NOTE: This
blog post will not have a theme song, but rather multiple songs embedded via
YouTube for you to sample what I believe would be the foundations for a better
playlist for Christmas. Also, I know
it's another verbose blog post but hear me out: it's well worth it!
Well,
it's the time of the year again, where people purchase presents for other
people in their lives, other people volunteer to help the homeless and hungry,
cats fuck around with Christmas trees, retail businesses go nuts over Christmas
sales, and radio stations keep playing cheesy music for the holiday season.
It
doesn't matter if you celebrate Yule, Christmas, Kwanzaa, or whatever else you
feel like celebrating at Christmas (Halloween?
Because you're cool like that?), those songs on the radio get extremely
annoying. When my family and I were
spending Christmas in New Jersey (part of my territory, Daleks), I'd be lucky
to just pass out from exhaustion on the car ride home. Lately, since I've been getting into music,
it's been so annoying to hear those songs over and over. I'd be like, "Can we PLEASE put on some
fucking techno already?!" Of
course, that's only in my head, and since my mother tends to be only a little
telepathic, she can't just instantly read my mind anytime she wants or whenever
I want her to. It'd get insane! And violent and vulgar! And Hulk-like angry! *cringe*
But the
irritation got worse when I was working in retail at a store that does a lot of
seasonal stuff: the Christmas Tree Shops (run by Bed Bath & Beyond). I'm not a fan of working in retail at that
place, and I don't plan on doing it again anytime soon, but the station that
the place was tuned in to, I swear, only plays like, 10 tracks on repeat. So it's the same songs over and over and over
again. I had to resort to bleaching my
brain with some Swedish death metal songs as soon as I got home, just to get
all of that holiday cheer out of my ears!
That plus those particular stations playing some super cheesy sounding
Christmas songs like "Little Drummer Boy," and various renditions of
"Silent Night" that tends to make your conscience vibrate with pain
when certain notes get overplayed and over-enunciated is enough to get a
Nerd/Nerdist like myself curl into a ball and pray to whatever deities are out
there to make it end RIGHT THEN before they start wishing they asked for a
chainsaw that they could use to destroy the fucking radio (FM, AM,
Satellite--who cares?!) in a frenzied fit of "PLEASE, JUST MAKE IT
STOOOOP!"
Not to
worry! I'm here to help you create a
playlist that is not only a little indie-ish (not so much mainstream stuff),
but is updated enough to not sound like it was made to put little kids to sleep
or have them sing in front of their parents and siblings at their Catholic
school's Christmas pageant. I can give
you options and sources for music that will not drive you insane, but instead
prompt the usual rhythmic head-nodding that badasses use while they listen to
their badass music!
So,
let's start with a couple of bands that people will appreciate this holiday
season--as long as it got played a lot more!
(I hope that those aforementioned radio stations are reading this blog
post!)
Mannheim Steamroller and Trans-Siberian Orchestra: The Definition of Badass Christmas Music
Ooops! *noms on chocolate truffles* Soorry!
*swallows* I went a little
overboard on insanity there; it's best to keep it under a certain level, like
3.14159265358979…… (Pi for Christmas--get it?)
Anyways, if you don't like this version of Carol of the Bells, you deserve to be evicted out of my land!
And how can you not like their take on Deck the Halls?
But, if
anyone is a stickler for keeping songs up to date (like I tend to be, as long
as it's not Mariah Carey butchering certain ballads with overdone vocalizations
and *shuddershudder* BEEBS being that
tween magnet by making songs for the season for the sole purpose of making the
record labels money), they might also enjoy Trans-Siberian Orchestra. This is THE rock band for Christmas. THE musical artists who should do a show in
MY area providing that ticket prices are reasonable and the location is not too
far from me to the point where I have to wield my imaginary driver's license
and drive my imaginary car (a Lotus Elise or Bugatti Veyron--I CAN DREAM BIG!)
to the location. (Translation: I can't
drive!) Though, a TARDIS would most
certainly be useful in that situation, along with some psychic paper and 2
sonic screwdrivers--one mechanical and one alcoholic.
