h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yes, I know we have this conversation every year - I'm thinking of making it a tradition, like Hallowe'en anagrams.

What can I put on my seasonal Youtube playlist that won't make me want to rip my eyeballs out and plug them in my ears?

What are you listening to that's NOT Wizzard, Wham, Paul Mac or Shaking bloody Stevens?

So far I've got The Pogues and Bob Dylan's cover of 'Must Be Santa'. Next?

B

I Believe in Father Christmas by Greg Lake with a little help from Prokofiev.

And I do like Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree. But not by Mel and Kim.

Fairytale of New York was originally written as a solo, and later turned into a duet. Christy Moore sings the solo here: http://links.xn--es-zka.info/l/christy-more-fairytale-of-new-york/

TRiG.

Oh, and someone has to mention White Wine in the Sun, of course.

TRiG.

I can't find it on Youtubes, but I like Steve Taylor's version of Winter Wonderland. It somehow becomes a mexican hatdance in the middle.


Geggs

Here it is, exactly a described: http://grooveshark.com/#!/search?q=Winter+Wonderland+-+Steve+Taylor

He also sang this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q023gA5IeV8

Of the "In Dulci Jubilo" arrangements, I like the one by John Rutter the best. The worst is Telemann's version. The first movement of Charpentier's "Midnight Mass" is wonderful because it quotes a lot of popular Christmas songs of the era when it was written.

If you want 20th Century music, there's Lutoslawski's 20 Polish carols.

Would you like songs with some humor in them? There's Tom Lehrer's Christmas carol, written some time in the 1950s, I believe. If you want a rock piece, how about "Jingle Bell Rock?" There's also "Hurry down the chimney tonight," which I sometimes hear on the P.A. systems at department stores. If you like the Chipmunks, they have a Christmas song of their own. That's from the 1960s, but it was included in a recent Chipmunks movie.

There used to be a recording of dogs barking "Jingle Bells." It's goofy and a bit off the wall, but I'd rather hear it than the 10,000 repeat of Mel Torme's "Christmas song." [I wrote a parody version of it. Whenever I hear someone playing it, I sing my own words instead of mel's ]

I believe the Beatles had a Christmas song, with the lyrics "Simply having a wonderful Christmas time."

The full story behind the most popular Xmas song ever.

http://youtu.be/euX_YpU-tR8


~jwf~

I hate Christmas music, I especially hate being subjected to it in supermarkets in November.

But I have been known to hang around when Johnny Mathis sings 'When A Child is Born'. I'm an atheist Scrooge and hate schmaltz, but that one gets me every time!

Credible you say?


Blink 182 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oqcju1Tw_c

NSFW!!!!!

"I hate Christmas music, I especially hate being subjected to it in supermarkets in November" [Dea]

I like pretty much anything Johnny Mathis sings.

You should belong to a community chorus that gives concerts in December every year. You'd start singing Christmas music in September and never get a rest from it until late December, if then.

My choral group sang an all-Gabrielli concert last week, complete with trumpets and trombones and other instruments, most of them doubling the vocal lines.

People have been writing Christmas music for hundreds of years. It seems odd to me that a few well-worn standards from the 19th and 20th centuries would be all that one heard during the season. I listen to more than 100 Christmas CDs, and very few of the tracks are renditions of the well-known carols.

I'm listening to all the songs I downloaded after we had this thread last year I see no need to add to it.

I keep watching Christmas countdown programmes on Viva and 4Music and I'm astonished by some of the songs that get classified as Christmas hits. Take That 'Rule the World'? Eh? By that reckoning the Human League's 'Don't you want me' somehow counts as a Christmas song.

Mol

You could try "Es ist ein Ros" by Praetorius and Sandstrøm. It's a Christmas carol but nothing like any you'll have heard before. Important to get the Sandstrøm version. We sang this two weeks ago in our Advent Music concert. Another good piece of Advent music is "Rorate Coeli" by Byrd.

South Park did a number in good Xmas songs about Mr Hankie.



FB

I'd have to plump for the rubber bung song.

A24149621

Another good one is "Walking in the Air" by Finnish Operatic Metal band, Nightwish.

As I write this, I'm listening to Gertrude Lawrence sing "Jenny," of which the first verse is:

Jenny made her mind up, when she was three,
She herself was going to trim the Christmas tree.
Christmas Eve she lit the cancles, threw the tapers away,
And Jenny was an orphan on Christmas Day.

Music by Kurt Weill, lyrics by Ira Gershwin. The original production was in 1941, but there was a London revival in 1997.

Thea Gilmore - That'll be Christmas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qQAE794uvo

I think I may have pushed this one before. The older bass player behind her in the video is Rod Clements of Lindisfarne.

PP

http://youtu.be/MlqEbsa4vHw

Is that the one, Gnomon?

The German carols are always so sombre and funereal, I think. Our choir enjoy singing English or French ones, but I usually can't get past the first verse without dissolving into tears.