Jingle all the f*** way

I was having a look through the posts on this site to see if I had written a bit about Christmas music. I haven't. How could I have missed this huge part of peoples musical fabric.

Honestly, people sing more at this time, pay more attention to the music on in a shop, restaurant or at their mates house. There is literally an entire genre here stretching back hundreds of years.

Ok, time for a bit of clarity and honesty. I am not a Christian, I am an Atheist. I dislike songs that say glory to the king, or anything to do with faith and belief as they were written to somehow exult the imaginary guy in the sky. That said , I do get them. I do understand that when it was a suitable outlet for musical creativity and the church had such a hold over the censorship that if you did something that wasn't about God, the prevailing god in the establishment you lived in, then you were fucked. . .proper fucked at that. Losing your head or other appendages . . mainly your head. Which doesn't really fit in with the Christmas spirit does it.

That said, some of the Carols and Christmas hymns are truly great songs and achieve exactly what they set out to do.

That does it. It does exactly what it was supposed to do and I am very jealous if you live in the western world and are not aware of it. I don't really like carols as you may well have gathered. That said, I like singing and I like singing in a choir. Although , to my great regret, that means generally singing religious songs. So i don't do it. I have been asked to join a few choirs as my voice is passable, only recently has one promised not to sing religious songs. So i might do it.

This is all well and good, and many people understand and appreciate that there is a traditional element to Christmas, but that in reality it is a Winter Solstice party and a time to be with family and friends. This is borne out by the fact that at this time of year there are many celebrations the world over, also in countries with no Christian tradition.

Thankfully, over the last 40 years or so, the pop and rock world have tried their hand (s) at the Christmas song. With varying amounts of success.

Well that's just a fun little happy number isn't it. . . .thanks for the uplift there John . .

I have written before about how I feel that Paul McCartney is the Salieri to John Lennon's Amadeus and frankly nothing holds it such stark relief as their respective attempts at  Christmas songs. In my research (searching the internet) for this piece I attempted to get a feel for what others think of the worst Christmas songs of all time. The above song by McCartney and Wings, topped five of the lists  I came across. The worst Christmas song ever...bet he is still upset about it. . .

Anyway, that does allow me to move on from the worst to some of the best. Lennon's song, below, is a protest song, but it is still far better to put on at your party than to dirge above

As good as the song is, and it is a good song, He still should have stopped Yoko singing. . . wow.

Then there is this by Slade

If you are not from the UK you might not know that one. It is a bit specific, Even though it has charted I think 9 times. its a good song actually, if you like the Glam rock scene of the 70s. Which I sort of do. But it is exuberant and you can sing along to it. Which gives it a good party feel.


Anyway,if you need a christmas playlist. Try this one on Spotify which is pretty good


Christmas playlist

which is all well and good, but maybe your Christmas is a bit more like this

Wishing you all happy holidays and hope you have enough food and drink to forget 2016 . . . and look forward to 2017

I would like to put together a playlist of the best Christmas songs. Please send me yours.

everything and anything

I am the proud father of a 9 year old boy who has a strong interest in music. Some of this is obviously because of my interest, and his mothers of course, is interest in music something that could be genetic? His interest is what a lot of you would describe as a healthy interest in the rock greats.

He is a big fan of Bowie, Led Zeppelin, The Kinks, Radiohead,  AC DC, Guns 'n Roses and The Eagles amongst others. You get the idea, it is mainly classic rock at the moment (except for Radiohead), but given his peer group it is very cool. It certainly makes road trips and generally listening to music in the house a pretty cool experience. I have tried a few times with Tool, but I think it is perhaps a little advanced just at the moment.

 There is clearly something in the music that makes it great and enables us to be drawn to it regardless of where we come at it from. I do not know enough about the actual music structure to be able to say that it is the use of certain chords or timing that appeals, I do know that the 4/4 blues structure works very well for Rock and Roll. Indeed that or a 12/8 beat is effective what defines it.

When i was his age my music education consisted of the two things that it did for almost everyone of a similar age. My parents records, terrible, and the radio station. With hindsight equally terrible but at least a little more modern. Australian radio stations are very good at playing local, or at least national music. I haven't come across a country as good at this as yet. Although I guess UK and US stations are at a very unfair advantage. As a side note, isn't awesome when you are travelling and the radio station has to play local or local language songs and you want to like it. You do, you really want it to be cool, but it very very rarely is,. I bought this when on holiday in France as a teenager.

