Popnarcotic

Peace On Earth (The 2014 Popnarcotic Christmas Music Mix)

December 22, 2014 at 9:46 am (Music Mixes, Uncategorized)

Every year when I do a holiday-themed music mix, I always give it a working title, just for my own mental reference: “Wassail” or “Xmas Cool” or something like that. This year I quickly gave this collection of tunes the working title “Peace On Earth”. Obviously, that’s from the wonderful MattPondPA cover of George Harrison’s immortal “Give Me Love” that kicks off this year’s mix. I’d always eventually meant to change it to something snappier. Funnier. Something goofy.  But then over the past few weeks the news has just been bleak. People keep getting killed for incomprehensible reasons, and even more incomprehensibly, idiotic shouters want to blame every person besides the killers for events that happened.  Much like the moronic inanity of the “War On Christmas”, it’s pseudo-rage meant to push buttons. Media outlets of every stripe and political leaning figured out years ago that ginned up outrage equals ratings and page clicks and money.

And so “Peace On Earth” ended up being a title I kept. It felt sadly appropriate, obviously. I don’t worry about it being “too topical” or too rooted in 2014, either. If we know history well enough, we know that sadly “Peace On Earth” will always be a quixotic wish with applicable currency for any year.

But….not just every year will have this lineup of holiday tunes. It’s not all wistful solemnity! There’s that chiming “Getting Better All The Time” guitar nick that the wonderful Pugwash use on “Tinsel And Marzipan” for instance, that sets my heart a-flutter every time. There’s Dutch indie rockers Clean Pete and Niek from the band Afterpartees doing a take on Kirsty McColl and Shane MacGowan that seems a little too rip-offy…and then the chorus dips into that minor fifth outta nowhere and I swoon. Maybe most improbably, I discovered this year that two bands do songs called “My Beerdrunk Soul Is Sadder Than All The Dead Christmas Trees In The World”.  Turns out its a quote from Charles Bukowski, so that probably explains it. There’s a Joy Formidable B-side with that title, but it sounds icy and distant. A Scottish band called Broken Records also do a completely different song with that title, and theirs sounds like an amazing, drunken raveup. Guess which one I used? I hate that I’ve not even mentioned an awesome Francopop tune from Canada’s Chic Gamine or The Raveonettes or Los Campesinos. Shoot, there’s even some K-Pop, a genre which I figured there’d be no way I’d ever put on a mix, but when you hear a song like “An Eighties Christmas Song”, you just gotta. I mean, c’mon. We got yr cool Yule right here, mac.

This year there’s also more Lisa Mychols (who, you know, get used to seeing in these mixes for a good long while, and if her Christmas album recorded with the Wondermints ever comes back in print, you should but immediately–right now it’ll run you about $100 used) who’ll pluck your heartstrings with “Pure And Simple”. There’s London indieboys Tellison making a good case for telling a few lies over the holidays. There’s some classics too for chilling and grooving.

And of course, there’s me putting this out there to wish you the happiest, most joyful, and hopefully peaceful of holidays and new years. I know that “Peace on earth” is a cliche and a humbug and thoroughly impossible thing, but I don’t think I’m going to stop wishing for it, just the same. Merry Christmas!

 Peace On Earth (Christmas Music, 2014!)

1. “Humbug”
2. “Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth)” MattPondPA
3. “You’re Just Like Christmas” The Crookes
4. “Tinsel and Marzipan” Pugwash
5. “Favorite Things” The Supremes
6. “Noel (Au Coin de Portage et Main)” Chic Gamine
7. “Let It Snow” Frank Sinatra
8. “Make It To Christmas” Clean Pete featuring Niek
9. “Snow Song” I Was A King
10.”Don’t Tell The Truth This Christmas” Tellison
11.”Winter Wonderland” Ray Charles
12.”Winter Now” Broadcast
13.”An Eighties Christmas Song” Tramgirl Karaoke Club
14.”Pure and Simple” Lisa Mychols
15.”My Beerdrunk Soul Is Sadder Than All The Dead Christmas Trees In The World” Broken Records
16.”When Christmas Comes” Los Campesinos!
17.”Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer Mambo” Billy May
18.”The Christmas Song” The Raveonettes
19.”Christmas Stars” Dwight Twilley
20.”Taking Down The Tree” Low
21.”I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday” Wizzard
22.Fairytales, New York, and the Boys of the NYPD Choir

(click the header or picture and the music should happen.)