SONG: O Holy Night
ARTIST: Rebecca St. James
ALBUM: Christmas
RELEASED: 1997
AVAILABILITY: Amazon CD | MP3
It takes guts to tamper so heavily with one of the most beloved Christmas songs of all time, but in this case it definitely pays off. Not that there's anything wrong with the original, but after so many straightforward covers, a little change couldn't hurt. Rebecca's version manages to retain everything that's good about the original song despite being in a different time signature and having several different chords.
Friday, December 03, 2010
Thursday, December 02, 2010
CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN Day 2: Christmas Time (Is Here Again) - The Beatles
SONG: Christmas Time (Is Here Again)
ARTIST: The Beatles
ALBUM: Free As A Bird single, limited edition vinyls, bootlegs
RELEASED: 1967
AVAILABILITY: Uh... low.
As if The Beatles didn't already do everything there is to do as a band, they also recorded about an EP's worth of Christmas material. By "material" I mean some quirky radio drama stuff and a couple of musical bits. This here is their only full-fledged "Christmas song", though, but it's a good one. If a tad repetitive.
Below, you will find a full-length, but lower-quality, recording. The above edit is the B-side to the "Free As A Bird" single. (Note that this long version seems to be from a slightly sped-up vinyl.)
ARTIST: The Beatles
ALBUM: Free As A Bird single, limited edition vinyls, bootlegs
RELEASED: 1967
AVAILABILITY: Uh... low.
As if The Beatles didn't already do everything there is to do as a band, they also recorded about an EP's worth of Christmas material. By "material" I mean some quirky radio drama stuff and a couple of musical bits. This here is their only full-fledged "Christmas song", though, but it's a good one. If a tad repetitive.
Below, you will find a full-length, but lower-quality, recording. The above edit is the B-side to the "Free As A Bird" single. (Note that this long version seems to be from a slightly sped-up vinyl.)
CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN Day 1: Gloria (Michael W. Smith)
Hey guys, I feel like posting a bunch of Christmas music! On Wednesday, December 1st, I hastily decided to find a Christmas song on YouTube and post it on Facebook before going to work. Then I figured I could make this a regular thing. So I've rounded up 25 Christmas songs "of interest" and I'm gonna post them and talk about them a little. Sound good? Okay! Sound legal? Partially! This is all gonna be Rule Of YouTube, folks.
Essentially I guess this is a "list" of Christmas songs. But don't think it means anything. There's no theme here. It's not THE BEST Christmas songs ever. And it's not necessarily "the most underrated Christmas songs". No. It's just 25 relatively non-redundant Christmas songs I feel like sharing, and I have a feeling everyone will find at least one thing they haven't heard before, or at least haven't heard in a while. They're in no particular order other than what I think makes some sort of musical sense.
#1 is not necessarily what I wanted to lead off with, since it's pretty climactic, especially in its original context. But I think I can work around it.
SONG:Gloria
ARTIST: Michael W. Smith
ALBUM: Christmas
RELEASED: 1989
AVAILABILITY: Amazon - regular CD, 2-pack, MP3
As I mentioned earlier, this song is the climax of Michael W. Smith's 1989 Christmas album, which is probably the finest Christmas album ever recorded. It's effective on its own, but it's even better when you've followed the whole orchestral suite, with the "Gloria" motif introduced in the first track and then paying off here, while also being combined with "Angels We Have Heard On High". And even though you can probably guess that it came out in the '80s, it really doesn't sound that dated.
At the risk of "spoilers", this isn't this album's last appearance on the list.
Stay tuned for Day 2, which will be a few minutes from now! And then Day 3, tomorrow.
Essentially I guess this is a "list" of Christmas songs. But don't think it means anything. There's no theme here. It's not THE BEST Christmas songs ever. And it's not necessarily "the most underrated Christmas songs". No. It's just 25 relatively non-redundant Christmas songs I feel like sharing, and I have a feeling everyone will find at least one thing they haven't heard before, or at least haven't heard in a while. They're in no particular order other than what I think makes some sort of musical sense.
#1 is not necessarily what I wanted to lead off with, since it's pretty climactic, especially in its original context. But I think I can work around it.
SONG:Gloria
ARTIST: Michael W. Smith
ALBUM: Christmas
RELEASED: 1989
AVAILABILITY: Amazon - regular CD, 2-pack, MP3
As I mentioned earlier, this song is the climax of Michael W. Smith's 1989 Christmas album, which is probably the finest Christmas album ever recorded. It's effective on its own, but it's even better when you've followed the whole orchestral suite, with the "Gloria" motif introduced in the first track and then paying off here, while also being combined with "Angels We Have Heard On High". And even though you can probably guess that it came out in the '80s, it really doesn't sound that dated.
At the risk of "spoilers", this isn't this album's last appearance on the list.
Stay tuned for Day 2, which will be a few minutes from now! And then Day 3, tomorrow.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
MASHUP: Beastie Boys vs. Nine Inch Nails - Suckotage
You know the drill.
I had a blast with this one. It's the NIN version of "Suck" (originally by some band called Pigface) meets the Beastie Boys' "Sabotage". I knew "Suck" would make a good backing track for something, so I started plugging songs in and when I arrived at this one, it couldn't have been more perfect. I especially like it because it takes one of the Beasties' rock/rap songs and makes it more straight-up rap, until in the middle everything just sort of comes together. (You may also notice a Run DMC sample, which is in itself a reference to a different Beastie Boys song.)
The NIN samples are mainly just from the finished song, but with a little help from the remix tracks for the Pigface version. The Beastie samples are from a certain video game. Neither are used with any particular permission, but if it gets popular enough for that to be a problem, mission accomplished.
I had a blast with this one. It's the NIN version of "Suck" (originally by some band called Pigface) meets the Beastie Boys' "Sabotage". I knew "Suck" would make a good backing track for something, so I started plugging songs in and when I arrived at this one, it couldn't have been more perfect. I especially like it because it takes one of the Beasties' rock/rap songs and makes it more straight-up rap, until in the middle everything just sort of comes together. (You may also notice a Run DMC sample, which is in itself a reference to a different Beastie Boys song.)
The NIN samples are mainly just from the finished song, but with a little help from the remix tracks for the Pigface version. The Beastie samples are from a certain video game. Neither are used with any particular permission, but if it gets popular enough for that to be a problem, mission accomplished.
Sunday, September 05, 2010
MASHUP: Beastie Boys vs. Nine Inch Nails - 3 MCs and 29 Ghosts
To paraphrase Depeche Mode, it's Mashup Time Again!
Same artists as last time. They've given the fans a lot to work with. The instrumental is another one from Ghosts, track 29, but heavily rearranged. The vocal track is "3 MCs and 1 DJ" (with a few added surprises). Some of the "3 MCs" percussion bleeds through due to the unavailability of an acapella track, but it actually works.
The NIN track is under a Creative Commons Non-Commercial Share Alike license. The Beastie track is under a "I'm sure they would be totally cool with this" license.
Same artists as last time. They've given the fans a lot to work with. The instrumental is another one from Ghosts, track 29, but heavily rearranged. The vocal track is "3 MCs and 1 DJ" (with a few added surprises). Some of the "3 MCs" percussion bleeds through due to the unavailability of an acapella track, but it actually works.
The NIN track is under a Creative Commons Non-Commercial Share Alike license. The Beastie track is under a "I'm sure they would be totally cool with this" license.
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