Nevertheless,
who can say no to their version of Carol of the Bells? The version that makes me wish I can join an
orchestra of my high school peers and knock everyone's socks off with my
imaginary guitar shredding and minimal piano playing! (*adds to life list draft "Perform Carol
of the Bells with TSO at High School's auditorium named after my marching band
director"*)
Also, I just went and searched "Trans-Siberian
Orchestra" on YouTube and came up with this tune! Ain't it just AWESOME?!
Even
Eddie the Educator Dalek informed me that TSO is his choice of seasonal
listening! Which means either I'm
awesomely psychic or TSO is just that good!
@LadyEden1337 TSO IS MY PREFERRED SEASONAL LISTENING
— Eddie the Dalek (@EducatorDalek) December 10, 2013
However, TSO is not everyone's cup of hot chocolate (with
whipped cream and/or marshmallows) which is why I'm digging deep into the
interwebs to bring you some more of the better Christmas melodies that should
be appreciated; it could be techno, trance, dubstep, rock, comedy, etc! And if my parents follow along with these
suggestions, it means I'm successful and should increase my Charisma by at
least 0.5 in my Character Tome! (That's
right, Dad, not everyone wants to listen to the Dr. Demento Christmas show you
have on tape/CD/your computer. Please
keep it away from me this year.)
Carillon of the Bells: A Cast In Bronze Feature
If you
do not like either version of Carol of the Bells I've listed above, you might
rather prefer having a bunch of bells do it properly, along with a piano,
drums, bass, and perhaps a rhythm guitar line.
For that, I bring you the works of my tweep Cast In Bronze.
What's amazing is that not only is this the second
traveling carillon he has (the first incarnation was, at the time, the only one
in the world that could hit the road and wow people to the point where they #fansquirrel
over him a little; hey, can you blame me?
I first saw him at the awesomely awesome Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire! He performs at Musikfest EVERY
YEAR!), it was mostly blind luck (mixed with circumstantial luck) that gave
Frank DellaPenna the opportunity to make his "wish" come true and
bring the miracles of a carillon to a modern audience. He was even able to compete on (or perform
at) the show America's Got Talent!
Not only
that, it seems that he's also performed at Epcot! THAT'S DISNEY FUCKING WORLD! (Cue Dad's Vulcan-like nerdgasm where he
talks about how people who don't work for Disney can perform in the parks with
a difficult "audition process", and points out that even my sister
with our high school marching band was able to march in the Spectromagic parade
in Disney World, before partaking in the ginormous halftime show at the Gator
Bowl.) He's just all around Nerdist
awesomeness, taking his music Nerdiness and making something epic out of those
skills.
The Twelve Days of Christmas That Tire Us Out
I know
you know of the tune the 12 Days of Christmas, and I know that you know that
the person's true love gave to them in rich Victorian fashion, 11 Lords
a'leaping, Eight maids a'milking, 5 Golden (hula-hoop) rings, and a menagerie
of various exotic and expensive birds.
(I know I'm wrong! That's because
not everyone remembers all the 12 things in the right order!) But not everyone's keen about singing how
their significant other got them 364 total gifts over the course of 12 days,
that, by the way, needs a shit ton of storage and upkeep and boarding and
what-not. (If you were on the Faroe
Islands, it'd be 15 days of different items!
Source: Wikipedia) Which is why I
bring to you 3 hilarious variations of this song! Not 1!
Not 2, but THREE! First, there's
the classy Bob and Doug take on the traditional tune that gets a uniquely
original hippie manly twist on the original lyrics:
Ain't that classy?
"A beer….in a tree!"
(*makes mental note to get Dad's favorite beer that is not Foster's, and
tie a chilled can of it to the trunk of the Christmas tree with a bow tacked on
top*)
If
you're too young to know of Bob and Doug McKenzie, but are not too young to listen
to the radio (which is like TV but without the pretty moving lights and
Internet without the interactivity), I'm sure you've heard of the "12 Gifts of Christmas" by Allan Sherman, which is my personal favorite! Who wouldn't want a Japanese transistor radio
and calendars with the name of their insurance agent?!
I love this song!
I also crave to perform it in front of a live audience at my high school
with an entire adult choir! (*also adds
to life list draft*)
Yet, if
you can't stand Christmas altogether, imagine (if you would) that it's already
Boxing Day and you're singing Bob Rivers' version to yourself about the 12 Pains of Christmas and how you got through them all with the grace of a drunk Mother
Theresa!
