C/D: Christmas music

Also it has come to my attention that I love descant

What a spectacular compositional device. I wish they existed outside of carols and hymns, just a beautiful concept

mr veg got me the 1995 Luther Vandross christmas album <3

Lawrence is an unlikely source of Christmas songs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAD0Q2h6lkU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbF5cDppz-4

Indeed

Prince's Another Lonely Christmas sounding like a sex jam instead of a carol is A+

fyi we are 75 minutes into jon solomon's 35th annual 25-hour christmas marathon on WPRB princeton: https://marathon.christmas

i worked in retail for much too long, so this is literally the only xmas music i now listen to

Holiday Rarities: Bing still chasing that White Christmas lightning, ditto Ella, Dinah, Louis Prima, Jo Stafford, June Christy, Julie London, Lambert Henricks & Ross (Jl and LHR my faves so far). Some of this is Seasonal, not strictly Xmas, which helps, as does lack of familiarity.
https://indianapublicmedia.org/afterglow/holiday-rarities.php

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Gy6WyZQBtI

The WPRB marathon is the best! I submitted my Mortal Khristmas track last year and he played it <3

(this track)
https://soundcloud.com/found-river/lords-of-yuletide-reindeer-syndrome-mortal-khristmas

nice!

Strolled candy cane lane 2nite listening to Duke Pearson's classic xmas album on Blue Note, Merry Ole Soul.

Every year, the night before Christmas, at peak manic-children sugar rush, I terrorize the family with "Santa's Coming Over" by Low.

2 EPs/mini-albums that I formed attachments to over consecutive pandemic xmases that was way of propition to their real but slight merits - last year I was played them both constantly as chill out music in between the EPs/albums/mixes/whatever from bree runway, raye and shygirl (all nov 2020 and all still miraculous pieces of work, among the best UK pop of the millennium) so I definitely overrated them by association but they're still among the more bearable xmas music I've heard (towards the R&B side of "Traditional")now I have covid again so I'm bringing it all back

tinashe's comfort & joy EP - it's fine, often good, the arrangement I'm not sure the trap beat always works but I'll take it over sleigh bells and she sounds great as usual

kadhja bonet's california holiday EP - this is a very nice continuous vibe and in the right set and setting it would be a cool moodsetter. it gets a little wispy towards the end but it never sounds unpleasant even when she's covering my least favourite xmas hit (cutting the sleigh bells and making the synth calm down a little make a world of difference)

in conclusion these EPs are fine and even good a lot of the time but you don't need them

Last year's best new-to-me Christmas song discovery was "Maybe Next Christmas" by Ron Sexsmith, one of those artists I've long heard good things about but never really checked out, something I need to do if "Next Christmas" is indicative of his work, as that's a great song. This year I heard Tyler Shaw's cover of it on the radio, and see Tracey Thorn and a few others have covered it too. Are there any Christmas songs from the 21st century that are undisputed holiday standards yet? This may become amongst the first.

Guru Guru, "Dagobert Duck's 100th Birthday"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMWWbDIcfR0

(Dagobert Duck is the German name for Scrooge McDuck - though Scrooge is actually mentioned in the lyric)

I had never heard "December" before, it hasn't been covered much. I'm also not really familiar with Kay Starr and I'm now kinda fascinated with her voice, so win/win.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCOHYBPl12k