Z's Music Corner - Christmas Edition

[Z_TheWriter]

White Wine in The Sun by Tim Minchin

Yes this is a Christmas song - he's Australian. Aside from that, I kinda feel like Tim speaks for himself.

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Anyone know why the hell Redneck Christmas involves "10 o' Copenhagen" (the Danish capital)?

 

[alohadave]

 

[YmaOHyd]

Anyone know why the hell Redneck Christmas involves "10 o' Copenhagen" (the Danish capital)?

Copenhagen is a popular brand of chewing tobacco in the US.
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Don't need to do much explanatory writing about this because the video includes the liner notes and all the background stuff from the artist. The is the first track of Arjen Lucassen's album The Source, the latest in his Ayreon project. Ayreon is a long-running series of metal/prog concept-operas. The Source goes back to the beginning of the story: the rise of artificial intelligence and self-replicating machines and the flight of the Forever. The album as a piece of storytelling is pretty uneven, but musically it's immense. It includes a passage with the lyrics:

01110100
01110010
01110101
01110011
01110100
01010100
01001000
...that somehow manages to be really interesting melodically and in arrangement. That passage is followed by a lovely bluesy groove.

 

[Z_TheWriter]

Low Down Dirty Christmas by Playing For Change

Playing For Change is a project whose mission is to connect the world through music. They travel the world, meeting musicians - mostly street musicians - in different countries. They record each person contributing to a song, then edit and add that to what the next has in their headphones when they record. This created some very interesting pieces where the song was played by maybe a dozen musicians from different countries who had never met. But as you can see in this one, some of the musicians also traveled to meet each other, played concerts together and recorded songs like this one.

They eventually created the Playing For Change Foundation which builds music and art schools for children around the world - 15 so far.

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Copenhagen is a popular brand of chewing tobacco in the US.

Interesting, and a bit weird. From what I can find it has no relation whatsoever to Denmark, which seems strange.

The is the first track of Arjen Lucassen's album The Source, [...]

Holy shit this is amazing!
I was gonna say that stylistically it reminds me a bit of Symphony X but yeah, their lead singer is in it

 

[alohadave]

Auli, a Latvian drum and bagpipe group, with an absolute banger of a song.

 

[WaxPhilosophic]

Wishing you the warmest New Wave greetings this holiday season.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

A little more traditional...

 

[stickygirl]

Recorded when I was a wee small thing, but simply the best damn live recording ( okay maybe Queen @ LiveAid ). I keep coming back to this. Tori Amos - Precious Things.

 

[YmaOHyd]

Interesting, and a bit weird. From what I can find it has no relation whatsoever to Denmark, which seems strange.

It was named, I think, to contrast Northern European quality and familiarity with American exoticism, which makes more sense if you remember the brand started in 1822 and competed with Red Man and Beech-Nut.

Holy shit this is amazing!
I was gonna say that stylistically it reminds me a bit of Symphony X but yeah, their lead singer is in it

As a guest vocalist, yeah. He's on The Source and The Universal Migrator Pt 2: Flight of the Universal Migrator. Arjen is pretty great at casting his guests. There's a series of videos he made on Youtube about casting The Human Equation, which I think is actually a perfect album.
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Surprise country-western gospel music in Swahili!

 

[Areala-chan]

My favorite Christmas song of all time:

No, I'm not kidding. This song is fucking beautiful.

 

[stickygirl]

My favorite Christmas song of all time:

No, I'm not kidding. This song is fucking beautiful.

Against my expectations, yes - you're right! How the hell did you find this?!

 

[Z_TheWriter]

Cool Jul from Pyrus: Alletiders Jul

In Denmark (and the rest of the Nordics), we have a type of Christmas TV show with 24 episodes, one televised each evening from December 1st through 24th - which is the primary day we celebrate Christmas. Every year, there will be several across channels, some new, some returning classics. We call them simply 'Julekalender' - 'Christmas Calendar'.

These are many and varied shows, mostly aimed at children, but often enjoyed by adults - a couple are even primarily for an older audience. Some are about normal people's lives in December, some about their interactions with the more supernatural aspects of the season. There's one about two children finding a way into Valhalla during December. One about three anthropomorphic animals going on a mission to Greenland to find the missing Santa Claus. One is about a girl finding a time machine and having adventures with young teen Jesus.

The show this is from is about Christmas elves living in the Royal Danish Archives. They use magic to enter historical books in order to have conversations, or just fun, with figures from Danish history. But something goes wrong with a spell, suddenly Christmas has vanished from all of the history books, and a mysterious girl with amnesia has appeared in the archives.

The titular elf, Pyrus, singing this song is tired of Christmas always being the same, always so traditional. He wants it to be more "cool".

 

[Areala-chan]

Against my expectations, yes - you're right! How the hell did you find this?!

I've had this album for basically as long as I've been alive. In 1979, this was an hour-long Christmas special broadcast on television here in the US, and my parents loved the music so much that my mom bought the record, and I now have my own copy of it, both on vinyl and on CD. It's one of the few Christmas albums I can listen to without feeling homicidal (I work in retail, so the day after Thanksgiving starts the non-stop Christmas music blitz in our store).

Anyone interested in seeing the full special can watch it here. It's really cute, the Muppet covers of the various standards are a lot of fun, and there are a few other songs that John Denver sings solo, or with minimal accompaniment, that are just as beautiful and enjoyable as Noel: Christmas Eve, 1913.

