Christmas deathmetal music plus#

Writer Bonnie Berkowitz couldn’t decide between old-school and older-school, choosing both Johnny Cash’s version of “The Little Drummer Boy” and Mahalia Jackson’s “Go Tell It On the Mountain.” Graphics reporter Shelly Tan said she doesn’t really listen to much holiday music and declined to give an answer, so we unilaterally chose “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Graphics reporter Chris Alcantara picked “Just Like Christmas” by Low. However, shout-out to follower Maia Nolan-Partnow for reminding us that the John Denver and the Muppets version of “The 12 Days of Christmas” is fantastic.Īs for us, editor Danielle Rindler loves just about any version of “Silver Bells.” Editor Ann Gerhart listens to the album “Latin Jazz Christmas” even in July, particularly Arturo Sandoval’s instrumental version of “Jingle Bells.” Copy editor Panfilo Garcia went with “Father Christmas” by the Kinks. We asked for your faves in a Post Graphics Twitter callout but got mostly responses from inside the newsroom. It was so cool to know that there was still some unharvested happiness to get out of this song.” Post critic Chris Richards chose Carey’s AIWFCIY: “Dancing to it at a wedding reception in December was like the fifth dimension of this song for me. Neuroscientist Brian Rabinovitz cited the eerie “Carol of the Bells,” specifically the version by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Music professor Joe Bennett’s is 1985’s “Fairytale of New York” by the Pogues with Kirsty MacColl. We couldn’t let all these experts go without asking their favorite holiday songs. The vanilla theme, the peppy beat, the endless repetition and the easy-to-remember lyrics make a powerful combination - and it doesn’t hurt that the triangle and maracas together sound a lot like sleigh bells. Its entire message: I want to wish you a Merry Christmas. airplay, but the ridiculously simple song - six words in Spanish and 14 in English, set to a Latin beat - is now among the most popular holiday songs of all time. José Feliciano feared his 1970 cultural mashup “Feliz Navidad” would never get U.S.

Christmas deathmetal music plus#

It’s a hoot, but a little of the chorus’s “ee-HAW, ee-HAW” goes a long way.Įlmo & Patsy’s 1979 tale of a Christmas Eve tragedy, “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer,” is a bit too twisted to jibe with many people’s idea of the Christmas spirit.Īdam Sandler’s “The Chanukah Song” (1994, plus three updates) offers up a litany of famous Jews, a few PG-rated lyrics and some pretty great rhymes - “marijuanica,” “gin and tonica,” “Tijuanica” - and requires a certain sense of humor (a working knowledge of Hanukkah tradition helps, too).Īh, but once in a while, a supposed “novelty song” turns out to be universal after all. New York-area earworm “Dominick the Donkey,” recorded by Lou Monte in 1960, is sprinkled with Italian vocabulary and tells the story of a donkey that delivers Brooklyn-made presents to kids in Italian hills too steep for reindeer. “It gives you that charming feeling of what a nice idea,” said Bennett, “but it’s not a universal sentiment.” The genre is not new - it developed right alongside the canon during the creative exploration of songwriters in the 1950s, Simos said.įor example, “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas,” recorded in a startlingly Ethel-Merman-like voice by 10-year-old Gayla Peevey in 1953, has a clever conceit: a child making an unreasonable demand. Rather than aiming for universality, novelty songs address a specific theme or appeal to a certain slice of people. Just like there is a canon for traditional holiday songs, there’s a canon of sorts for novelty songs, which are too goofball-niche to enter the Serious Traditional Canon but are also too much fun to not play every year. “You can have your prediction violated but find it wonderful.”

It works the same with music, Rabinovitz said.

It’s why many of us like surprise parties and roller coasters even though they’re initially terrifying. But if the surprise is not too drastic, he said, our brains might decide they like the change - and then they are often happier than if there had been no surprise in the first place. Our brains feel rewarded when they correctly predict what happens next, and if a prediction is wrong, we feel momentarily discombobulated. Rabinovitz provided a neurological explanation for why we like covers: They meet our expectations.

That way, people can “have all of the sound quality they expect in a modern recording from a contemporary artist while getting all the nostalgic feelings that we want from the songwriter.”

“He’s choosing very old songs played with classic old school, big-band arrangements, but he’s recording them with contemporary technology that makes them radio air-play friendly,” Bennet said. Source: Data based on Joe Bennett’s analysis of top 200 Spotify UK song streams from the week of Dec.