This year, The Juliana Theory released an EP presumably the first half of an album that will probably come out next year. The EP was released in May, which is a long time to wait for its second half; however, it seems that Brett Dettar and crew never rush the band’s music. Long-term fans of The Juliana Theory have suggested that the band’s post-2005 Deadbeat Sweet-heartbeat music doesn’t fit with the band’s direction, and while many fans like Still the Same Kids, Pt. 1, they suggest that The Juliana Theory isn’t still the same band. But that argument could be made for any band that stuck together consistently, updating their sound into the ’20s music landscape.
SHIT, I GET NOSTALGIC. I’ve heard that the Germans consider nostalgia as a kind of illness. If that’s the case, the film, television, music, and fashion industries are sick. The pandemic reunited lots of bands to play reunion shows. Extra time at home had us revisiting the music of our past. Even teenagers felt homesick for a time they never had as they discovered classic rock albums for the first time. While Brett Dettar had been writing film scores and country music, The Juliana Theory was on hiatus. Today’s song is blatantly nostalgic for late ’90s culture, namedropping technology and Oasis‘s “Don’t Look Back in Anger,” and talking about things the speaker did in high school. When the speaker says, “I’m just living on borrowed time,” he suggests that we think of our own prime. Usually, a band’s listeners will be younger than the band members, for Dettar and The Juliana Theory, the bandmates came of age in the early ’90s and formed in the late ’90s with their peak arguably 2000’s Emotion Is Dead, when emo started going mainstream. While The Juliana Theory may not be first in the conversation of mainstream emo bands, hipsters both admire The Juliana Theory for their contribution and call them a sell-out for turning to a pop rock/alternative sound, as a recent video on emo the YouTube channel Trash Theory suggests.
DON’T LOOK BACK IN ANGER. So we come to the end of another year. What does that mean for my New Year’s Day Project? It’s looking like a busier year, and I’m dying to get back to the gym to get back in shape. In some ways, it’s like this blog has me stagnating. This year I tried to make playlists for different moods and events and tell in-depth stories about bands I was learning about. I’m not sure that my schedule will allow for that kind of research next year. During the school year, particularly March-June and September-November I’m going to be busy with extra classes, eating up hours in my nightly free time. I’m considering doing lots of repostings and maybe a weekly update of song suggestions in addition to my repeated song of the day posts. Also, I will try to do some of my writing during my vacation period so that I have a reserve of posts. Music and writing are still very important to me, but there are three other priorities that I want to achieve: 1. Focusing on my teaching and picking up extra classes 2. Actually speaking Korean 3. Returning to the gym the minute the indoor mask requirement is lifted–going for personal training at first to build muscle memory, which is time-consuming and not cheap. Music will fit into my day, but I’m not sure how as of yet. But for now, I’m going to keep going, pressing forward into the future. Happy New Year!
Today, I listened to Good Christian Fun‘s latest episode, a Second Service repost because the Kevin and Caroline were probably enjoying the holidays too much to record a new episode. In the episode, the hosts and their guests picked their favorite Christmas songs like a sports draft. One of the songs Kevin chose “River” by Joni Mitchell, a pick that was mocked by the others. However, since I heard the words, “It’s comin’ on Christmas,” I haven’t been able to get the song out of my head.
I WISH I HAD A RIVER I COULD SKATE AWAY ON. Joni Mitchell is one of the great singer-songwriters of the ’70s. “River” comes from her Bluealbum. Most of her catalog was pulled from Spotify, along with fellow Canadian Neil Young, in response to Seth Rogan’s Covid misinformation. “River” is a Christmas moment on an album of many moods. It may be awkward to include a future Christmas standard on a general album–think of the future evermorewhen “’tis the damn season” is a standard! On the episode of Good Christian Fun, Kevin was play-mocked for how “River” isn’t that recognizable as a Christmas song, and maybe that’s what makes it a great song. Today’s version is by British pop star Ellie Goulding, but the song has been covered on several Christmas albums including Sixpence None the Richer’s The Dawn of Grace and Barry Mannilow’s A Christmas Gift of Love. The cast of Glee covered the tune as well as Harry Styles and Olivia Rodrigo.
