Annoying Holiday Songs

[Natasha (candygirl)]

Once upon a time I came across an old cassette labeled something like "Have a groovy funky way-out Disco Christmas". I had to listen to a few seconds out of morbid curiosity, but that was enough.

How about the New Kids on the Block classic "Have a Funky Funky Christmas"?

[SanDeE*]

All right, I feel like resurrecting this thread.

I recently heard a song off of Jessica Simpson's new Christmas Album: O Holy Night. I have never heard a more terrible version of this song. Well, let me preface this by saying I don't like JS's voice or stage presence at all. She has no power, sings out of tune, and it looks difficult for her - which is something that bugs me. We musicians strive to make what we do look easy, effortless. So okay, back to the song: she makes it sound like backgroud music for a porno or something. The way she sings O Holy Night - she just "sexes it up." Do you know what I mean? It's all breathy and sexy, which is just wrong. It's a holiday song, not a seduction song. In short, I am annoyed by this rendition.

[starbug]

Ah. Timely, Kristin!

Band Aid 20 is all the rage here at the moment. It's a remake of the classic 'Do they know it's christmas' which raised a gazillion £££ for the ethiopian starving 20 years ago. Only, this time they've murdered it. The sad fact is that the musical talent in the charts (with a couple of notable exceptions - Joss Stone, Beverly Knight) just isn't what it used to be. Bono had to reprise his famous line because nobody else could pull it off, and the scandalously bad 'ad lib' part at the end sounds like the warm-up before a primary-school percussion-based concert. It's dire. I've decided not to buy it, but instead to buy the DVD of the live-aid concert (which is far more expensive) as my charitable contribution.

[Natasha (candygirl)]

ITA with both of you. Jessica Simpson is just all over the place when she sings. She has confused caterwauling with "singing with feeling." Singing, like dancing and many other artful things, should look effortless. Jessica makes it seem like she is trying to do the vocal equivalent of pushing a big rig.

As for the new version of the Band-Aid song, I was annoyed from the second I first heard about it. I'm all for raising awareness (and money for charity), but there is no reason why they had to remake this song. They could have just written a new song.

I did read a quote from Bono where he said the original version of his line (from the first Band-Aid) sounded like Bruce Springsteen on the toilet.



It's hilarious to watch the old video though - they pan past people like Bono and Sting and then I see other people and start asking things like, "What ever happened to Bananarama?"

[Crescendo]

Ugh. EVERY Christmas tune except for the Nutcracker music. I listen to my Nutcracker tape year round.

Oh yeah, Trans Siberian Orrchestra is good, too. Cristmas Eve in Sarajevo.

Tchaikovsky + TSO= REAL Christmas music!!!

Have a great holiday, btw, all you mscl-ers!!!

[TooCool4Skool]

I don't think anyone has mentioned this yet, but by any chance, does one of you know the name to this song

La la la, the something or other donkey! He haw he haw (That was meant to sound like a donkey)

At my work, it plays about eighty million times- and yet, I still can't grasp the words.

All that I am left with is the catchy and enchanting tune (Wihout words)- It keeps playing and replaying in my head!

[TooCool4Skool]

Oh... wait a minute- just googled it- it's called (This is so exciting)

Dominic the Italian Christmas Donkey

If you are just as intrigued as I am and hopefully my sarcasmis evident check out this

http://invisiblematrix.net/blog/archives/000434.html

[SanDeE*]

Ugh. EVERY Christmas tune except for the Nutcracker music. I listen to my Nutcracker tape year round.

Actually, Tchaikowsky hated his Nutcracker Suite. It was his least favorite piece he ever composed. And it wasn't meant to be a Christmas staple, as it has become. Interesting, huh?

[Natasha (candygirl)]

You can thank William Christianson and the San Francisco Ballet for making the Nutcracker a holiday tradition. Previous to the SF Ballet version, the Nutcracker ballet was only performed in Russia.

When Tschaikovsky was invited in 1890 to compose a ballet based on E. T. A Hoffmann's The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, he at first resisted the suggestion. He had read the story with pleasure some eight years earlier, but had thought it unsuitable for ballet. However, the version now offered him was somewhat different from Hoffmann's gothic fairy tale. It was an adaptation (ostensibly by the master choreographer, Marius Petipa, but written largely by his somewhat downtrodden assistant, Lev Ivanov) of Casse-Nioselle, a French rendering of the tale by Alexandre Dumas fils. After reading this version, Tschaikovsky agreed, with some misgivings, to accept the assignment.

Tschaikovsky's periodic depressions about the ballet and the opera seem at first well-grounded. Neither wins better than a polite popular reception and the press is hostile.

The first production of The Nutcracker was a failure: neither critics nor the audience liked it. However, future productions proved more popular. The San Francisco Ballet Company was the first company to perform The Nutcracker in the United States. Their 1944 production was directed by William Christensen. The idea for the San Francisco version came from the memories of a teacher in the ballet company named George Ballenge who remembered a dance he performed in Russia as a child.

In 1944, San Francisco Ballet Director Willam Christensen wrote to the Library of Congress for a copy of the complete Tchaikovsky score. For details of the original Maryinsky Theatre production, Christensen talked to two former members of the Russian Imperial Ballet, Alexandra Danilova and George Balanchine. "Ballet Russe passed through San Francisco and one evening I got Alexandra Danilova and Balanchine, then ballerina of Ballet Russe and ballet master respectively, to come to my apartment," recalls Christensen. "We had something to eat and drink, and then we got down to work with the conductor. Balanchine described the Maryinsky production: how the big doors opened on the tree, the mime of Drosselmeyer, all the details. At one point, Danilova started dancing Clara's variation, in her stocking feet and street dress. Balanchine put an end to that with his admonishment, 'No, no, Alexandra, don't try to show him the actual steps. Let him create his own choreography.' We worked all night, and that is how I got my first Nutcracker...I never intended it to become an annual production, but there you are, it is a tradition now!"

[SanDeE*]

Thanks for those quotes, candygirl. I'm not that great at hunting on the web!

And I think the only holiday song that didn't annoy me this year is "You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch." I don't know why, but I really just can't seem to stand holiday music much anymore. I guess that song is fitting for me!