 

[Z_TheWriter]

Disclaimer:
This song is so country that even country people say, "damn, that's twangy"

Hearing his voice do that almost hurts.
Good song though. More piano solo please Mr. Allan.
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A little more traditional...

Ok, this is gonna sound weird...
They're obviously very talented. But does anyone else find the visuals for this... vaguely scary?
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Surprise country-western gospel music in Swahili!

Not my style normally, but it doesn't matter, this man is so happy he just carries you with him anyway.
Also he can't end a song to save his life!
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Anyone interested in seeing the full special can watch it here. It's really cute, the Muppet covers of the various standards are a lot of fun, and there are a few other songs that John Denver sings solo, or with minimal accompaniment, that are just as beautiful and enjoyable as Noel: Christmas Eve, 1913.

Gonna save this for when we get closer to Christmas. Thank you

 

[THBGato]

Apologies if somebody already posted a link to this, but I swear this is the most joyful, uplifting Christmas hymn (Joy to the World/O Come all ye faithful) mash up around:

Live:

 

[SugarStorm]

Against my expectations, yes - you're right! How the hell did you find this?!

While the rest of us try to find the Christmas spirit, @Areala-chan simply embodies it. Like a festive little elf, she spreads joy to the left and smut to the right.

 

[old_prof]

I've had this album for basically as long as I've been alive. In 1979, this was an hour-long Christmas special broadcast on television here in the US, and my parents loved the music so much that my mom bought the record, and I now have my own copy of it, both on vinyl and on CD. It's one of the few Christmas albums I can listen to without feeling homicidal (I work in retail, so the day after Thanksgiving starts the non-stop Christmas music blitz in our store).

Anyone interested in seeing the full special can watch it here. It's really cute, the Muppet covers of the various standards are a lot of fun, and there are a few other songs that John Denver sings solo, or with minimal accompaniment, that are just as beautiful and enjoyable as Noel: Christmas Eve, 1913.

I probably watched this live, despite my protests. This was during my first marriage and my ex was a huge muppets fan. I loathe John Denver in any form. I don't think I can blame this, but we did break up in 1980. Just saying.

 

[alohadave]

While not a Christmas song, it does celebrate the winter solstice

 

[KTrout23]

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Anyone know why the hell Redneck Christmas involves "10 o' Copenhagen" (the Danish capital)?

I assume they’re saying “tin” of Copenhagen since it comes in a little can with a metal lid.
https://gtc.freshcope.com/copenhage...eOOCXe70w6pQZwRau3TooWGuMU1frarh9TcpaaQ6VgH79

 

[Kelliezgirl]

I assume they’re saying “tin” of Copenhagen since it comes in a little can with a metal lid.
https://gtc.freshcope.com/copenhage...eOOCXe70w6pQZwRau3TooWGuMU1frarh9TcpaaQ6VgH79

This is the correct answer... chewing tobacco is VERY redneck and Copenhagen is one of the biggest brands.

 

[YmaOHyd]

So in 2008, Latvia finished 14th in the EuroVision song contest. Their entry was "Wolves of the Sea," performed by Pirates of the Sea. It's on Youtube and it's very very campy and not that good. Sorry, Latvia!

In 2009, the self-styled True Scottish Pirate Metal band Alestorm covered it on their album Black Sails at Midnight, and it's still a routine part of their live setlist.

I've seen them live once. Very good live show, and their walk-out music was the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme.

 

[Z_TheWriter]

Lindsey Stirling - Carol of the Bells

We've had Lindsey Stirling before from @Rob_Royale. I have to admit that I know basically nothing about her except shes a talented violinist and this version of Carol of the Bells kinda rules.

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In 2009, the self-styled True Scottish Pirate Metal band Alestorm covered it on their album Black Sails at Midnight, and it's still a routine part of their live setlist.

Fuck yeah, I love bands making pirate music in different genres and Alestorm are great!
My roomies at boarding school and I found a 45 minute pirate techno track on Myspace which became our weekly cleaning song - blasted on a guitar amp.

(We really need this reaction for this thread)

 

[YmaOHyd]

cw: n-word; it's rap.

This is a mashup of "Don't Touch Me" by Busta Rhymes with the Gerudo Valley theme from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, off the TeamTeamwork album The Ocarina of Rhyme. The mashup IMO is pretty significantly better than the original mix.

 

[Z_TheWriter]

Vince Guaraldi Trio with O Tannenbaum from A Charlie Brown Christmas

Peanuts TV special, A Charlie Brown Christmas, has an absolutely sublime soundtrack by the Vince Guaraldi Trio. Seriously, if you're at all into jazz, go find the rest of it.

Fun fact, if you have a sufficiently talented pianist, then there's no such thing as a boring Christmas song. Vince Guaraldi, who's playing the keys here, also composed for the other TV adaptations of Peanuts.

 

[YmaOHyd]

Teen Girl Scientist Monthly is not a periodical, unfortunately; they're a group from Brooklyn that describes themselves as "like Ra Ra Riot and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah making out in the bathroom." I'd describe them as, you know, pop-rock or maybe dance punk. I found them through the rock climbing film Reel Rock 10, where "It's On" is the trailer's hero song: