Ah, Paul Westerberg. The great Replacements frontman and solo songwriter has been cultivating a reclusive persona of late, only plugging in his guitar this year to put Hank Williams and Gordon Lightfoot covers on a tribute album for his ailing ex-bandmate Slim Dunlap.
But a few years ago, Paul put this little gem on a non-Holiday collection available via download only from Amazon, as he’s been doing with most of his material in recent memory. And what a gem it is. Leave it to PW to put his idiosyncratic spin (and a little Chuck Berry influence) on Christmas and come out the other side with an instant new classic. The Little Lord Jesus never rocked so hard.
.
Thanks to Atlanta-based singer/songwriter Michael Hodginfor today’s guest post!
As we all know, Die Hard is one of the best Christmas movies ever made. And as such, it features some perennial Holiday music favorites as well. Of course, it closes with the timeless “Let It Snow,” sung by Vaughn Monroe, but this time we’re featuring limo driver Argyle’s favorite selection on the soundtrack, Run DMC’s “Christmas In Hollis.”
I don’t think I ever actually saw this video back in 1987 but watching it now makes me long for the days when videos actually acted out the lyrics of the song. “We better point to the Christmas tree when he says ‘Christmas tree.’”
Welcome to the party, pal.
Thanks again to Atlanta-based singer/songwriterMichael Hodginfor today’s guest post!
In the UK, “Fairytale of New York” is consistently voted as the all-time favorite (or favourite) Christmas song. In the US, it has become the only song most people can name by the Pogues.
The song itself is one long contrast between beauty and ugliness: cheerful flutes and drunken insults; images of a snowy New York City and the drunk tank; the hope of Christmas and the lonely reality of broken dreams. Have listen here:
Some call this surreal television. Some call it the weirdest moment in entertainment. To me it’s just a perfect musical moment.
Tomorrow marks the 35th anniversary of the airing of the Bing Crosby’s last Christmas special. In 1977 glam rocker David Bowie appeared as a guest and sang a duet with Bing. The song was a medley of the new song “Peace On Earth” with the standard “Little Drummer Boy”.
Bing died a month after this was recorded, and a month prior to the airing of this TV special. Then the song was released as a single in 1982. Also that year, MTV added the clip to its rotation as a stand-alone video.
After decades of forgettable holiday TV specials and variety shows with duets with artists from varying genres, this one performance stands out from all others. At first you may think it’s due to how odd this pairing is: it’s the tiny point on the Venn Diagram where The Golden Age of Hollywood overlaps with Modern Rock. Shock value doesn’t hold it up for 35 years; two great voices do.
(Here’s another guest post from Atlanta-based Singer/Songwriter Michael Hodgin!)
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that you hate Christmas music.
You are wrong.
And my good friend Jack Monson is letting me steal a few posts on his blog this holiday season to prove it. See, I absolutely LOVE Christmas music. I love Christmas too. It’s my favorite time of year. I love the feelings and the sentiment, the shopping and the giving, and Love Actually and It’s a Wonderful Life. I love very special holiday episodes of sit-coms. I love emotionally manipulative holiday-themed commercials that are hellbent on making you cry by showing some college kid returning home from Africa to spend Christmas with his family.
As Andy Williams said, it’s the most wonderful time of the year.
And what is more wonderful than the idea of Bob Dylan doing a Christmas album. I like to think about what all the booing hordes of British folky teens would shout out if Mr. Zimmerman walked on stage with The Band in 1965 and did “Here Comes Santa Claus.”
Anyway, back in the present, check out the glorious, raucous mess that Bob makes of the holidays in this video from his excellent X-mas album.
It’s a great week and kickoff to the Christmas shopping season for Retro tunes from some of the greats. Any of these would make a great gift or a holiday insanity-defying muscial treat for yourself on Cyber Monday.
Do we really still call it Cyber Monday? Cyber….hmmm. I guess it’s like still saying “dial” a phone though we haven’t had a phone with a dial since around the time Led Zeppelin broke up.
Led Zeppelin – Celebration Day
Which brings us to this new release from last Tuesday – Led Zeppelin Celebration Day. It’s not really new music; it’s a live album of their greatest hits. It’s not really even a new release as it was recorded at their one-shot reunion 5 years ago! Lastly, the reunion term is used loosely as John Bonham is still quite dead.
These may be valid points for not going all-out crazy about this release. But, c’mon! It’s more Led Zeppelin! We really do not have enough material from these guys who were officially together for a only decade and released only 10 albums if you include the live Song Remains The Same (which I do) and not include the 1990s Page / Plant reunion album (which I don’t). Celebration Day is actually better than Remains, in my early listening opinion. These guys are now true old bluesmen with about a billion more miles on them. And although we don’t have John Bonham onboard, we have the closest match both musically and genetically with Jason Bonham.