Classy! Very
classy! I suggest you pick one and laugh
your knitted socks off when it comes up on your playlist! (If you don't like any of them, try this Indian version!)
Christmas Dubstep--Because It Ain't Cool Enough Without These Chewns!
Ah,
drum-n-bass, that genre that can also be called dubstep and furthermore piss Deadmau5 the trolltastic EDM producer off.
It's a bad sign when people's mothers gets confused about what genre is
what and you have to explain the difference between techno and dubstep, but when
you listen to it, it's like a temporal brain bleach that helps get the real
life frustrations and the expired sounds I've described above in the intro out
of your short-term memory. Which is why
I've included two songs here that should be added to every Christmas season
playlist. (If you don't know how to
enjoy dubstep, try this "how to dance to dubstep if you're…" video
and this other video of a child doing bassface!)
Who said
that Christmas had to be Merry?! Tim
Burton taught us that it can be Scary as well, with his stop-motion animation
film The Nightmare Before Christmas! And
that is the tone I'm bringing to the Christmas playlist soundscape, by adding
Hedegaard's "Scary Christmas"!
And make sure to pump up the volume on this one, enough to make your
eardrums vibrate like the speakers at a rock concert!
And why
does the Little Drummer Boy have to be all properly "Pah-rum-pah-pum-pum"? Hmm?
Why can't this kid….be a fetus with a mohawk and the mad skillz
to make the beats all sick dubstep beats?
Hmm? At one point, my dad
was sampling various versions of Little Drummer Boy and one version stuck out:
a dubstep version called "Little Drummer Fetus"! If you're hitting up the EDM/EBM soundscape,
you might as well add this to your playlist!
That's right, wonderful readers, feel my interwebz bass
(the kind that's very hard to track down)!
Give It To Me: Straight No Chaser
And if you want something original, how about the equally
funny but totally original Christmas Can-Can?!
It not only touches on the commercialism of Christmas but also Jewish
traditions!
Some of the members of SNC also come from within my
territory! WOOHOO! That makes Straight No Chaser my
HOMEBOYS! Lol, sort of! But at least my parents are in possession of
one legal copy of their CD and I hope to listen to it again this
Christmas! That is, in addition to the
songs I'm listing here! Get it,
parents? I don't want a repeat of
traumatic childhoods or retail experiences!
Last Christmas I Gave My Listening Skill Points to Benny Benassi
Hey,
look! It's the Bennassi clan! You know, the Benassi Bros.? The two cousins of the Benassis that spread
out all over Europe with their badass Italian dance group and EDM production
skills? Okay, fine! If you haven't heard of Marco "Benny"
Benassi, he's like, the Neil Gaiman of music production! (They even look alike! :O Le
GASP! COULD ONE BE THE CLONE OF THE OTHER?!?!?!
#nerdyconspiracies) And if you
haven't heard of the tune "Last Christmas" that Wham did previously,
I suggest you get your head out from under that rock and take a listen. I've already had to listen to it over and
over and over again while working retail and I was ready to get back to hiding
under that rock again from it--that is, before I heard Benny Benassi's remix ofthe tune!
It gives me hope that the Christmas soundscape isn't just
jingling bells and people caroling gayly and sleigh rides throughout the
Christmas-decorated village of ye olde times (or kids farting on Santa's
lap--that song totally exists, readers!
Take a listen!). Not that there's
anything wrong with it. Like I said, that
scene is really not my cup of gourmet mint hot chocolate.
Hopefully,
I've given you some modern options for this holiday season. Disclaimer:
This blog post isn't the rulebook for the ultimate music playlist of all
Christmas seasons ever. Instead, it's a
guide to providing a foundation of epicness that can only be completed by
you. That's right! You can tailor-make your playlist for this
holiday season! In Morpheus terms, I've
shown you the door (hallway), but only you can be the one to walk through it.
With
that said, I hope you have an excellent Christmas season this year! And Kwanzaa!
Oh, and Happy Yule to all my Pagan readers! If you wish to share your own (non-traditional
non-mainstream) favorites, feel free to share them and I'll see about adding
them onto next year's entry!
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