Tuesday, December 30, 2014

christmas music rules and regulations

Happy sixth day of Christmas, everyone!

Now that it's actually Christmastide, we can finally listen to Christmas music... and we have been! Faith is currently singing on repeat, "Gloo-oo-ooo-ooo-ooria, in a chili cereal." Which doesn't actually sound that different from "in excelsis deo" when you sing it.

But I'm a little picky about my Christmas music. In order for me to enjoy it, it generally has to follow a few rules:

1- No electronica. For the sake of all that is good and holy, no one wants synthesized Christmas music. Or at least, I don't.

2- Don't jazz it up too much... unless you are actually singing a jazz version. Then it's okay. Carry on, Ella Fitzgerald. Harry Connick Jr, Diana Krall, I'll allow your improvisations. Mariah Carey, stop it.

3- Guess what? Christmas carols pretty much all have more than one verse! How annoying is it when the singer only sings the first verse?... or even worse, when they sing the first verse repeatedly?

4- Don't just change words for no reason. Leigh Nash of Sixpence None the Richer has a lovely voice, but her version of Angels We Have Heard On High starts like this:

Angels we have heard on high,
Singing sweetly through the night,
And the mountains in reply
Echoing their brave delight.

Why, why would you do that?!

So I thought I'd share my Spotify Christmas playlist with you. It has basically all the Christmas songs I could think of... and it's a bit eclectic, ranging from the big-band crooners to jazz numbers (complete with one episode of scat singing) to folksy acoustic versions, but I like it. And it generally follows the rules-- it's possible there might be an exception or two that I still like for sentimental reasons, but hey, it's my playlist. Maybe you'll like it too!


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