AND HE LOVED ME SO NAUGHTY. The theme of “River” is missing your home. Christmas music is northern-hemisphere centric. Snow, reindeer, evergreens, cold weather are all common tropes of Christmas music, but in the song Mitchell is in a warm environment missing her hometown in Saskatchewan. Musical fame had brought the singer-songwriter to California where the seasons don’t change. Of course many of us don’t have white Christmases. Even in New York after I moved to North Carolina doesn’t have a white Christmas every year–though most of the time they have white Thanksgivings and even white Halloweens. The truth is that the mythology Christmas songs prescribe is mostly false. It doesn’t magically snow on Christmas Eve in Disney other than the soap bubbles they pump in Kissimmee, which is quite disappointing for a New Yorker to experience at Christmas. Sure the orange trees froze one year when we went down to Florida to visit our grandparents, but we were swimming a few days before that. As we near the end of the holiday season, I wonder how much just accepting Christmas for what it is and not trying to make it something that it’s not will make the holiday better. Yes, I want a river to skate away on where Christmas is more magical, but ultimately the spirit of Christmas adapts to its surroundings.
It’s not too late to listen to Christmas music, especially as I wrote the other day that my Christmas feels unfinished. American light rock radio stations start playing Christmas music before Halloween, so by December 26, we’re ready to stuff the tree back into the closet. Of course those same light rock stations keep playing Christmas music until early January. Liturgically, we’re still in the Christmas season. You should be receiving five golden rings on from your true love today.
HAPPINESS AND CHEER. I certainly won’t be blogging much more about Christmas music, even though my family has delayed Christmas for my homecoming a month after the holiday. However, I thought that an inclusion of Rosie Thomas‘s “Christmastime Is Here” is a worthy entry to my playlist. Like many households, Vince Guaraldi Trio‘s A Charlie Brown Christmaswas one of our holiday standards when I was growing up. It is the only Christmas album my dad likes, and “Christmastime Is Here” is his favorite Christmas song. The song was performed as an instrumental and with a church’s children’s choir who represent the singing voices of the Peanuts gang. “Christmastime Is Here” became a holiday standard and has been covered by other artists including Debbie Boone, Mel Tormé, Rosemary Clooney, R.E.M., Stone Temple Pilots, Starflyer 59, and Family Force 5. “Christmastime Is Here” doesn’t always translate in its cover versions for when artist adds the merest characteristic of their own sound to the song, they risk tainting the original feeling of the Christmas special. The Starflyer 59 version inadvertently does this making the song sound too weird.
BEAUTY EVERYWHERE. Rosie Thomas’s “Christmastime Is Here” opens her 2008 holiday record, A Very Rosie Christmas. I think Thomas’s version is one of the best I’ve heard. While Vince Guaraldi Trio’s version is classic, I often felt the instrumental was better than the vocal version. The children’s voices are flawed and awkward, though much better than his version of “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.” But Rosie Thomas’s vocals texture is often childlike, and “Christmastime” is no exception. Furthermore, Thomas keeps the melancholy of the track but embellishes beautifully. The piano, too, plays interesting countermelodies as Thomas sings. By keeping the melancholy in the song, listeners are reminded of the plight of Charlie Brown, a boy who has enough, but still can’t seem to find his happiness. Christmas is a time that depresses him because he sees so much happiness around him, but he doesn’t understand how he can be happy. He’s a child with adult problems that many of us feel particularly around the holidays. It’s the kind of joy that we feel is lacking from our lives when we see others’ Instagram wraps from the year and we wonder what we’ve been doing with ourselves. Linus offers some words about the “true meaning of Christmas” which seems to set Charlie Brown straight until the next holiday, but it seems like the melancholy fog persists over the Peanuts crew thanks to Charlie Brown.
