2023-12-17 22:02:44
Top – Christmas songs
Bad Kid – JD McPherson
It’s already been a good ten years since guitarist JD McPherson and his group have dynamited the spirit of rock n’ roll of yesteryear with great panache. Louder than the pontificating boomers who can’t help but tell you at the top of their lungs how much they would have liked to “do Woodstock”, JD McPherson is the leather jackets, the hairspray and the rockabilly that he regrets. Between Little Richard and Eddie Cochran, the rocker’s music is certainly reminiscent of another time, but above all it is imbued with all the enthusiasm and cheeky good humor of a self-respecting polished thug. As a good ambassador of the fifties, JD McPherson, visibly impervious to mothballs, decided in 2018 to bring the good old Christmas album back to the forefront. Socks is the title of the LP where we can hear the formidable Bad Kid, a sumptuous rhythm and blues track with offbeat lyrics where a little dunce goes to settle his score with the big bearded guy who never brings him a present. Christmas maybe, but a bad boy’s Christmas. It’s still Rock ‘n Roll after all….
Ain’t no chimneys in the projects – Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings
The projects refer in North American culture to social housing built in urban areas, the Anglo-Saxon equivalent of suburban HLMs in Europe. They are generally quite out of the way and are associated with high social poverty and a high crime rate. Another feature of the projects, as the great Sharon Jones quickly pointed out, is that they do not have chimneys, which makes Little Santa’s task very difficult. With her group the Dap Kings, the soul singer plays with the somewhat outdated image of Santa Claus distributing gifts through chimneys, emphasizing the extent to which she is the product of an American reality very far from the red light districts. Indeed, Sharon Jones did not know the suburban suburbs, their garages, their gardens and their Christmas trees. However, that did not prevent him from recording with his Dap-Kings an excellent holiday album, It’s a Holiday Soul Party, with funk and soul colors where the, as amusing as it is touching, Ain’t no Chimneys in the projects draws its Pin…
The divine child is born – Siouxsie and the Banshees
Who would have thought that the pale louts with a thousand rebellious locks of the iconic Siouxsie and the Banshees – a band not very present in popular culture but ranked very high in the category “favorite group of your favorite group” – would one day set their sights on an old Catholic Christmas carol. Indeed, Siouxsie and the Banshees, the legendary post-punk group that influenced all of New Wave, alternative rock, trip hop and all gothic teenagers in the world, one day recorded a cover of Il the Divine Child was born. If the choice of standard is surprising, the fact that the group released a successful version is even more so. The cannon voice of Siouxsie Sioux makes us forget her awkward accent and the dark orchestration, imitating military marches, gives everything a surprising majesty. The gap is accentuated by a lunar “clip” where the poor editor obviously had to deal with around four shots put together by the film crew. Plus, there’s Robert Smith from Cure on cymbals. It’s a change from Tino Rossi…
Must be Santa – Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is one of the rare people who can legitimately be said to have had a thousand lives. In turn beatnik with a nasal voice, face of the American cultural revolution, transmitter of the American musical tradition, crooner, actor, poet, painter; the bard will have crossed generations, roles and eras while remaining as elusive as ever. It is therefore no surprise that in 2009 we saw him release Christmas in the Heart, a Christmas album. In this collection of curious covers of Christmas classics where Dylan drags out his more nasal voice for a penny – cigars and alcohol have been there – the hallucinatory Must Be Santa stands out. Set to a frenzied polka rhythm, this repetitive standard which lists all the attributes of Santa Claus is inseparable from its disturbing and surreal clip where a man tries by all means to escape a Christmas celebration in a large house without anyone don’t really know why. Even when he sings Christmas, Bob Dylan is never really where we expect him to be. Elusive we tell you…
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#Jingle #Bells #Rock #Freedom