Extra extra side point. Not only did I keep the tape, yes tape, I actually still have it and it checked it for writing this. . .that is nearly 30 years on a holiday tape. . hasnt actually been played in years and as I don't have a tape player I cant check to see if it is still any good.

Back to the point of this entry. Whilst my musical education was pretty limited, my sons is not limited at all. Literally every song ever recorded is reasonably easy to get a hold of and listened to at least in part. Increasingly I am not sure this is the incredible gold mine that it appears to be on the surface. Particularly for a 9 year old.

Try an experiment for me, go to youtube or spotify or apple or whatever you listen to digital music through. Think of a song you would like to hear and play it.  I bet with the certainty of someone who has no way of being shown to be wrong that your choice fits into one of two categories. it was either a song you have heard thousands of times and love. or it was a song you have heard recently and are playing a lot at the moment. it is basic human nature i think.

the point being that this is no different from putting on a record or listening to the radio waiting for the new song to come on. When faced with an almost unlimited choice we stick to what we know. The basic way to discover new music hasn't really changed at all. We rely on people whose tastes we respect, at least a little, to tell us about a band they quite like and we see if we might like it as well.

It is now a lot less expensive of course. Well, sort of, subscriptions cost money. This has caused the second part of the journey to change. If you dont like it you simply dont listen to it again. Before, if you had bought it you were almost obligated to stick by the band/ performer because you had invested your hard earned cash into it. I recall a conversation with my brother whose varied music taste extends to the very dark corners of the metal universe standing up for Transvision Vamp (look that up for fun) because he had bought the tape and really had no choice . . . he will be thrilled to pieces I put that in . .

Where does this leave my son? Well because it is all available and it is easy to get to, you find that the cream rises to the top. Because all music is new music when you first hear it, it means that classic rock tends to come to the forefront. Songs to us that are comforting and cool because we know them so well to him are interesting and different. imagine listening to Heroes by Bowie for the first time. . . i cant remember the first time i heard it but it must have been in the 70s. He didn't find this song by himself, it was played at home because we like it.

My not so clear point is that because he is more advanced in his musical education than his peers he relies on the music played in the house to guide him. And that hasnt changed from when I was a kid. the only thing that is different is that my/ our taste is infinitely superior to my parents, Which is probably exactly what they would say as well . .

the music clips in this piece aren't connected. I was listening to Elvis Costello when I started and I quite like the Wolf Alice.

Thank you

How is it going?

I have been watching a documentary series called 'Soundbreaking' it is excellent and I can not recommend it highly enough. It is everything I wanted to talk about in this space, but done by people who know what they are talking about because they are the ones that did it.

The series goes through everything from the recording process, musical formats, the vocal abilities of some, the impact of video, and so on and so forth. Each show of which there are 10 starts with a premise and then runs through the evolution of it all. So there is a lot of history of music and progression in it as well. Which is great because so many documentaries start at 1959 or later and say this is when music started, obvious rubbish.

Some music for you

Towards the end of the last episode they start to conclude and there were two comments that really struck a chord with me.

The first one was DMC , from Run DMC obviously, who says that music makes us who we are. That there are 20 - 30 albums that define us and help to explain us as people. I think this is possibly true, maybe, for those of us who love music, I think non aficionados would struggle to name 30 albums and would also possibly not have the in depth knowledge of those albums to say that they explain them as a person. They also probably don't care to. 

Thinking about this it occurred to me that it is very difficult to say that there are even 20 albums, full entire albums, that define me. I mean there are some albums that have hugely informed my life and there are others that I think I have identified with. For example, in the court of the Crimson King by King Crimson is an album I love. Love, I think it is an amazing piece of work and it has spawned a love of Prog, prog metal and generally complicated music. Could I give it to someone and say, this is one of the albums you need to listen to in order to know me? Not without a lot of explanation to be honest. Even to person with a similar or hopefully better musical knowledge than myself I think it would take a fair bit of explanation. The difference between 21st Century Schizoid man and Epitaph , both of the same original side of the album, is huge and explaining why or how the songs work for me is not something I am sure I fully understand myself.In fact I know that I cant fully explain it to myself.

I am not able to play any King Crimson for you because there are copyright issues with youtube. Not my personal ones but obviously one between them and the band, so. So, instead I am going to put on two songs from Wish, by The Cure. How does Friday I'm in love and Edge of the deep green sea, exist in the same personality?

Obviously they come from the same songwriting person/group and so there must be a part of that on their side. But for me, no.