Coming to the end of the year, it’s time to remember some of the musical highlights of 2022. I listened to a lot of music this year and maybe more new music than last year. But there certainly were albums that slipped under the radar. I had every intention of digging into The Weeknd‘s Dawn FM, but somehow I was never in that dark of a mood to resonate with the characteristics of that record. Today, I’m going to reveal my controversial list. Enjoy!
#10. The Loneliest Time by Carly Rae Jepsen. The latest from the “Call Me Maybe” singer is a record that isn’t immediately catchy and could easily fall between the cracks of all the big releases of this year. The diverse singles showed different camera angles of a maturing pop singer who has solidified her status in music nerd-dom and gay music listeners alike. And with her first explicit labeled song, Jepsen is distancing herself from former tween-friendly aesthetic. I’m sure next year I’ll be digging into songs like “Surrender My Heart” and “Joshua Tree” and writing a blog post about the hilarious “Beach House.” Maybe next year, the art pop vibe of this record will hit at just the right time.
#9INVUby Taeyeon. I didn’t listen to much K-pop this year, but one record that I did listen to a few times was Taeyeon’s latest LP. Last year, she released the single “Weekend,” which became hugely popular and that single was also included on the LP. The title track, “INVU,” was her biggest song of the year and people are still signing as Taeyeon does in the music video. My favorite track has to be “Siren” because of the emotion Taeyeon brings to the song.
#8 Midnightsby Taylor Swift. I was expecting more from Taylor, ngl, especially after the journey she brought us on with folkloreand evermore. Mic the Snare summed up an opinion on the record that I felt when the album came out and struggled to get into it: that it feels like a repeat album cycle of reputation. Despite the lyrics of “Anti-Hero,” though, Swift has become wiser in her lyric writing making Midnights a much more tolerable record with some genuinely good tracks–“Maroon,” “Snow on the Beach,” “Lavender Haze” are interesting lyrically with Jack Antonoff‘s ’80s-inspired production. I’ll keep giving it a try, but as of writing this post, I’m not convinced this is best Swift’s got.
#7 I Blame the Worldby Sasha Alex Sloan. The self-identified sad-girl made a “mad record” in 2022. There was a podcast I listened to reacting to Sloan’s EP Self-Portrait. While the podcasters enjoyed the EP, they hoped that Sloan would never make a full-length record. She did. Only Child is a heartbreaking masterpiece, but it pulls back from the gut-wrenching, sometimes mean-spirited lyricism of her EPs. On this year’s I Blame the World, Sloan is caustic as ever. So, this record may not resonate with you. The title track “I Blame the World” is probably the most catchy, but the other songs are worth a listen. Emo surely is alive in 2022.
#6 MUNA. The June release of MUNA‘s self-titled record came after the group released several singles starting with last October’s duet with Phoebe Bridgers “Silk Chiffon.” The full album was solid. “Anything but Me” was a beautiful break up song wishing the best for an ex. The group also had an interesting post-album release single, the ’00s sounding shock pop song “What I Want,” a song about getting back out in the world after a break up, doubling as an anthem for the once cooped up quarantined listeners. Unfortunately, the album was released the same weekend as Roe was overturned, and that didn’t make for fun listening, and I haven’t really gotten into the album since. The record was really hyped before its release and then kind of forgotten in my other music circles. Maybe we can bring it back next year.
#5 Voyeuristby Underoath. I didn’t listen to this record a lot. It was too dark. I thought that the band had summed up what they wanted to say on 2018’s Erase Me. “Religion is a means of control,” the band continues to argue, wrestling with an evolving spirituality and atheism in the former Christian band. But listening to the documentary mini-series of Labeled: Deep Dive, the band got into the deeper personal issues they had which shaped this record. Voyeurist is a hard record to get into unless you love hard music. Some of the tracks feel bereft of all hope and blasphemous, particularly “Pneumonia,” the album’s closer. Other tracks are just creepy like “I’m Pretty Sure I’m Out of Luck and Have No Friends.” But the most accessible track has to be “Hallelujah,” which blends melody and screaming in a way similar to tracks on Define the Great Line.
