The 5 best Christmas albums
Posted on December 2nd, 2011 by Jon O
Okay, you’ve heard all the typical Christmas collections — popular singers performing familiar carols, divas singing newly minted “contemporary” songs, tasteful arrangements of the same old same old — but you’re craving something unique, something that breathes new life into the tradition, something that stimulates both your need for nostalgia and your need for adventure. These five choices, spanning styles from jazz to alternative to folk to classical, deliver the goods. [Read more →]
The holiday season for me conjures images of a mug of hot chocolate, a cozy fire, and the tranquility of snow falling. Cutesy songs like “Jingle Bells” and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” make fun sing-alongs, but I prefer tunes that convey the spirit of the season. What makes a great Christmas song? Melody, harmony, rhythm and lyrics working together to capture a mood. Here is my take on the best songs that do just that. 
The 1960s were a time of immense creative experimentation, questioning the status quo, breaking the rules. Geoff Emerick was a young engineer at London’s EMI recording studio when he began working with the Beatles to record the Revolver and Sergeant Pepper albums, which set the pace for the innovative era. Secretly contravening EMI’s stodgy policies on how to mic and record music, he broke new ground in helping the Beatles in their quest for new and different sonorities. Close mic-ing and dampening the kick drum with a blanket; close mic-ing the string quartet to obtain the grittier sound of bows scraping; recording at a fast tempo and playing back slower; backwards overdubs; splicing together random samples; using sticky editing tape to create a wobble sound. Emerick stretched the boundaries to follow the band’s directives to “make sure that piano doesn’t sound like a piano,” or “make my vocal sound like I’m singing from the moon.” 
One of the great losses in this era of downloadable, individual songs is the practice of sitting down with a new album and letting it seep into your soul. That’s especially important for an artist like Meshell Ndegeocello, who explores unexpected avenues in her music. When she released songs from The World Has Made Me the Man of My Dreams in two batches during 2006-07, the songs at first seemed strange, an unfamiliar landscape. Only gradually did the magic emerge, and it’s definitely a masterpiece. 
