ORIGINAL HIPSTER

Just what we need: another Killers Christmas song. It’s a holiday tradition that’s beginning to rival fruitcake as the inevitable gift that no one asked for.

Like The Killers’ previous yuletide singles “Great Big Sled” (2006), “Don’t Shoot Me Santa” (2007), “Joseph, Better You Than Me” (2008), and “¡Happy Birthday Guadalupe!” (2009), this year’s annual release, “Boots”, is so necessary that not hearing it would be like failing to watch It’s a Wonderful Life every time it comes on TV. You’d be denying wings to angels. Appropriately, “Boots” begins with an uplifting sample from that film classic, wherein Jimmy Stewart laments being “at the end of my rope”. This intro to the song is festive in a way that Ebenezer Scrooge would certainly approve.

The tune’s title is derived from its refrain, “Stomp my boots before I go back in,” which arrives on the heels of references to “snowball fights outside.” I wonder, what about Las Vegas, Nevada (where Brandon Flowers was born and now resides), conjures these wintry memories? Perhaps they are from Flowers’s later childhood, between ages 8 and approximately 16, when his family lived in Nephi, Utah…before he moved back to Vegas. Or perhaps it could be sand — not snow — that Flowers is stomping from his boots before he goes back in. Nothing says Christmas like the Mojave desert.

Vocally, Flowers goes for a stylistic choice that seems inspired by a slide whistle. His voice swings up or down before landing on the actual note he intends to sing. It’s post-punk crooning: Bing Crosby as a melancholy tenor in a New Wave band. All that’s missing is a little “Mele Kalikimaka”. And a white Christmas in Vegas.

R.I.P. Mitch Miller, creator of my favorite Christmas album of all time, which was also abused in this context:

“In 1993, when David Koresh and members of his Branch Davidian cult were holed up in their compound in Waco, Tex., F.B.I. agents tried to flush them out by blasting ‘Sing Along With Mitch’ Christmas carols.” -New York Times

See the full Times obituary here.

Here’s the track list for my Christmas present to you, which can be downloaded here.

1. “Wholehearted Mess” (Pink Skull remix) – Bear in Heaven

2. “Economics” – Blakfish

3. “Answer is Zero” – Dappled Cities

4. “Reborn” – FACT

5. “Cutis Anserina” – Fiasco

6. “Wander Aimlessly” – Foreign Born

7. “Arrive” – HORSE the Band

8. “Skipping Across the Autobahn” – Banzai

9. “Meddler” – August Burns Red

10. “Sound Guardians – Lightening Bolt

11. “Unfolding” – Former Ghosts

12. “Heavy Cross” – Gossip

13. “Chip Away” – Jane’s Addiction

14. “Non-Entity” – Nine Inch Nails

15. “The Oath” – Street Sweeper Social Club

How could I have forgotten (in my previous Christmas post) last year’s Christmas EP by the Raveonettes? It’s not their best material, but it’s more interesting than most Christmas carols.

Notice I say “favorite.” I’m not claiming that they’re earth-shatteringly good; few–if any–Christmas albums are, after all. These are the ones I can listen to without wanting a stiff, brandy-spiked eggnog to get me to the end of the record. Not that these albums wouldn’t be improved if listened to with a stiff, brandy-spiked eggnog firmly in hand. A beverage like that can make any experience twice as enjoyable. Unless you’re lactose intolerant, in which case, for you, there’s this wonderful product.

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Amy Grant – Home for Christmas

This might actually be Amy Grant’s best album ever. Her deep, folksy voice is well-suited to the acoustic accompaniments. The best track is the last one (“Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring”), which is completely instrumental and features the London Studio Orchestra and some fierce violin soloing by Mark O’Connor.

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Michael W. Smith – Christmastime

On this album, it sounds as though Smith took a cue from Grant’s Home for Christmas (above) and delivered his own, similarly-balanced blend of spiritual, traditional, and original songs. The fifth track is a standout: with “Hope of Israel,” Smith creates a haunting, minor-key piano melody that opens into a full orchestral arrangement. Truly beautiful.