#4 Dawn FMbyThe Weeknd.I listened to Dawn FM through once. Similar to the Underoath record, but in a different way, Dawn FM is a depressing record. The ’80s/’90s RnB sounds of the record make the album fun, but the eerie impending doom of the record–death–freaked me out. “Out of Time” and “Take My Breath” are the stand out tracks for me, as well as the voice of Jim Carrey as a radio DJ.
#3Harry’s Houseby Harry Styles. This album has received a lot of hate, and I’m not sure that it’s warranted. Harry’s House is an interesting ride, though it certainly is a little disjointed. Haters say that the songs like “Music for a Sushi Restaurant” are soulless as a Target commercial, but from listening to Styles talk about the album, it seems that he and his team are adding something unique to top 40 pop music. Yes, “As It Was” feels like a less original “Take on Me,” but the album shines in the middle with slow tracks like “Little Freak,” “Matilda,” and ’70s disco fun tracks like “Cinema” and “Daydreaming.”
#2 People Like Peopleby Watshi Wa. I admire what the band did with production on this record. It’s a punk rock record refined by 2022 technology. It’s collaborative featuring friends of the veteran band. I chose “Let Me Prepare You” as today’s song and the song to represent the album. “Let Me Prepare You” features Gasoline Heart–a band that certainly need their own post. People Like People may not age well given its reaction to the pandemic and as I sat with the album throughout the year, I wrestled more and more with the themes of government control and reliance on technology. The record seems to fall on the more conservative side of the pandemic, and lead singer Seth Roberts points out the toll that the pandemic had on his corner of the music industry. The album makes a few covert statements on tracks like “Land of the Free” and “Who Who Hu (Man)” comes off as subtly racist. But tracks like “Trust Me,” “Like You Mean It,” “Some Time,” as well as today’s song and the Stephen Christian-featuring track “Zombie” all make the record ridiculously catchy.
#1 Milk Teethby Tyson Motsenbocker. It’s the indie rock album I’ve been wishing Death Cab for Cutie would record. Tyson Motsenbocker tells stories on Milk Teeth, but also has mastered hooks in a way that he has never played hooks before. Sure “Wendy Darling” is a slow start for a pop song, but by the saxophone outro, you may just put the song on repeat unless the instantly catchy guitar riff of “Carlo Rossi” comes on. But it’s not just the hits. The lost loves on “UC Santa Cruz” and “Give Up,” the existential dread of “North Shore Party” and “Time Is a One Way Mirror,” and even the light-hearted “Hide from the World” balance the album. It’s poetry, storytelling, and beautiful instrumentation.
Beginning with a youthful momentum, transitioning from the piano-based pop-punk band Something Corporate to the alternative sounds of Jack’s Mannequin, Andrew McMahon had a very busy 2005. Jack’s Mannequin released their debut record Everything in Transitin August and the band was set to debut strong. Several of the songs from the album were featured in the WB hit show One Tree Hill, ensuring a built in fanbase.
IT’S GOOD TO BE ALIVE. But Andrew McMahon started feeling extremely tired at the time of launching Jack’s Mannequin, more so than he had been as a touring musician with his previous ban. And it turned out that his wan complexion wasn’t from exhaustion. McMahon was forced to cancel Jack Mannequin’s fall tour dates following their August release of Everything in Transit because McMahon had been diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. But thanks to the singer’s sister Kate, Andrew was able to receive stem cell treatment and was cured of his cancer. After receiving treatment, Andrew penned and recorded “The Lights and Buzz,” a song about the hardest year of his life–a year that he started a band, recorded a great record, and survived cancer. The song was released through iTunes and on the Japanese release of Everything in Transit and was included in the 2015 re-mastered edition.
