Goldberg.
Yes, we did review a song with this title not too long ago -- of all the Christmas titles to attract duplicate songs, eh? Dillon does his own singing and songwriting, but this classic rock-sounding tune from 2007 is apparently the first rock song written by Billy Joel in nearly a decade. No mistake -- the Joel connection is touted in the Gracenote info of the downloaded song, as well as the blurb on iTunes. The lyrics are inspired by letters home from Iraq soldiers, though they're woven into a first-person narrative that treads some of the same ground as Jefferson Pepper's tune. Proceeds from the song benefitted Homes For Our Troops at the time, but the song appears to be completely unavailable for now. Here it is on someone's homemade YouTube video:"We came here to Fallujah to win your hearts and minds/But when we bombed your building your family was inside." Couldn't come over any more on the nose than that in this season of the Iraq Study Group. Pepper is described at his website as a songwriter of two decades' standing, but this is his first album, released originally in 2005. This alt-rock-country album isn't all Christmas oriented, but songs like the country lament "Bethlehem PA" are good to cry in your eggnog over. "Christmas Tree" uses the season as a metaphor for the life and death of a relationship, "Deceived" is about learning there's no Santa Claus, and "Plastic Illuminated Snowman" is a pretty good metaphor for what a country does to its returning soldiers after a war. And as for that title song, well, you'll want a little John and Yoko as a chaser after that one.
If the Twisted Sister disc is precisely what you might have expected had they recorded it back in the day, Idol's is the exact opposite of that. The former lead singer of Generation X and the guy who brought us "Dancing With Myself," "Rebel Yell," "White Wedding" and "Cradle of Love" has all but dispensed with his signature sound, presenting a Christmas album that owes a lot more to Vic Damone than Idol's own "Yellin' At the Xmas Tree," which isn't even on here. He does 15 standard Christmas songs and carols, fattening it up with two originals, "Happy Holiday" and "Christmas Love," both of which are pretty lounge-y. The two rock classics he does, Elvis' "Santa Claus Is Back in Town" and "Run Rudolph Run" at least, are worthwhile, and his "Winter Wonderland" at least has some rhythm and guitar riffing going on, and "Jingle Bell Rock" is at least on a par with Hall and Oates' version. But sincere versions of "Silent Night" and "Auld Lang Syne" really don't add much to the rock canon. This 2006 album was originally only sold at Billy's website and Best Buy, but it's in neither place right now, leaving eBay or Amazon independent vendors with pricey import copies. There are two different covers for the import and the original version.
Best known for the Top 40 hit "Sailin'," Cross was always most comfortable in that "adult contemporary" mode, which was radio-speak for easy listening aimed at younger audiences than the old masters like Sinatra and Bennett. This 2007 disc is solidly in that tradition. Cross puts two originals into the mix, "Does It Feel Like Christmas" and "A Dream of Peace at Christmastime," and throws in the old standard "Count Your Blessings Instead of Sheep." A good gift for a parent or a much-older sibling but nothing to get worked up over. Originally available only from his website, it was reissued as Christmas Time Is Here for 2010 as an import. Amazon has both versions, which differ only in cover art.
One minute their song "Walking on the Sun" is everywhere, the next they're an oldies band. Nevertheless, Smashmouth is still alive and kicking, and they did a holiday CD for 2005, available only at their website or on iTunes at first, but if you click the album jacket you can download it from Amazon too. They didn't put a lot of elbow grease into this, as nearly everything on it is rock 'n soul covers, but they exhibit pretty good taste nevertheless -- they cover the Raveonettes' "Christmas Song," rock up the O'Jays "Christmas Ain't Christmas (Without the One You Love)," Ringo Starr's "Come On Christmas," the Ramones' "Merry Christmas (I Don't Want to Fight Tonight)," the Sonics' "Don't Believe in Christmas," the Kinks' "Father Christmas" and the Spector album's "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)." They also take on "Snoopy's Christmas," "Zat You, Santa Claus" and throw in a pretty cool original, "Baggage Claim." There's not a lot of variety in approaches -- this rocks out from start to finish. That's a very good thing.
