The Best Christmas CD EVER!! & The "Revolution 9" of Christmas Songs

Okay, so Christmas music is something that tends to polarize people. There are people that just can't abide it, and others (some of whom I've gotten to know on Twitter) that start listening in July and don't stop until New Year's. I, for one, have always liked Christmas music, but as with everything else, only if it's good ("good" is, of course, completely subjective). I've heard a few Christmas recordings that definitely belong in my list of WORST RECORDINGS OF ALL TIME, and I've heard others that are really great. A couple of years ago, I decided to compile some of my favorite Christmas songs/records on to a CD to give to family and friends. It lives on under the title of "The Best Christmas CD EVER!!", and here it is for your listening enjoyment. NOTE: I had to remove two of the Johnny Mathis songs from the mix, because 8tracks only allows two songs by any particular artist to be in a mix. So even splitting it in half, you still only get 4 Johnny Mathis songs instead of 6. "The First Noel" and "I'll Be Home For Christmas" have been removed. If you want to hear those songs, I guess go buy them.





Track list:

WINTER WONDERLAND-JOHNNY MATHIS
BLUE CHRISTMAS-ELVIS PRESLEY
2000 MILES-THE PRETENDERS
WONDERFUL CHRISTMASTIME-PAUL MCCARTNEY
SLEIGH RIDE-JOHNNY MATHIS
CHRISTMAS MESSAGE 1964-THE BEATLES
DO THEY KNOW IT'S CHRISTMAS?-BAND AID
SILENT NIGHT-WEEN
HAPPY XMAS (WAR IS OVER)-JOHN LENNON & YOKO ONO
THE FIST NOEL-JOHNNY MATHIS
CHRISTMAS IN HOLLIS-RUN-D.M.C.
CHRISTMAS MESSAGE 1966-THE BEATLES
LINUS & LUCY-VINCE GUARALDI
I'LL BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS-JOHNNY MATHIS
THANK GOD IT'S CHRISTMAS-QUEEN
CHRISTMAS ALL OVER AGAIN-TOM PETTY & THE HEARTBREAKERS
ROCKIN' AROUND THE CHRISTMAS TREE-BRENDA LEE
O HOLY NIGHT-JOHNNY MATHIS
CHRISTMAS MESSAGE 1967-THE BEATLES
HAVE A HOLLY JOLLY CHRISTMAS-BURL IVES
MERRY CHRISTMAS, DARLING-THE CARPENTERS
SILVER BELLS-JOHNNY MATHIS

Some notes on the selections:

I don't think all Christmas songs should be happy-happy. Hence the inclusion of "2000 Miles" and "Thank God It's Christmas". The Brits really know how to do Christmas..."Love Actually" is a favorite Christmas movie in our house, because not all of the storylines end happily, and the ones that do are really diverse in their feel.

You may think that old Christmas music like Johnny Mathis is schlocky and awful, and on some level I can't blame you. I did grow up with it, though, which makes me very sentimental about it. Merry Christmas by Johnny Mathis is my favorite Christmas album, and probably always will be.

If you've never heard any of the Beatles' Christmas records that they sent to their fan club, then those will be an eye-opening experience. It's fun stuff, obviously just thrown together in the studio when they were goofing off. They become progressively more bizarre by the year. 1966 & 1967 are definitely the high points. Only available on bootleg, so don't feel bad about searching them out and downloading them. They were a glaring omission from the Beatles Anthology series released in the 1990s.

Finally, you may not consider "Linus & Lucy" to be a Christmas song, since it wasn't truly composed for the "Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown" special, but I always associate it with that particular show.

There you go, folks. The Best Christmas CD Ever.

Meanwhile, as I have the last two Christmases, I've posted the Weird Files Christmas track, "Christmas 2007" over at the Weird Files MySpace Page. I tried to make it available for free download, but the new MySpace player doesn't seem to allow downloading. I refer to it as the "Revolution 9" of Christmas songs, because it has the same sort of sound collage kind of feel as the Beatles track. It's not everybody's bag, I know, but I hope you'll at least go listen and give it a chance. I have officially created http://www.weirdfilesmusic.com, but there isn't anything there yet. Eventually this track will be available for free download from there.

Happy Holidays, everyone. Don't know if this will be my last post before Christmas (hopefully not), but I hope everyone's December is fantastic.