I realize that my christmas music is sadly and woefully out of date.
John Denver & the Muppets.
Yeah, it is classic stuff, but I think I am in need to expand my pathetic music selection.
Post your favorite old/new albums.
Amy Grant’s “A Christmas Album.”
I always really liked the songs from the Phil Spector Christmas Album but never owned a copy. Finally, in the Holiday mood, I bought the CD then he immediately went and killed somebody!
Kinda put a damper on things, the CD didn’t make me feel as Christmas-y anymore. This year I’ve found that I can listen to it again and still enjoy those great recordings.
My mum gave me the Amy Grant CD, and I nearly retched when I tried to listen to it.
My favourite is “A Christmas Cocktail” by Jaymz Bee, closely followed by “Yule B Swinging”.
Handel’s Messiah: A Soulful Celebration is absolute tippy-top of the list. Patty Austin’s version of But Who May Abide… blows my hair back, and you are guaranteed to get into some very serious booty-shaking on the Hallelujah.
I also like Robert Strickland’s 12 Days in December: Carols for Solo Piano. He’s kind of a George Winston wannabe, so if you’ve worn out your copy of GW’s Winter, check this out.
A couple of years ago I got Amahl and the Night Visitors on CD, and I listen to that several times every solstice season.
“A Broadway Christmas”–Great mix of well known and lesser known songs from Broadway shows, sung by Broadway people. Who knew “We Need A Little Christmas” has three verses? Also includes my favorite Yuletide ditty “I Don’t Remember Christmas.”
“Home for the Holidays”–Released in 2001 to benefit the Twin Towers Fund. Worth getting for Liza & Alan Cummings “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”–Xmas ham at its best. Also Jane Krakowski’s “Santa Baby” which ROCKS.
And a big plug for the six editions of “Broadway’s Greatest Gifts: Carols for a Cure.” Released every year since 1999, these songs by various Broadway casts are amazing, and it’s for a good cause. The 2004 2CD volume includes “The Fruitcake Song” worth the price.
Nobody likes a fruitcake, shoo be doo doo.
Nobody likes a fruitcake, vo di oh do.
The way you pass us up leaves us disconcerted.
For once we’d like to be dessert and not deserted.
The Beatles Christmas Album
Oh, boy! I’ve got a couple of suggestions because, after a few years in retail/radio, burnout on the average Christmas album is very easy to achieve.
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The Rounder Christmas Album: Must Be Santa! - worth it for several reasons, but most especially the title track as performed by Brave Combo, a cross between polka and garage rock. Stylistically, the album’s all over the map…some New Orleans, some rhythm and blues, bluegrass, you name it. Definitely not boring.
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Bruce Cockburn’s Christmas - the m.o. is that he doesn’t go for your usual “commercial” Christmas music, and so the mix of traditional pieces here are interpreted in a highly original acoustic fashion. My favorite: “Mary Had A Baby” with a whole slew of well-known folk-leaning performers. This is also the song that never fails to generate phone calls when I play it on the air.
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Windham Hill’s Celtic Christmas, specifically this one, as there are multiple volumes available. This edition was the first one, and to me the best. The first half is the kind of music you can almost play all year 'round, despite the titles.
Also, if you can track down any holiday albums by the Mighty Tubadors (all tuba-based Christmas songs, almost funny until you listen and realize how good it is), any albums of silver bands doing Christmas music, and anything with music boxes/hand bells/barrel organs/etc. (there’s a really good one on Musical Heritage Society whose name is escaping me at the moment; I’ll try to look for it at home), you can’t go wrong.
I enjoy “Celtic Christmas.”
Also like the Chieftains “The Bells of Dublin.”
They often have cool guest performers, and on this one they have the Elvis Costello performing classic, unforgettable "St Stephen’s Day Murders’ as well as Jackson Browne (The Rebel Jesus) and Marianne Faithful (I Saw Three Ships.)
Good stuff.
And the Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack is always a winner in our house.
Please everyone check out the Christmas album that the Roches did. They are singing sisters whose arrangements of old favorites we never, never get tired of.
Has anyone else mentioned George Winston’s “Winter” album? We bring that out every holiday season and love it all over again.
I really like Maybe This Christmas, a 2002 album with some hip artists doing both traditional and new songs. There are albums for 2003 and this year as well, but the number of stinkers for each is disproportionate to the first. That said, all of them are great if you’re looking for something “fresh”.
I think my favorite holiday album, however, is the Squirrel Nut Zippers Christmas Caravan. Whether or not you like the Zippers swing-style jazz, the songs are pretty awesome, especially the one based on O. Henry’s The Gift of the Magi.
And for a bit of personal nostalgia, I like to listen to Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers croon together on Once Upon a Christmas. I still remember watching the TV movie which sprung from this album. My mom had the cassette and we’d listen to it whenever we went spotting for deer (a perennial rural Pennsylvania pastime) with the whole family in my grandfather’s Chevy Blazer.
Of my 39 Christmas albums, my favorite is Emmylou Harris’s Light In The Stable. Number 2 is Larry Carlton’s Christmas At My House. Patti LaBelle’s This Christmas is awfully nice, too.
A Charlie Brown Christmas is also my favorite. A few years ago the grad students, who often get tasked with mysterious random things to do for mysterious reasons, were told that they were henceforth responsible for providing “Christmas” music (according to the dictatorial e-mail) for the department holiday party. A flurry of e-mails among grads@astro resulted, expressing varying degrees of annoyance, particularly from the non-Christian grads@astro. Numerous schemes were launched for bringing in multicultural holiday music, but most were vetoed due to lack of representation in the CD collections of even in the most indigant of grads@astro. We finally settled on A Charlie Brown Christmas, because it’s just darn good jazz, and sufficiently festive and Chrismassy to serve as holiday party music.
I also like the Toys soundtrack, which has some somewhat holiday-related stuff (or at least stuff that I associate with holidays.)
I also like Francis Poulenc’s Four Motets for Christmas. It doesn’t really sound like Christmas, but I really like it, and it adds a touch of classical to my Christmas Mix.
The Muppets also rock. “FIIIIIVE GOOOOOLLLLLDDDD RIIIIINGGGGS! BA-dum-bum-bum . . .” We had that on tape when I was a kid. Hafta see if I can get that on CD!
You have John Denver and the Muppets, what more do you need? I know I’m not trendy, but I’ve got two solid day’s worth of Christmas music, and that album is still my favorite.
Although since I’m slowly shifting to CDs, I need to get a CD of Christmas bagpipe music. You’d be surprised how much of it is out there. It’s a real change of pace, although it will make some people look at you strangely.
I hate Christmas songs, from “Rudolph” to “Silver Bells” to “Jingle Bell Rock.” But I love Christmas hymns and carols. My favorite is a long out-of-print LP, aptly named “Christmas Hymns and Carols,” by the Robert Shaw Chorale. There were two volumes, but I’ve only ever found the first.
I like sparse instrumentation in choral music, so the bombastic orchestration that a lot of albums have leave me cold.
Runnerup is “The Christmas Story” by the Waverly Consort, which is medieval/Renaissance choral music.
See! This is what I am talking about! Tuba Music! Most Excellent!
I love the off the kilter stuff. Or the alternative/folk/whatever musicians-bands that cut an Xmas album and put a different spin on things.
My favorite CD is a Sinatra/Crosby/Cole compilation.
I can listen to it over and over again. Which I do.
I love Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s Christmas Eve and Other Stories. Also, I have the first Rosie Christmas CD and I think that’s a fun album as well.