Aimee's been creeping up on a Christmas CD for several years now, as you may have been following on this very website. The odd cut turned up from time to time, and in 2005 she put a four-song collection on iTunes. For 2006, she sat down to record an entire 10-song CD from scratch. From her own MySpace posting, she says, "I don't like to hear the modern stuff. I like a good old-fashioned Christmas record that has the chestnuts roasting and the really standard Christmas songs. ... The songs have old-fashioned arrangements but are played with a smaller combo that gives them kind of a modern twist." So this is actually a bit mellower than the Mistletunes standard of rocking out Christmas. Still, we like Aimee here, and in terms of creating something with a longer shelf life, her choices are probably the most astute ones from a commercial standpoint. She's done some of the tunes before, like the Mel Torme "Christmas Song," "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" and Michael Penn's "Christmastime," but these are all new performances and arrangements, though not wildly different from their predecessors. The most noticeable change is that "Christmastime" is now a solo piece rather than a duet with Penn. The one new song on here is "Calling On Mary," which could fit seamlessly on any of her past few albums, a lonely search for love at the holidays. Grant Lee Buffalo guests on "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch," a combination spoken word and sung version that renders the book's text alongside the familiar song. Jimmy Webb's "Whatever Happened to Christmas" kicks off the CD, setting the tone, and the rest of the songs are classic carols like "White Christmas," "Winter Wonderland" and "I'll Be Home For Christmas," all rendered in Aimee's patented poison-valentine delivery. Not exactly the soundtrack for a Martha Stewart Christmas, but OK by us here.
UPDATED ENTRY: This 1994 CD EP has been long out of print, but Parker recently uncovered several unsold boxes of this brief classic containing three original holiday tunes, "Christmas Is For Mugs," "New Year's Revolution" and "Soul Christmas," the latter featuring co-vocalist Nona Hendryx. If anybody should have the attitude to do a rockin' Christmas record, it's Graham, and these are solid. Demos of the three songs also are included on the CD. The full story behind the original recording and release of this EP is related at Graham's website, and while you're there check out the other rarities and reissues from the more recent years of his fine, fine, superfine career. My copy is the British edition, released on Demon. Anyway, when the current batch of these discs is sold, that's probably it -- back to eBay and auction prices. The disc cover links to an Amazon page that has new copies available. UPDATE: Graham branched out to another holiday on his 2004 Your Country CD with "Almost Thanksgiving Day."
Matthew Edwardson tipped me to this pair of tunes, a solid acoustic rock arrangement of the traditional carol paired with a blues-rocker with plenty of slide guitar and single-entendres. Don't know the exact date these were released, but I'm guessing it was sometime during the oughts. Good work, and freely downloadable from former Bro Damon Johnson's website. Can't tell you a single thing about these guys, as they have one of the least informative websites in captivity, although there are a few laughs there anyway, which may be all that matters. UPDATE: Apparently these guys are a Boston-based parody band, with such hits as "Lay Some Pipe," "Italian Ice (Go Guido Go)" and "Drink Till You Want Me" to their credit. What we get here starts off as synthpop with attitude, a bit of rap, and some giggles. "Robert Goulet is Looped" is a comedy piece with a bad Goulet impressionist singing "Silver Bells, Christmas smells..." "Too Cold" has a bit of Beastie Boys' sound with gags separating the chorus, and it returns later as "Extra Cold." "Who's Been Naughty" demands a Christmas gift "the size of Jennifer Lopez's ..." well, you know. "Santa Copped a 'Tude" drops the synths for a Bob Dylan impression in a song about the jolly elf's travails with slacker elves and burglary charges. "It's Christmas Time Again" makes fun of the Beatles' Christmas fan club messages and "Merry Christmas" is an Elvis impersonation. Fans of blasphemy will enjoy "Come Back to the Catholics" set to "Happy Xmas," and they wrap up with a gospel tune, "On Your Knees." Parental Advisory for occasional lyrics, but otherwise pretty enjoyable. Unfortunately, this appears to be completely unavailable anywhere in the current day. And don't go by the website's discography; all those albums are made up. According to Artist Direct, they've only released this disc and Meat the Stools, both in 2000.
Yes, Led Zeppelin fans, this is exactly what it looks like. Fleming McWilliams and John Painter have had two albums out on Universal, have played Lilith Fair and worked with Ben Folds, and are currently working out of their home studio. They posted this item on their website about 2000 along with a breathy "Carol of the Bells." The Zep homage has its lyrics tweaked a bit to match up with the season, and Fleming does a pretty good Plant impression. Unfortunately, it's long gone; maybe they'll post it again when the holidays roll around.