Zepp Now: Plant, Page, Jones, (Jason) Bonham. Photo from Spin.
AC/DC on iTunes
I was shocked last Tuesday seeing the big banner on iTunes announcing AC/DC’s catalog finally being released for digital download. They are the only major band that held out even longer than The Beatles, and I’m glad to finally see some of the greatest albums of all time like Dirty Deeds and Back in Black available for future generations who won’t own a CD player!
You can buy the entire collection, or of course choose only individual songs to purchase. But there’s still no official AC/DC Greatest Hits album. I think the band’s stance on this is so cool, especially in a world where every lame pop singer, hip hop noise maker, and American Idol contestant who has been around for more then 18 months is putting out a Greatest Hits collection.
Rolling Stones – GRRR!
The Stones put out a huge Best Of collection last week. The sheer scope is impressive, with you choice of the 40, 50, or 80 track versions. I recommend downloading the 2 new songs, “Gloom and Doom” and “One More Shot”. Both are rockin’ numbers that are a couple of the best they have created in several years.
But, seriously, I think The Stones have run out of ideas on album titles and cover photos.
Elvis Costello – In Motion Pictures
This is an interesting collection of old Elvis Costello tunes used in various movies over the past 30 or so years. It’s a cool idea and an even cooler album cover!
The Who – Music For The Closing Ceremony
Pete and Roger’s performance closing the 2012 London Olympics was awesome and the 4 tracks are now for sale for download or on a limited blue vinyl LP!
Remember when Adam Sandler was funny? I think it was a narrow window from 1993 through mid-1997. But in that time he gave us a few holiday tunes via Saturday Night Live. Here’s the Turkey Song – Happy Thanksgiving!
Pop music, especially in the modern rock era (which I define as roughly 1979 to 1999), has a lot of Christmas songs in its catalog. A lot. A whole lot. In fact, way too many.
Like Christmas itself throughout the same era, pop and rock bands have cashed in over the past couple of decades, using Christmas as a reason to offer up specific product. But, no one has really created big hits for other holidays since Bobby “Boris” Picket staked his claim on Halloween in 1962.
Enter Ray Davies. The first time I heard “Thanksgiving Day” in 2005, I could just picture Ray telling his friends that the song isn’t just a Thanksgiving song, but more importantly it’s NOT another Christmas song. After all, Ray and his band The Kinks already conquered the Christmas genre with 1977’s “Father Christmas”!
Have a listen below to Ray perfroming this on the old Conan show in 2005:
Four more years of Obama would be bad for business according to conservative talk show hosts. But Obama’s re-election may help one industry: conservative talk shows.
Why? Over 15 million people tune into Rush Limbaugh each day to hear conversations about how badly Obama is doing. Will 15 million people tune in to hear how well a President Romney is doing? Doubtful.
Rush and many others exploded onto the national scene in the early 1990s when another polarizing figure, Bill Clinton, came into the White House. Little did we know that as polarizing figures go, Clinton was nothing compared to George W. Bush and Barrack Obama!
Conversely, Liberal media’s ratings would improve if the GOP wins. And by Liberal media, I pretty much mean, well, all traditional media except for Fox News, about a dozen syndicated radio shows, and several blogs.
Romney’s victory would surely be a boon for the currently struggling CNN and the always-struggling MSNBC. As ridiculous and far out there that they are, I’ll say one thing for those crazy NBC cable guys: they stand their ideological ground and continue to push the Left’s agenda no matter how few people tune in. But there must be some closet capitalist programming execs at MSNBC who secretly wish against the designs of parent companies NBC and Comcast for an Obama reelection.
Such execs must see the value in having the cable network be the anti-establishment voice. Isn’t it a more natural fit for Liberal voices to play that role and resist “The Man”?
Liberal media played that role during the Bush years but it didn’t result in ratings success: MSNBC and CNN have trailed Fox for many years. But perhaps the Left will really fire up if the election is lost for them.
Left-leaning comedy shows like The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Saturday Night Live, and The NBC Evening News, have struggled to stay fresh while remaining on-point of not criticizing President Obama. It’s hard to do political satire when you’re supporting the party in power. This has lead to a scouring of America to find obscure Republican state senators and local officials to mock. A Romney win on Election Day would be a shot in the arm for the writers of these shows. Or at least make their jobs easier.
Social Geek Blog 