IT’S CHRISTMAS IN CALIFORNIA. In some ways, “The Lights and Buzz” is a Christmas song, but I think it fits better as a “Thank God the Year Is Finally Over” kind of song. Like the haunting piano of Chad Howat in the Paper Route rarity, “The Lights and Buzz” invokes a kind of mystical Christmas/end of the year sound. It’s a song from a place of exhaustion and it can relate to anyone who is exhausted from a year of toil. Maybe it’s the head butting against the wall that won’t break and the headache an Anacin can’t beat. But it won’t go on like this forever. The year ends and a new one begins with new challenges and opportunities. I think about the incredible feeling of being among the jet-setting elite who get to travel halfway around the world. In less than a month I’ll be home, and I’ve made plans not to make plans. It’s coming to the end of the hardest years in our lives, a time when what we relied upon as a society–international travel to anywhere in the world–just disappeared. I really hope that we’ve come to the end of these “unprecedented times.” I really hope that we all can find rest in the end of the holiday season. I hope that we can set Atomic Habitsthat we can all accomplish in the New Year. But for a few more days, let’s continue to enjoy the lights on the tree.
Fiction Family was a side project found by Christian Rock band Switchfoot‘s Jon Foreman and bluegrass band Nickel Creek‘s Sean Watkins. Eventual Switchfoot, Tyson Motensbocker producer Tyler Chester and Aaron Redfield also joined the group. The band produced several folk rock recordings and a free HolidayEP on NoiseTrade (now Paste). The album is not available on streaming sites, so besides my YouTube playlist, I will include “California Christmas” from Switchfoot’s latest release this is our Christmas album. But I will include “I Don’t Need No Santa Claus” because I think it nails the meaning of Christmas that I’ve been appreciating this holiday season.
I DON’T NEED NO CHRISTMAS SONGS. Christmas this year feels unfinished. There are some years that I’m in a holiday spirit from September to February. Other years I’m just glad that Christmas ended. But this year I feel as if Christmas didn’t actually happen. For me location often plays a big role in how Christmasy I feel. In Korea, Christmas is a couple holiday, and because it was on a weekend, it was back to work right after Christmas. And some countries Christmas isn’t even a public holiday. And everyone has localized traditions. In Korea, it’s a couple’s holiday and couples go out and buy a cake–not a fruitcake, but a chocolate or a strawberry cake–and share it together. It’s kind of exhibitionist holiday showing off who’s together. When my family moved to North Carolina, I had to adjust to feeling a Christmas feeling without snow because when I lived in New York we had had a white Christmas every year. But this year, I realized something about Christmas. If I don’t actively try to celebrate it, I’m going to lose a part of my culture. The culture of Christmas is based on family traditions passed down from generation to generation. I also wonder what the importance of celebrating Christmas is without having a family.
ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS MY BABY HERE WITH ME. But without family what else is there? Couple Christmases. Friends’ Christmases. My first Christmas in Korea I spent with friends/coworkers who were planning on leaving Korea the coming March. They were missing home and so we watched Back to the Futurebecause it all reminded us of home. The following year, I cocked up by not making plans. I felt lonely until I started watching a Korean drama called Reply 1997 (응답하러 1997), and I was glued to TV, eating chicken and snacks. I was so moved by the loneliness in Joon Hee’s (준희) story–portrayed by singer Hoya–that I vowed that the next year I would start dating guys secretly. But then I got my heart broken by the next Christmas in Korea. This is my eleventh Christmas in Korea and every year has been different. Most have been without a tree. Most have been last minute changes and plans, and when I try to recreate a Christmas that is similar to my memories and expectations, I only get disappointed. I guess if Christmas is that important to me, I need to start planning at least by September what I should order or find in order to recreate Christmas traditions. Otherwise, I should decide that the most important thing about Christmas is family, and family now includes my partner. Spending time together is good enough. Everything else is just a bonus.