Aimee finally came out of the Christmas closet with this brief 2005 collection I found on iTunes. It consists of fairly mellow covers of Joni Mitchell's "River," a song that fits her like an old shoe; the Mel Torme "Christmas Song" previously heard on the Q Division compilation; and last year's limited-availability cover of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," along with the instant classic from 2005's The Forgotten Arm, "I Was Thinking I Could Clean Up For Christmas." The latter features bright, funky rock band playing, cheerful melodies and a downer of a story about cleaning up and leaving a lover behind. Dark but warm, sort of like the dive bar around the corner from your apartment. (You have to get to the next and last song on Forgotten Arm to reach the somewhat happy ending.) The only thing missing is Aimee's duet with hubby Michael Penn, "Christmastime," from back in the mid-90s. The EP eventually vanished and isn't even listed at her website, although the Q Division collection remains available and "Have Yourself" was re-recorded for her eventual full holiday album One More Drifter in the Snow.
Everything I said about these guys elsewhere on the site holds in spades -- your basic old-school progressive rock opera dressed up in holiday clothes and now turned into quite the money-making machine; two separate TSO troupes tour the USA during November and December to give you the live version of their oeuvre. This 2004 CD, their third Christmas album, has 23 cuts but it also recycles some of their older material with new performances. And if you're just coming around to these guys, all three of the holiday CDs are now available in a boxed trilogy set that also includes a DVD, "The Ghost of Christmas Eve." Oh, and for those of you still in thrall to the oft-aired "Metallica played with these guys" rumor, it's not true; the story is in the "elsewhere" link above.
This four-piece British outfit decided to put together this holiday single for 2004, a nice mid-tempo number about the Bridget Joneses among us, whether male or female. They cite Roy Wood's classic "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day" as an influence, and that's not too far off. The second tune, "Please Ring," is not a Christmas number but is about the longing for that one phone call. Was only available in Old Blighty at the time I got it, and that appears to remain true. Also, the band's website is long gone and an alternate site provided by Google failed to load when I went there. Too bad, it's a good pop-rock Christmas song.
This bit of festive semi-punk thrash with the edges ground off just a tad comes from a local London, England band that is looking to snag a recording contract by billing themselves as the "Kings of Broadband Rock." No, I don't know what it means, but I say whatever works. These middle-aged guys know how to have fun, and you'll probably appreciate this 2003 tune if you manage to get a hold of it, as it's not for sale anywhere. You can play it from the website, however. They sent me a demo with four non-holiday songs and this on it, fastened inside a Christmas card. If you found this by Googling for "Crocodile Hunter," this has nothing to do with that.
Originally just a download from the band's website, this late 2004 song remains available from iTunes when you buy the single of "Little House of Savages." (Click the album art to go there.) It's bracketed with spoken-word holiday sentiments and jingle bells, then it goes into a medium shuffle with a duet vocal reminiscent of the old Nuggets days -- or the latter-day garage movement, whichever you remember better. They like their wine in this song, too. On their Bows and Arrows album, they have two songs, "No Christmas While I'm Talking" and "New Year's Eve," neither of which appear to be holiday related as near as I can hear. UPDATE: 2008's You and Me album features "In the New Year," which is a bit more overt of a holiday song.
These folks (Tony and Kimberly Paglia of Georgia) came to my attention via the Christmas Underground compilation and their acoustic take of "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear." From 2000, this just finally crossed my desk. I might have waved it away as being a folkie deal rather than the rock 'n roll aesthetic we're looking for here, but despite the mellow sounds, no backbeat and the selection of all traditional tunes (except the original "Tony in Toyland"), this CD definitely has its own vibe, a little bit of Low, a bit of 60s psych-pop with an occasional touch of Melanie, and lots of instrumentals. Some out-of-the-way selections, including the title song, "Somersetshire Wassail" and "Good Christian Men Rejoice." Not a barn-burner, more of a thought-provoker. The band appears to be moribund, but the website is still up and offering this disc for sale.
Don't know much about these guys, except they're from Atlanta, they saw this website, e-mailed us back in 2000 and told us they had something we might be interested in featuring. They were right. A sharp, well played rocker, and give it extra points for sneaking in the Bryan Adams quote in the bridge. Almost forgot: Hanukkah Alert! Go click the art, what are you waiting for? The song was featured on two compilations, the 99X holiday album, and a Red Cross benefit album. Both are out of print, but Amazon has the song, and that's all that's necessary.
Jill sold this EP directly from her website, and it's worth having, even if you're not one of her fans. "Merry Christmas From the Family" is the Robert Earl Keen song she performed on the You Sleigh Me compilation, "Christmas Is the Saddest Day of the Year" was out on Velvel's A Christmas to Remember, and I don't know where else you could find "Jesus Was a Dreidel Spinner," a witty little slice of thrash-klezmer. Oh, I know: see below. As a bonus she throws in "Mom," a bit of social commentary that ends up as an ode to the title character. As this was a private issue, it's not surprising that it went away. The tunes, however, got another life on a subsequent Jill issue; read here and here.