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Various Artists – Holiday Songs for Snow and Mistletoe

And you thought this was going to be all Christian artists, didn’t you? Nay. And verily I say unto thee, Old Navy hath more than affordable fleece. They’ve also ventured into the secular holiday mix CD market. This particular one (shown at left) is my favorite. It cost less than $10 when I bought it about eight years ago, and it includes classic songs by great jazz artists (Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Lou Rawls). There’s only one undeniably annoying song on the record: “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” by Johnny Mercer and Margaret Whiting. I’ve always found that song to be kind of sexist, and Margaret Whiting doesn’t help things by sounding like a naive idiot. But apart from that song, the album is quite listenable.

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Savatage – Dead Winter Dead

This is the album that started it all: my borderline-tasteless Savatage addiction. But you really should give this album a chance. Just try to forget about the overplayed radio hit “Christmas Eve (Sarajevo 12/24),” usually credited to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra (i.e. Savatage’s eventual, unfortunate incarnation as a touring extravaganza of perpetual Christmas). And try to forget that the band’s sound was outdated, even in 1995 when the record was released. If you can forget all those things and listen with an unbiased mind (I know; it’s hard), you may find yourself head-banging your way through the holidays.

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Mitch Miller and The Gang – Holiday Sing-Along with Mitch Miller

You may have been thinking that this list wouldn’t get any worse than 90s metal that sounded like it belonged in the 80s. But guess what? It’s worse. Oh, it’s much, much worse. I declare with pride and pleasure that this is my favorite Christmas album of all time. This opinion is due in part to the fact that I have fond memories associated with it (my parents have it on cassette tape), but it’s also because this collection has just about every jolly, non-religious Christmas classic imaginable–and an elfin-sounding backup chorus, to boot. This is truly one of those love-it-or-hate-it recordings. Either the accordions and the vocals by “The Gang” (which sounds an awful lot like Mitch, Mitch, and more Mitch) will drive you up the wall, or you will learn all the words by heart. You will listen to it as you decorate your tree. You will insist on subjecting your family to it as you all open presents on Christmas morning each year. You will not care that many people consider the music intolerable…because it just wouldn’t feel like Christmas without it.

Once you’ve heard them all, Christmas songs can be incredibly annoying. My least favorite is “Happy Xmas (War is Over)”, by John Lennon, Yoko, and The Plastic Ono Band. I support the “war is over” sentiment. But I get annoyed by the children’s choir, God bless their hearts. (Random thought: how old are those children now? Who are they? Did they meet Lennon when they recorded their part of the song?)

I also don’t like the opening lyric, “So this is Christmas…” It sounds like John sat down to write a Christmas song and started brainstorming and just went with the first thing that popped into his mind, i.e.:

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(JOHN sits cross-legged on a Tibetan rug. Incense burns next to him.
There’s a piece of paper on the floor. JOHN holds a pencil.)

JOHN

So…this is Christmas…Hmmm…

(scratches head, thinks)

Well, that could be the first line, I guess.

(writing)

“So this is Christmas.”

(Pause.)

And…uh…Fuck me, I don’t know. What have I done this year? Oh, hey, that could be the next lyric.

(writing)

“And what have you done…”

(Thinks some more.)

What rhymes with done?…Better go with the obvious.

(writing)

“Another year over…And a new one just begun.” Yeah, that works. Well enough, anyway.

(Lights a joint. Takes a drag. Thinks. Exhales)

And.

(Pause.)

Soooo…

(Pause.)

This is Christmas…

You can see where I’m going with this. Bottom line is, I hate that song. Oh–and isn’t it annoying that the title is “Happy Xmas”, not “Happy Christmas”? It’s like John is so intently imagining there’s no heaven, no hell below us, and no religion, too, that he can’t be bothered to write the word “Christ.” If it irked him all that much, why didn’t he write a song called “Happy Holidays” or “Happy Winter” instead?

One final complaint. The chorus “War is over, if you want it” is a logical impossibility. I’d bet money that most people listening want war to be over–but wanting by itself cannot, unfortunately, end anything. The people who want war are the ones who keep it going, and the people who don’t want it are at the mercy of those who do. It’s sad, but true. So I get irritated by that chorus because I want war to be over, and yet it’s not.

The song is so annoying to me that I can’t bring myself to post it on my blog. I’ll have to link to it instead. So, here, for your listening displeasure, is where you can hear the most annoying Christmas song ever. In my opinion.