Popnarcotic

The Ghost Of Christmas Past…

December 15, 2010 at 1:24 am (Music Mixes, Uncategorized)

(2011 Edit:  No, not really.)

(2011 Edit, part deux:  If you’re disappointed beause you were really looking for a dubstep Christmas album…well, seriously?  C’mon.  We’re about 2 weeks from dub drops in Walmart TV ads.  Let it go.  Enjoy some Christmas music from years past.)

So this past year when I moved the blog to a new server because Blogger/Google decided it was time for them to make poor business decisions, I left behind an awful lot of files (which I do have backed up on a variety of external drives and whatnot, but still), some of which included a whole bunch of past Christmas mixes. Sort of gratifying that various folks out there have been requesting them, and so without any further ado, let’s go ahead and at least put up the last five shall we?

2005: “I Got Yer Wassail Right Here, Mac”
2006: “It’s Cliched To Be Cynical At Christmas”
2007: “The Christmas Sound Is All Around This Town”
2008: “Listen Up Ebenezer!”
2009: “Christmas Shoes”

2010:  “There’s No Life Like The Snow Life”

2011:  “I Still Believe In Santa Claus (Even If Nobody Else Does)”

I’ve got the CD from the 2004 mix floating around here somewhere, and I’ll do a little magic on it and get it uploaded too. In 2003 I had a whirlwind of activity hit me outta the blue (I ended up spending Christmas working in Connecticut, which was fun…but very unexpected), so that year I just sent out Christmas cards, no CD or mix. 2002′s mix, “Deck Us All With Boston Charlie” is lost to history now, although most of the songs on it have re-surfaced on one of the past 6 mixes. (And it better be lost to history, since the 2010 mix I just finished–yeah, I said it–has that year’s most prominent track repeated; a few of you 15 folks who got that CD in a Christmas Card or whatnot back then will be disappointed in that repeat…but heck, it’s been 8 years. Give a brotha a break!)

Looking over track lists (and you can find those in the archives, just head for December of whatever year), I’m pretty happy that I haven’t gotten too awfully repeat-happy. Over six years, I’ve got 120 different Christmas or winter-themed songs, very few of which suck, which is a pretty decent track record if I do say so myself…and I just did.

As I was putting together this year’s mix, I was again struck by just how many truly awful Christmas songs become available every holiday. Lots of established artists just mail it in for a quick cash-in with some dreadful, soulless readings of some Christmas chestnut. At least I can understand the financial reasons behind that in a purely cynical way. The holiday tunes that really exasperate me are the gajillion indie artists who think the way to do a Christmas song is to pick some heartfelt standard and re-render it slowed down and dripping with implied irony. I suppose something like that could work in a vacuum…but you stick awful, over-ironic crap like that on a holiday mix next to the Green Pajamas’ “Caroler’s Song” or something from Vince Guaraldi, or especially next to that certain Irish ditty that ends every Christmas mix I do by tradition and all that dripping hipster-ism just collapses in on itself.

So anyway, you’ve got a few hours to wait until I upload the Christmas mix for 2010. Grab one of these older ones and give it a spin. Thanks for reading, I hope your holiday season so far has been as enjoyable as mine!

(Edited to include 2011′s mix to this list for easy all purpose Christmas music grabbing.)