It’s important during the creative process to get feedback and look at your work from every possible angle. Jim Adkins reportedly hates his band name, Jimmy Eat World, especially because of the band’s acronym, J-E- you get the point. Today’s song was released in 1950 and was inspired by the sound of the Salvation Army Santa Clauses ringing their tinkling bells. But when songwriter Ray Evans brought his work home, his wife said, “Are you out of your mind? Do you know what the word tinkle is?” And just like that, the song changed to “Silver Bells” and it wasn’t the first Christmas song about pee. We’d have to wait for that, apparently. Google if you dare.
CITY SIDEWALKS, BUSY SIDEWALKS. First recorded by William Frawley and popularized in the film The Lemon Drop Kid sung by Bob Hope and Marylin Maxwell, “Silver Bells,” like most Christmas standards has so many recordings, it’s hard to choose a favorite. The song was recorded by Bing Crosby, Dean Martin, The Judds, Michael Bublé, Steven Curtis Chapman, among others. The version that appears in most movies today is the Kate Smith version. I don’t have a particular favorite version, but Sleeping at Last‘s slow, melancholy version speaks to me this year. I was out finishing up my Christmas shopping yesterday and spending time with my partner, but today was a very relaxing Christmas in bed–the kind where you wake up late, eat pumpkin pie for breakfast, put on your sweatpants, eat familiar foods, and binge watch things you want to catch up on because tomorrow is back to work. For me and my boyfriend, it was Only Murders in the Buildingand a nostalgic trip back to ’90s Saturday Night church movie night with Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey.“Silver Bells” is a song about the bustle of Christmastime, but the slow Sleeping at Last version takes us back home, when Christmastime settles down and we experience the comfort and joy of the season.
SOON IT WILL BE CHRISTMAS DAY. If I think about “Silver Bells,” I have to think about my mom singing this song, at least the “It’s Christmas time in the city” part. “But we’re in the country,” I’d reminded my mom, annoyed. Growing up close to a small town, Christmas was pretty when we’d drive down the hill into the village, seeing all the pretty lights on the trees and houses. Sometimes in the winter, we’d drive to the bigger cities, passing the car exhaust-covered snow banks on our way to Binghamton or Syracuse where we would go to the mall and see all the boughs of holly and ribbons and gingerbread houses and Christmas trees and Santa Claus ringing a bell for donations. But “Christmas time in the city” finally made sense the year that we took a charter tour to Manhattan. This was either ’96 or ’97, the last or penultimate winter in New York. The bus ride took a long time–maybe four hours–but we didn’t notice because we watched Christmas movies the whole way there and the whole way back. We watched movies my mom never let us watch like Chevy Chase‘s Christmas Vacationand the remake of Miracle on 34th Street. When we arrived in the city everything seemed decorated. We went to Macy’s, Time Square, and FAO Schwartz. This was the first time I had been in New York City and the city was much bigger than Orlando, the biggest city I had ever spent time in. For Christmas everything was blinking Christmas lights, crowds dressed in winter coats, hot dogs and pretzel stands. The daylight didn’t last long that day. The sun sank behind the buildings early in the winter, but what was left was the glow of large billboards and Rockefeller tree. While I love a family Christmas, there is something magical about being enraptured in the spirit of the holiday in a city with millions of people.
“I~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~I. Don’t want a lot for Christmas.” *struggles to change the radio dial amid gridlocked holiday traffic* “There’s just one thing I need” *hurry up with my damn latte! I think I’m going to die. Why the hell is Starbucks playing Christmas music in mid-October?* “I don’t care about the presents” *internal Elaine monologue ‘I think I’m going to die in this department store. Ma’am, why must you spray the perfume so close to my face. I can’t breathe! What if the earth begins to shake and we’re stuck in here forever underneath mannequins and holiday shoppers and that damn Mariah Careysong stuck on repeat?’* “Underneath the Christmas tree” “No” *raising a strict finger to students who should be studying in the back* “Not before Thanksgiving.” “I just want you for my own/ More than you could ever know.” Every year, Christmas music gets earlier and earlier. “Make my dreams come true.” Corporate America wants to put us in credit card debt. “All I want for Christmas” Call me Scrooge, but I’d like to go back to childhood when Christmases were magical. “Is” If only we could go back in time to say, 199~ “You~~~~~~~~~” That’s it! 1992! before this song ruled the world.
