January 2025 Archives

Earlier in the 2024 season, I posted a couple of actual albums of R-rated novelty Christmas music generated in part or totally through the use of artificial intelligence. Since then I've come across some other players in this nascent field of endeavor.

• Last Runner Records is a YouTube channel offering this kind of stuff, including Omar Henson's "Santa Humping Mommy," Lola Waters' "Shotgun Santa," the Sharon Sisters' "Under the Mistletoe With a Hairy Beaver," Douglas Dynamite's "We'll All Be Dead By Christmas," and Brett DeButts' "Happy F***** New Year." All of these are in pre-rock 'n roll pop styles and the artists, needless to say, are imaginary.
• Pablo Guccierez hosts another YouTube channel of this stuff, including the southern rock tune "It's a White Christmas (It's a Cocaine Christmas)," the country tune "I Shot Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, Now Santa Is Out to Get Me," the vintage soul tunes "It's a New Year But I'm Still Doing the Same Sh*t" and "My Cat Pissed on Santa's Cookies," disco tunes like "Santa Crashed His Sleigh Into My House While Drunk" and "Santa and His Ho Ho Hos (Merry Pimpmas)," doo-wop tune "Your Kids Ain't Getting Sh*t For Christmas," and more non-holiday fare.
• Then there's Mischievous Melodies, which has a YouTube channel, a Bandcamp page, and entries in the usual streaming and download spaces, offering "He Likes To Stuff My Turkey at Christmas," "Kiss My T*ts Under the Mistletoe," and "I Caught Santa Jingling His Balls," all in pre-rock 'n roll pop styles.
• And although we normally don't cover jazz here, Human Curated offers two AI-generated jazz Christmas albums, one vocal, one instrumental.

YouTube apparently has a policy that requires disclosure when content is generated partly or wholly via artificial means, which is the main way I know this stuff isn't "real." Most, but not all of the players involved here go to the trouble of attributing these songs to fake artists with fake back stories about how these are "rare vinyl" from whatever epoch they're imitating.

I'm happy to play along with these items as long as we know what we're getting. The problem is that unlike all the AI images of seven-fingered Jesuses baptizing MAGA idiots that are sweeping social media, these AI songs don't surrender their secrets simply from listening. Indeed, various social media music threads are full of people noting how they can detect riffs and sounds from existing music in these AI tunes, even down to which antique plate reverbs and echoplexes are in use. 

And now that we know that Spotify has contracted with royalty-free soundtrack houses to fill their queues with generic (and royalty-free) tunes to fill their algorithmically generated playlists, how long is it going to be until Brett DeButts and Douglas Dynamite have artist pages and bios on the streaming services? And how many streaming minutes generated by them could have gone to flesh-and-blood singers and songwriters going forward? All useful questions in my mind. 

Of course, people reading this are probably music fans who will exercise their due diligence in these matters, but most people aren't fans to that degree and will not object to having their playlists fattened by Muzak as long as they recognize a few names and melodies. Then again, the Beatles' final single "Now and Then" had elements of AI used in its creation, so who's to say we won't eventually be inundated with productions like Frank Sinatra singing the Taylor Swift songbook with Nelson Riddle arrangements, or Elvis Presley reimagined as a hip-hop artist? Just like Napster, legal downloads and streaming, these things arrrived without any permission from existing gatekeepers and rent-seekers.

Still, speaking from experience, it remains possible to draw a crowd by picking up a musical instrument and playing live and in the moment, and people will continue to do this at bus stops, church picnics, bars and pubs, probably even on their front porches when the weather permits. You won't see this on any network TV shows or in your local hockey arena, but it will be there when you're ready for it.

This is a collaboration between a former member of the group The Dig and a singer/producer of "wordless soundscapes." This 2024 single includes this song, a bit of a folky strum backing said wordless soundscapes, and "home alone,"a synth-pop chorale that evokes Enya and other such folks. The melancholy of both tunes might reasonably be considered to evoke the winter holidays, but those who are looking for something more obviously holiday-connected might be disappointed. Nevertheless, it's out there to be streamed or downloaded by those who feel the connection.