Can you then distill it and then say well it can be songs and not albums? I think that this is getting closer to the point. Because as DMC also says, there is a part of a song, a note, a chord change, a riff, a vocal something that transports you to another time and memory and as such, almost by definition it means that it is a part of you. The distinction being of course that just because it does this it doesnt mean it is something that you want to acknowledge so much. It doesn't mean it doesn't define you in some way, but a song with negative or painful memories might not want to be something you add to a list. You should, but again it would take me a lot of explanation to point out the various reasons behind it.

I think the reality is that there are songs and indeed albums that fit into all kinds of categories which then you could use to paint a picture of your life. An album you listened to a lot when something was going on in your life, a song that was played in every store you went into at some stage, a song that you totally identify with, some music that paints a picture of someone you aspire to be. It is all different and it is all fantastically entirely yours and yours alone.

You will be pleased to know that I am not going to go through all of the songs and or albums I think do this for me. I don't really know what they would be, although it is something I might do for fun and as this blog now has such low readership it wouldn't really matter.

It does however lead me into the second comment that stuck with me. Annie Lennox, what a voice by the way, said that she would like to say thank you to all of the artists who have made music.

I could not agree with this more. I feel we are very lucky to live in an age where we are able to listen to anything we like, of which I will write more about in another post, and all that great music has meant so much to me. So much of it I couldn't even come close to composing myself.

In thinking how to say thank you in a way that made any sense it has occurred that it is all progression isn't it. Without Blues we would not have had any rock or metal. Without Disco no Electronica. Without Country no folk. Without Prog no punk, it is also a reaction that causes influence. No Motown, no R&B. From Funk and Rap, no Jazz then no more . . . jazz . . .just joking.

My point being that it is the culmination of what the artists have absorbed and what they want to say and express that leads them to record what we then listen to and because of that we all owe a huge thank you to them all.

So thank you, thank you so much because without you all the world would be a far poorer, less interesting and thought provoking place.

a little apology to the jazz fans.

2016

So 2016 has been pretty poor for us music fans hasn't it. Bowie Glen Frey, Prince. All gone.

I do not know about you, quite obviously, but to me it has left a strange feeling if i am honest. I am sad. There is no doubt about that. I am sad because three people who have made my life better by creating some brilliant music are no longer walking the same planet as me.

Some music

The sad reality , for me at least, is that in all cases their best music was behind them. This is harsh and is not in any way meant to deride or denigrate their respective portfolios. Because, well fuck, what amazing portfolios of music, and indeed emotion they gave us. Just, I don't know, wow. I would give up a lot to be half as talented as they were. I guess people like Beiber have given up even more to be 1 twentieth as talented . . .

So, we are left behind with what they wanted us to have.

I think the other slightly unusual part of the way I feel about personally, as a person, is that there isn't the sense of what could have been with the musicians that died at a much earlier age. This is far from being a ground breaking statement isn't it. What I mean is that in all three cases it is reasonable clear , that whatever would have been done subsequently would have, in all likelihood not supplanted my favorite songs by them in any case. So I should be thankful, happy, with what I have, something like that.

So where does that leave us? It leaves us with some great music and a reason for me to start writing again.

So, lets have some fun and come up with some lists. Because that is what music people like to do isn't it, make lists and categorize things. So lets start with ordering the three of them. OK lets not. Although we can rightly say that there is a cross over in time between the three of them, I am not sure you could come up with three more different styles of great music. Bowie, The Eagles and Prince don't belong in a competition together because they are not playing the same game. it would be like trying to compare football, NFL and rugby.

So, lets compare them to themselves and try to come up with a top five for each of them .

here is my Bowie top five

Heroes
Ashes to Ashes
Sorrow
Life on Mars
Lets Dance

What do you think?

Glenn Frey (Eagles top 5 cause I never got into his solo stuff)

Take it easy
Peaceful Easy feeling
Lying eyes
Hotel California
Desperado

Prince Top 5

When Doves cry
Purple rain
When you were mine
Raspberry beret
Little red Corvette

But, and it is a big but.(cause I like big butts and I will not lie, you other brothers cant deny - sorry got carried away) you have to give Prince a special mention for
Nothing compares to you, Manic Monday, Kiss and all of the other songs that he wrote but didn't out out

I would love to get your lists. Please either comment here or on Facebook, twitter and lets see if I get enough to put together a top 5 of everything.
 
So, 2016, not a great year so far. lets be honest. But it does give us a chance to reflect and to listen to some great music and appreciate how fantastic some people's creative vision really is

Thanks guys. It has been really great.