Meme from last year
ALL THE LIGHTS ARE SHINING EVERYWHERE. Two Christmases ago, Stephen Christian recorded his daughter’s favorite Christmas song, releasing it as an Anchor & Braille song. All of those emotions listed above are my feelings about Mariah Carey’s 1994 hit, “21st Century ‘White Christmas.’” “All I Want for Christmas Is You” may be overplayed, overrated, and more contagious than the Omicron variant and extremely meme-able. We can wear our earplugs into stores, and we can blast the latest Taylor Swift or Adele albums in our noise-canceling AirPods Pro, but the infection rate is close to 100% that you will have this song stuck in your head at some point during the holiday season. I was stricken by the bug today when I turned on A Very Tooth & Nail Christmason Apple Music. Try as I might, Mae‘s “Carol of the Bells” or Copeland‘s “Do You Hear What I Hear?” and not even Anberlin’s “Baby Please Come Home” stuck in my head as I stepped out for lunch this afternoon. It’s the Christmas season, so I wondered how this song would fit into my playlist this year? I wondered how Christmas music would fit in or if it would, this year. I thought about how un-Christmasy this year feels. And then it struck. The ear virus didn’t come in the form of Michael Bublè, Ariana Grande, or Justin Bieber (thank God!). It didn’t come in the hilarious mashup of the isolated vocals of Radiohead’s “Creep” surrounded by the festive sleigh bells and outrageous piano and backup singers of “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” It wasn’t the pretty-good-but-not-great House of Heroes cover. It didn’t come by seeing a meme about the song. Instead, it came from one of my favorite singers doing a slowed-down rendition, taking the energy of Carey down to be a Christmas song for the exhausted rest of us.
I DON’T NEED TO HANG MY STOCKING. Am I being too harsh on the holiday classic? Critics loved the song when it came out. If I were writing a blog in 1994, maybe I would have appreciated the musical elements–the throwback to old Christmas songs, the unique chords, the imitation of a wind-up Christmas music box–but in 2021, I’m too desensitized to whatever musical point Carey was trying to make. To me, Christmas music, the more traditional the better. There is something so much more magical about a small church singing on a snowy evening hymn from the 1800s than Bing Crosby singing in the ’40s. When I was growing up, several CCM Christmas albums captured an old-time Christmas–whether it was Michael W. Smith‘s Christmastimeor the artists who sang on the City on a Hill Christmas project. There was something about the 20th-century Christmas songs that just sounded like shopping. And they were done to death–disco, punk, soul, pick a genre. My old soul, though, has to cope with a commercialized holiday, so Anchor & Braille is as good a place as ever to start. December’s playlist isn’t exclusively Christmas songs and won’t be from here on out, but as the season picks up, I guess we should address the drop in temperature, the new flavors at Starbucks, the decorations at the department stores, the new specials on Netflix–even if it all seems a little forced.
THEN I DON’T FEEL SO BAD. “My Favorite Things” is a song designed to lift listeners out of the dullness of a daily existence and transform their banal or difficult days into something extraordinary. Perhaps it’s that mood that Ariana Grande was trying to elevate her listeners to by interpolating the melody. Some versions of Julie Andrews’ classic have that effect stronger than others. Today’s version comes from Mary J. Blige. The singer captures the essence of Julie Andrews’ classic while adding her own smooth vocals to give the song a little contemporary flare without over stylizing. Blige shows us that it is possible to interpret the classic in a fresh way. However, no matter who sings “My Favorite Things,” I will always think about the scene in the middle of The Sound of Music during the thunderstorm when the scared children crawl into bed with their governess played by Andrews. I don’t ever remember being bored when watching The Sound of Music when I was growing up. Anne of Greene Gablesalways conked me out as did Heidiand The Secret Garden. I always watched this movie with my mom on rainy days. The long wandering story set in the beautiful alps of Austria, the plot interspersed with songs wasn’t really fun, but it beat staring out the window at what I couldn’t do outside.