These guys (this particular group, I should say; there's at least two groups with this name, search them as "Something Fierce (MN)" when trying to track them down) were a big deal in Minneapolis back in the late 80s and 90s, and they recently resurrected all their past work and dropped it on Bandcamp. We're here with them for this particular song, a cool power pop anthem to an evil Santa (you know it's an anagram, right?), and if you missed them the first time around, feel free to drop them into your modern playlists. The song is part of an EP of the same name, but the other songs are non-holiday topics.

This 2024 release is a compilation of new original songs by an array of groups that identify as progressive rock, a genre that peaked commercially in the 1970s but has always retained a cadre of loyal fans, some who trace their favorites' history back to psychedelia and others who simply got on the train when they discovered their favorite artists identified as progressive. This collection includes the previously reviewed "I Ruined Christmas" by Refrestramus, along with a solid pop-rock ballad by giGO called "Christmas Tears." That one's also available as a single. Other performers include A Multitude of One, whose "A Christmas Surprise" is a by-the-book prog-rock instrumental; Orchestre Celeste, whose "Cornubia" is an extended instrumental journey through prog, synth-rock and even jazz; Maurizio Vercon's "In the Hands of God" is an old-school hard rock guitar-shredding ballad; Juan R. Leon's "Re-gifting Ye Old Fruitcake" is a lengthy keyboard-heavy melody and his "Jesus Wept" has a classical/flamenco influence that appears to include both guitar and treble-heavy bass; The Round Robins' "Web Cosmic Visions" has a kind of late-period King Crimson feel to it; Stanislav and the Lion's "Yuki-Onna" is a brief monologue over a Japanese-influenced melody; Robeone's "Robeone Christmas" is a rock improvisation over "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen"; and Quicksilver Night has two entries, one with vocalist Nina Flory called "Dragon's Eye View," a bombastic Florence and the Machine-styled song, and, with Dark Beauty, "Whispers in the Snow," a fairly sweet 70s hard rock midtempo ballad. Must note that the preponderance of instrumentals means that a lot of this won't "feel" like Christmas to some, but that's for the listener to decide. Appears to be only on Bandcamp.

As promised, the second of two Christmas albums by this Buffalo ska-punk band. This one's title is sardonic, in that it's 14 covers of familiar holiday tunes in which they pull the arrangements apart and dance merrily upon even the actual melodies of the songs. Whether they're actually ruined, of course, is up to the listener; I found them highly entertaining. They thrash "Holly Jolly Christmas" to a fare-thee-well, go way upbeat on "Blue Christmas," take the familiar blues "Please Come Home For Christmas" uptempo and jaunty, impose a minor-key arrangement on "Rockin Around the Christmas Tree," make a waltz out of "I'll Be Home For Christmas," transform "Monsters Holiday," the Bobby "Boris" Pickett followup to "Monster Mash," and turn "Christmas In Hollis" into a more melodic ska anthem. They manage to not make too much of a change to "Mele Kalikimaka," and go crazy on "Christmas Vacation." This is fun all the way through, with playlist possibilities galore. Unlike the other one, this is only available through Bandcamp.

There's really no shortage of Christmas music done by modern surf-punk ska bands, so what was going through the heads of this bunch of folks from Buffalo, NY when they dropped two whole albums of Christmas music for 2024? Not sure, but I'm only sorry it took till the end of the season for me to discover them. This is the first of the two albums, consisting of 18 original, jaundiced, hilarious takes on the holiday, as the titles will attest. (They like to put everything in capitol letters, but it looks horrendous in practice, so humor me.) "Christmas Sucks!," "Guess What I Got You? Nothing!," "Drunk For Christmas!," "Ruin Christmas Just Because!," "You Ruined Christmas and My Life!," "Holiday Fist Fight!," "Merry and Miserable," and more of the same. I would note some might think the 19th tune, a cover of the Vandals' "Grandpa's Last Christmas!," is taking things a little too far, but given that the song mocks the mom who tells the kids the title every year for decades as much as anything else, I'll allow it. Streaming and downloads, and there's a separate review for the other album here as well.

