{"id":2107,"date":"2007-12-22T10:14:32","date_gmt":"2007-12-22T10:14:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2007\/12\/22\/christmas-songs-that-dont-suck-1\/"},"modified":"2007-12-22T10:14:32","modified_gmt":"2007-12-22T10:14:32","slug":"christmas-songs-that-dont-suck-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/2007\/12\/22\/christmas-songs-that-dont-suck-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Christmas Songs That Don&#8217;t Suck, 2007"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Thanks largely to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theleathercanary.com\/\">the leather canary<\/a>, I&#8217;ve amassed a surprising number of non-sucky Christmas songs this year. There&#8217;s some painful stuff in there, too, but most of the tracks on their mixes aren&#8217;t likely to make you want to stab ballpoint pens through your eardrums. If you&#8217;re in need of a holiday soundtrack, you could do <a href=\"http:\/\/jasonhare.com\/category\/mellowmas\/\">a whole lot worse<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The tracks added this year that rated four or five stars:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>fairytale of new york,&#8221; the pogues w\/ krsty maccoll<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;only you can bring me cheer,&#8221; alison krauss<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;christmas comes but once a year,&#8221; amos milburn w. charles brown<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;yeah, i know, it&#8217;s christmastime,&#8221; andrew dost<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;donna and blitzen,&#8221; badly drawn boy<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;in the bleak midwinter,&#8221; the blind boys of alabama w. chrissie hynde &#038; richard thompson<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;christmas (baby please come home),&#8221; darlene love<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;everything&#8217;s gonna be cool this christmas,&#8221; eels<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;father christmas,&#8221; the kinks<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;just like christmas,&#8221; low<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;merry christmas baby,&#8221; otis redding<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;2000 miles,&#8221; the pretenders<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;spotlight on christmas,&#8221; rufus wainwright<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Christmas Windows,&#8221; Youth Group<\/li>\n<ul>\n<p>(A couple of those duplicate songs I already had, but you can&#8217;t have too many copies of &#8220;Fairytale of New York&#8221;&#8230;)<\/p>\n<p>The better three-star songs are below the fold:<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;santa claus wants some loving,&#8221; albert king<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;christmas must be tonight,&#8221; the band<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;bizarre christmas incident,&#8221; ben folds<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;last month of the year,&#8221; the blind boys of alabama<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;born in bethlehem,&#8221; the blind boys of alabama w\/ mavis staples<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;i pray on christmas,&#8221; the blind boys of alabama w\/ solomon burke<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;gift x-change,&#8221; calexico<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;have yourself a merry little christmas,&#8221; coldplay<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;this christmas,&#8221; donny hathaway<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;silent night,&#8221; dr. john<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;christmas ain&#8217;t christmas,&#8221; the ebonys<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;step into christmas,&#8221; elton john<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;christmas at the zoo,&#8221; the flaming lips<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;christmas time is here again,&#8221; the flirtations<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;ding dong, ding dong,&#8221; george harrison<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;new year&#8217;s revolution,&#8221; graham parker<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;soulful christmas,&#8221; james brown<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;santa claus go straight to the ghetto,&#8221; james brown<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;christmas with jesus,&#8221; josh rouse<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;i&#8217;ve got my love to keep me warm (stuhr remix),&#8221; kay starr<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;holly jolly christmas,&#8221; martin sexton<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Gospel,&#8221; The National<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Have a Holly Jolly Christmas,&#8221; Old 97&#8217;s<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;I&#8217;ll Be Home For Christma,&#8221; Old 97&#8217;s<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;darlin&#8217; (christmas is coming),&#8221; over the rhine<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;last christmas,&#8221; pas\/cal<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;merry christmas (i don&#8217;t want to fight tonight),&#8221; the ramones<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;the christmas song,&#8221; the raveonettes<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;merry christmas from the family,&#8221; robert earl keen<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;maybe this christmas,&#8221; ron sexsmith<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;christmas means love,&#8221; sam cooke<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;christmas everyday,&#8221; smokey robinson &#038; the miracles<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;presents on christmas,&#8221; solomon burke<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;what christmas means to me,&#8221; stevie wonder<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;christmas all over again,&#8221; tom petty<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;it&#8217;s christmas time,&#8221; yo la tengo<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;baby, it&#8217;s cold outside,&#8221; zooey deschanel &#038; leon redbone\/Zooey Deschanel<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Thanks to Harry for the Old 97&#8217;s tracks.<\/p>\n<p>Putting these together with last year&#8217;s crop, I&#8217;ve got just under five hours of Christmas songs that don&#8217;t make me want to hit something. That&#8217;s enough for a car ride or two, at least.<\/p>\n<p>And with that, we&#8217;re off to Scenic Whitney Point for the holiday. Best wishes to all my readers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thanks largely to the leather canary, I&#8217;ve amassed a surprising number of non-sucky Christmas songs this year. There&#8217;s some painful stuff in there, too, but most of the tracks on their mixes aren&#8217;t likely to make you want to stab ballpoint pens through your eardrums. If you&#8217;re in need of a holiday soundtrack, you could&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/2007\/12\/22\/christmas-songs-that-dont-suck-1\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Christmas Songs That Don&#8217;t Suck, 2007<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2107\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}