WHEN THE DOG BITES. “My Favorite Things” in The Sound of Music foreshadows the hardship the von Trapp family would face with the rise of the Nazi party as the movie ends with the family fleeing from their estate on the cusp of World War II. I’m including “My Favorite Things” as a kind of reprieve from this year. As we get to end of the year, we recall the highlights and what we should improve for next year. I talked with my friend/coworker as we started wrapping up the year and we came to similar conclusions about 2022. Nothing particularly bad happened for either of us this year, but it was a year of stress, hard work, indolent coworkers, and little pay off. The highlights of 2022 hardly rose above the low points. I grew as a teacher this year and build stronger connections with students, but the future of it still looks grim–a future where it looks financially irresponsible to stay in education and even more financially irresponsible to invest in my further education to be a better teacher. And I worry that next year will just turn out the same– another year older and no further ahead, ceteris paribus. I can continue to distract myself with my favorite things, but that will never change the fact that I am ill equipped for the coming of the figurative Nazis at the end of the movie. I’m going to be really glad when this year is over.
This year, Mariah Carey lost the right to trademark the name “The Queen of Christmas.” Singer-Songwriter Elizabeth Chan filed an opposition when Carey applied for the trademark. Chan writes Christmas songs year-round and thought that Carey’s claiming of the title was unfair to give to one person. David Letterman declared Darlene Love “The Queen of Christmas” a year before Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” was released.
YET IN THY DARK STREETS SHINETH. Then there’s Amy Grant. The Contemporary Christian-pop crossover singer has recorded five Christmas records beginning with 1983’s A Christmas Recordand followed by 1992’s Home for Christmas, which popularized the David Foster and Linda Thompson-Jenner holiday single “Grown-Up Christmas List.” Grant’s musical career started with the release of her debut record in 1977 when she was still a teenager. In the early ’80s she mostly sang praise music and hymns, some of which had a distinctive sound of the day. Point-in-case, today’s song “Little Town.” The heavy synthesizers made my ’00-teenage eyes role, but old Amy Grant wasn’t played much on the CCM stations, but when I was listening to CCM radio, Grant was controversial for her high-profile divorce from fellow CCM singer and Weekly Top 20 CCM countdown host Gary Chapman. And Grant’s biggest pop hits were from the ’80s and early ’90s. Grant’s divorce was polarizing in late ’90s CCM, causing the singer to lose fans and support. But Grant constantly comes back to pay homage to her Christian music past. She maintains a friendship with lifelong collaborator Michael W. Smith despite not always seeing eye to eye on social issues–Amy Grant is in the new again this week for another controversy setting her at odds again with her conservative listeners, this time it’s hosting a same-sex wedding on her family farm with her husband Country singer Vince Gill for their niece. Franklin Graham is upset and Michael W. Smith, friend of both Grant and Graham, is yet to comment.
OUR LORD EMMANUEL. But tonight, I want to remember a Christmas pageant from ninth grade at Adventist school. Some how, our teacher had a disagreement with the church’s choir director, so the teacher decided to put on a rival Christmas cantata, starring her students. For about a month classes were put on the back burner as we listened to extremely difficult arrangements of Christmas songs. I recall only three at this time, though: Ray Boltz’s “The Perfect Tree,” Point of Grace’s insanely complicated altered time signature “Carol of the Bells” sung only by the girls–a few of them completely tone deaf–and today’s song, awkward ’80s Amy Grant and her version of “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” If you know the hymn “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” you know the melody and the naturally flowing lyrics. I can appreciate Amy Grant’s version now because I’ve become a sucker for avant-garde ’80s production as a musical palette as long as it doesn’t take itself too seriously. But in the ’00s, the ’80s were fashion suicide. We hated this song. We hated singing for eight hours a day. Our throats were sore. We were getting sick. And yet, it was kind of great not studying algebra for a month.
Mixtapemotions 