Tag: Christmas

Advent song for December 8

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

Really? The 8th already? How did that happen?

Today’s song is the 2001 Christmas number one, Robbie Williams and Nicole Kidman singing Somethin’ Stupid, a track originally made famous by Frank and Nancy Sinatra, who sang it better but ruined the effect by being father and daughter, which makes it less sweetly romantic and more weird. But what they got right in that version was the mix: Frank has the tune and Nancy has a harmony under it, so his voice is, as it should be, louder. In this rehash Nicole has Nancy’s tune and is much higher in the mix, so the actual tune, the one Robbie’s singing, gets lost slightly.

Also, the video has nothing to do with the song at all. If Robbie and Nicole are sufficiently intimate to share a winter holiday home, surely they should be past the point of being embarrassed to say “I love you” to one another. And why is Robbie the barman in the “quiet little place”?

However, I love it because I secretly love both of them, and because they make a cute couple (at least until Robbie takes off his pyjamas to reveal his tats), and, mostly, because of that short-sleeved Christmas jumper Nicole wears.

Advent song for December 7

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music1 Comment

Ah, Cliff. We had a sneaky peek of you yesterday, but here you are in your full glory with the 1990 Christmas number one, Saviour’s Day. One of the versions on YouTube comes accompanied with the warning: “Remember, listen to this while doing something else – it get’s incredibly boring!!”, which I think is unfair as well as illiterate, because this is a classic Cliffmas video, from the massed choir, which I like to imagine is made up of the entire population of whichever Cornish village this was filmed close to, to the unlikely set of dance moves (I use the term loosely) which begin around the 2:30 mark. Enjoy.

(YouTube have prefaced the video with an interminably dull ad, so rather than link to them I’m using a version from elsewhere: if you can’t see the video below just click on the link.)

http://www.muzu.tv/player/getPlayer/a/8BZ1ecfq1q/vidId=184616
Cliff Richard – Saviour’s Day

Advent song for December 6

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music3 Comments

Now, you could argue that musically this is the worst of all the versions of this song, and I don’t know that I would disagree. But I like it because there’s no Bono, and because it came out at the height of my period of interest in the charts, so I am intimately familiar with the oeuvre of everyone involved, although I had forgotten just how much Marti Pellow sounds like Vic Reeves singing in the club style.

Kylie looks literally exactly the same here as she does now, which is both cheering and mildly alarming. Speaking of which, this version is also better than the original because it has actual women in it, who are allowed to sing lines of their own rather than being relegated to the chorus. Go, Lisa Stansfield! Go, Sonia! Go, mid-period incarnation of Bananarama!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VgyF0i5EfM

Advent song for December 5

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music2 Comments

I didn’t know before I started researching this project that Jackie Wilson’s Reet Petite, originally written in 1957, was the Christmas number one in 1986. I assumed that it had been re-released following Jackie’s death, but since he died in January 1984 that doesn’t seem like an obvious leap of logic. But it’s a terrific song, so whatever the reason, I’m glad that it’s given me a chance to include it here.

Tomorrow, an actual Christmas song!

 

Advent song for December 4

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

Girls Aloud’s Sound of the Underground, in 2002, was the first reality TV Christmas number one. None of us realised then that Cowell would have the slot sewn up for most of the rest of the decade.

I like this song a lot, but I think the video is misjudged. It should have been cool and edgy, not slow-motion and faux-sexy, although faux-sexy seems to be what Girls Aloud mainly do, stylewise, which is a shame because if they weren’t forced into dressing like a teenage boy’s idea of a prostitute they would all be – they all are – properly sexy anyway. At least they all have their own hair in this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnLrNHCQPP0

Advent song for December 3

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

This was originally on the rejects pile, but the song I was going to have today isn’t on YouTube, except in a long and tedious version, so instead here’s Whitney, UK Christmas number one in 1992, when she was still insanely beautiful. I hope that whoever  cast Kevin Costner, the most insipid man in the world, as (a) a bodyguard and (b) Whitney Houston’s love interest has since found a job better suited to their talents.

This version cuts the song off a little before the end, but if you’re like me you’ll find you won’t mind that a bit. Perhaps you can use the spare time to listen to Dolly Parton’s superior version (just don’t read the comments underneath).

Advent song for December 2

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

2003 was a vintage year for Christmas songs. We were treated to Avid Merrion’s Proper Crimbo, which was fun, but which I now discover has a very long and mostly stupid video, and The Darkness’s Christmas Time (Don’t Let The Bells End), which was properly brilliant. And instead we chose to make Gary Jules’ melancholy and slightly drab version of Mad World our Christmas number one. The two reasons to be grateful for this are that (1) it gave us a mesmerisingly terrifying performance from the much-missed Aiden in this year’s X Factor, and (2) it’s given me a reason to check out the video, which is actually quite lovely:

(Also, just be pleased that the other two inhabitants of that week’s top five, Happy Christmas (War is Over) by the Pop Idols and Changes by Ozzy and Kelly Osbourne, missed out on the top slot.)

Advent song for December 1

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music4 Comments

I’ve been so busy with real life (about which more in the new year, I expect) that I’ve barely had a chance to post recently, so it’s with a sigh of relief that I realise it’s time to resurrect the annual Gladallover musical advent calendar. I’ve already used up all my favourite Christmas songs, so rather than resorting to all my least favourite Christmas songs, this year I’m introducing a theme. All the songs this year will be UK Christmas number ones from my lifetime, counting down in order from the 24th-best to the best. Since I have been alive for 34 Christmases I have dropped the ten worst, but I’m not going to tell you which they are until Christmas Eve, otherwise you’ll be able to work out what’s coming.

So without further preamble I present the UK Christmas number one from 1980, The St Winifred’s School Choir singing There’s No-One Quite Like Grandma. It’s pretty awful, but it’s sort of mesmerising at the same time. I was four that Christmas, which means these children are probably only a couple of years older than me. What strikes me, when I watch the video, is how completely of their time they look. You could date it to within a couple of years just by the haircuts. Good old the 1980s.

Holiday time

On By Laura MorganIn Films, Music, Reasons to be cheerful

I’m accidentally got a Christmas head on me two months too early, having been to see a charming snowbound Norwegian film called Home For Christmas at the LFF this week, and it’s been exacerbated by my having just made the Christmas pudding. Now is about the right time to do it, but it puts me into the festive spirit too soon.

So I am remedying it with this summer song by Hildegard Knef, which raises my spirits in quite a different way. Enjoy.