A very zombie Christmas
In general, Christmas songs are like zombies: there are so many of them, they are quite difficult to kill, and they are almost all ugly. You can knock them down but they tend to pull themselves right back up again, and resume shambling in your direction. You may need a chainsaw.
This is not to say that there aren’t Christmas songs you wouldn’t mind having around (at this point, I’m not sure the zombie analogy still holds). Here are two new (and one new-ish) albums full of music you won’t feel like decapitating with a shovel.
SHE & HIM, “A Very She & Him Christmas.” If you possess either or both of the previous She & Him albums, you know what to expect by now: charm by the cartload. Much of this is, of course, due to Zooey Deschanel, wide-eyed adorable indie dream girl, though one must also acknowledge the vital contributions of the “him” in She & Him, that guy, what’s-his-face. Basically, this is the Christmas album you and your mother will both enjoy (your mom may even end up comparing Zooey to Doris Day, as my girlfriend’s mother did) — loads of familiar, classic tunes, delivered in a sweet, intimate way: the opposite of overproduced. It is interesting to note that most Christmas songs are a mixture of joy and melancholy; this becomes more apparent when you listen to She & Him give songs like Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas and The Christmas Song a spin that falls just short of outright sad. And then of course they do something fun like the gender reversal on Baby, It’s Cold Outside.
Emmy the Great and Tim Wheeler: Tim is secretly thinking of adding “The Magnificent” to his name. EMMY THE GREAT & TIM WHEELER, “This is Christmas.” Unlike most Christmas albums, this one features almost all original material (the sole exception being a cover of Darlene Love’s Marshmallow World). Tim Wheeler you may know from the band Ash; Emmy the Great you may know from being great. This is basically one of the most fun seasonal albums ever, with pop-rock winners like Christmas Day (I Wish I Was Surfing), Jesus the Reindeer, and the should-be-a-hit Zombie Christmas (“All the angels singing/ Christmas time has come/ Oh man, you’d better run run run.”) It is not, perhaps, an album for the ages (Vince Guaraldi has nothing to worry about), but it is undeniably enjoyable right now, and who knows, you may find yourself listening to snappy pop confections like Home for the Holidays, handclaps and all, again next year.
Sant Etienne: They played in Singapore last March. I missed it. I hate myself. SAINT ETIENNE, “A Glimpse of Stocking.” This is a well-balanced mix of covers and originals — not a showcase of traditional tunes, but plenty of good stuff, in that inimitable Saint Etienne style. Released last year, as a special fan club offering by the much-loved indie pop trio, it includes such old favorites as the giddy-silly dance tune I Was Born on Christmas Day (featuring Tim Burgess of The Charlatans) and the playful, flirty Unwrap Me, complete with spoken-word bit by Saint Etienne’s ever-alluring vocalist, Sarah Cracknell. This is officially sold out, but as you know, on the Internet, nothing is ever really lost.
Finally, if you prefer Frankenstein monsters to zombies, you may want to check out the merry mash-up album that is “Santastic Six” (at http://djbc.net/santastic6/). Wham vs The Jackson 5! LMFAO vs Brenda Lee! The Beastie Boys vs Otis Redding! All in the spirit of Christmas. It’s a hoot. Possibly a hoot and a half.