Latest UPDATE: For 2024, the band has reissued this as a 4-CD, 1 Blu-Ray archive collection, which appears to take in almost everything mentioned in the ensuing review, although the DVD included as part of the earlier reissue does not appear to be on offer. END UPDATE. The often-maligned progressive rock act of the 1970s never actually went away, continuing to record straight through any number of pop music fads. And this is a good time to note this site has been remiss in not noting the group has actually had a number of holiday tunes over time - "Christmas Song" from Living in the Past, "Ring Out Solstice Bells" from Songs for the Wood, "Jack Frost and the Hooded Crow" from an 80s single B-side, and "Another Christmas Song" from the 90s album Rock Island. UPDATE: Tom Rombouts notes a performance of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" on the 1978 live album Bursting Out. All of these tunes are on this newly recorded 2003 album, along with the Bach instrumental "Bouree," first played by the group on the album Stand Up. On the other hand, these guys have kept their rock influences at arm's length for quite a while now, and there's very little on this album for rock fans. It's mostly classically oriented pop, a lot of guitar/flute instrumentals with some vocals and a little jazz thrown in from time to time - other than those jazz flourishes, this album wouldn't sound out of place as the background music for a colonial Christmas tableaux in Williamsburg, Va. The 16 tunes include those mentioned above, along with a sprinkling of new originals and a few classics like "Greensleeves," "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen," "We Five Kings" (poetic license there, but it's the same song) and "Holly Herald," a medley of "Holly and the Ivy" and "Hark the Herald Angels Sing." The album was re-released for 2004 in a deluxe package that includes a DVD. Both versions appear to be out of print, but Amazon continues to offer downloads.

This is what I get for going to bed after "Weekend Update." I just find out this happened on SNL two weeks ago.

G. Love and Special Sauce is a Philadelphia-based group that has for years traded on an improbable amalgamation of country blues and hip-hop, and they've been reasonably successful with it, if not actually household words by now. This is their second Christmas album after 2017's outing, almost all new except for a revisiting of the previously released "Cape Cod Winter Blues." The title tune is as advertised, a partially rapped love letter to angling on the holidays, "Joy to the World" is a straight country hoedown, "Falling in Love With Christmas" is more of G. Love's signature sound, "Christmas Moon" is a harmony ballad carried by mandolin and harmonica, "Holiday on the Island" throws in some tropically appropriate reggae rhythm and organ, the classic "Jingle Bells" gets a funky rhythm section along with the famous "Batman" alternate verses, "I Saw Santa" is a fast shuffle behind self-explanatory lyrics, "Christmas Change" is a front-porch skiffle session about filling Santa's begging pail, "Christmas Is Coming" lays into a jungle beat before singing it as a round, and the band wraps up with two classics, "We Three Kings" as a waltz and "Silent Night" in a country/bluegrass harmony arrangement. Fans will want to complete their collections, but if you haven't had any G. Love in your collection before, now's a good time to start. Downloads and streaming available.

From a box-office standpoint, Joe Bonamassa is one of the current kings of blues guitar, even if folks like Christone "Kingfish" Ingram and Gary Clark are more often seen in the pop charts. Joe's had an ongoing habit of dropping free Christmas song recordings over the years, and for 2024 he's gathered up a bunch of them and added a few more for this album now widely available on downloads and streaming. Most of these songs are familiar, especially to blues fans: "Merry Christmas Baby," "Lonesome Christmas," "Christmas Comes But Once a Year," "Santa Claus Is Back In Town," plus evergreen classics "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" and "O Holy Night," and then there are the ones attributed to Joe himself, like "Christmas Boogie (One Little Kiss)," "Christmas Date Blues," "Hello Christmas" and "You Know It's Christmas," the latter two also featuring Dion of Belmonts fame. Three tunes also get alternate treatments; "Merry Christmas Baby," "O Holy Night" gets an orchestral arrangement, and "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" gets an "Irish rendition." All told, a solid collection, especially if you haven't been exposed to Joe before.

This act has been around long enough that you probably know this is the name Natasha Khan uses for making music. For 2024 she dropped this cut on her album The Dream of Delphi; it's an ethereal little number with only a few lyrics, so you may or may not hear the holiday connection, but folks who prefer this kind of synth-pop will want this in their Christmas playlists. There's also an alternate version of this in which the synths are played down in favor of Laura Somogyi's harp playing, but it's no less ethereal. Downloads and streaming available for both. 

Sun June is a boy-girl duo from Austin TX, and Advance Base is Owen Ashworth, the producer of this 2024 holiday single. It's a synth-pop ballad of alienated companionship, very hypnotic but also relatively short. Kind of appropriate that it dropped on Dec. 26. Streaming and downloads in the usual places.