Tuesday, December 20, 2011

The Trouble with Christmas

I love Christmas music. O Come All ye Faithful might be my favorite song of all time (that or Supper's Ready). But I hate Pop Christmas music. For hours on end at work, on the radio, fucking anywhere in public, I hear the same 40 songs on satellite Christmas radio. Always in the same order. Not even 40 songs, but like 33 songs with 7 additional covers slid in. And I said 7 additional covers because none of these are the pop Christmas classics you love- they're pop Christmas remakes. This is turning me into that Bill Murray title character in that one movie- no not Steve Zissou!

This holiday is supposed to be Christ's birthday. These songs are abominations before Christ.

Eddie Money and Ronnie Spector, "Everybody Loves Christmas"
Eddie Money, the pervy uncle of 80's pop.
You probably didn't remember that Eddie Money and Ronnie Spector did a duet in take me home tonight- presumably so that Eddie didn't get sued when he overused the refrain be my little baby.

I didn't know they did another song.


Now, I don't instantly complain when I hear an 80s pop song, and I even LOVE  a certain 80s pop-christmas song (more on that later). But seriouslyface, when I hear this song, I see cocaine instead of snow.

"Hey Ronnie, thanks for not suing me as I rip off one of the best songs of the 60s. Let's do an orignial Christmas song COCAAAAAAAAAAAINE!"

 The Eagles, "Please Come Home for Christmas"
ok, that's cool I guess, Christmas Blues!





wait a second. Do you guys like Abbey Road?



FUCK YOU, IT'S THE SAME FUCKING SONG! THE BIG LEBOWSKI WAS RIGHT. This makes me love the Beatles more. The Beatles never sold out.

Ringo Starr, "I Wanna be Santa Claus"



Ringo, you are a soulless, tone-deaf craven.

Taylor Swift, "Last Christmas"
What makes Wham's last Christmas (my afformentioned stellar 80s pop Christmas song) is that even though it's a through away song, George Michael swings for the fences. While I admit that I'm not sure how the ratio between bitten and shy is supposed to work, apparently  2:1 shy to bitten ratio is sad. George is truly heartbroken over his being rejected randomly on a holiday. And baby, that's good pop music.


Just listen to him belt "gave you MYYYYYYYYY" at the end. That's torment.

Listen to Taylor blandly meander through Last Christmas:



George Michael wrote this song and he lives in a space in the words; when George says "I love you I meant it", damn it he meant it!. Taylor was clearly told she could make money covering this song and she did. I didn't think she could sell out any farther, but she can.

Jewel, "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer"

This song is awesome for the first verse. Hey! It's Jewel and her mom doing an a capella Rudolph! Even Jewel can't ruin this!
SPOILERS: Jewel ruins it.


She peppers the second verse with the 2 reasons why I hate Jewel: her goat yodel voice and her folk scat shit. Someone tell her "badoing-ee-doing-doing" is not a word and does not belong in Rudolph.

This song is so bad that, when I found the album at Goodwill, I immediately bought it.