Thursday, November 30, 2006
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Go here to download Sheila's Christmas performance of 'L'heure de la Sortie'.
According to the Sheila TVgraphie, this is from a program entitled Douce France and was broadcast on December 18, 1966.
The video truly lives up to this blog's name! Sheila, mercifully out of her insane bouffant phase, and her high-booted friends sing and dance in front of Christmas trees and inside what looks like a department store.
Or watch it at Youtube.
Xmas with the Beatles? Yeah, quite nice. But doesn't Yuletide with a hippo beat the eggnog out of Christmas with, er, Ringo? Judge for yourself . . .
Gayla Peevey - I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
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Every Christmas playlist needs a bit of Bach for the real Christmas spirrit!
Here's a nice ep by Minekawa Takako (mrs. Cornelius)
(A Little Touch Of) Baroque in Winter.
Tracks:
Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring (J.S. Bach)
Christmas Wish
La Valse Grise n3 on Aminure
Snow frolic
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Christmas in Graceland is nice, but nothing beats Christmas with the Beatles!
Ringo for Christmas - The Rainbow Choir
All I Want For Christmas Is A Beatle - Dora Bryan
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A real guilty pleasure from those gloriously innocent days of childhood when winter was chilly, snow was high, and each and every Christmas record featured a terribly blaring children's choir: a truly shameless piece of unadulterated heavy pomp from Washington, DC, glamsters Angel's 1977 album White Hot which used to tint my frozen cheeks with a tender touch of glowing scarlet - and still does.
Angel - Winter Song
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Here are two great Christmas songs from the king of exotica. They are found on a various artist album called Happy Holidays. Santa Claus' Party appears on the Ultra Lounge Christmas Cocktails cd and they have it fade into another song. Here it is in it's entirety. Both from 1952.
LES BAXTER AND ORCHESTRA :: SANTA CLAUS' PARTY
LES BAXTER AND ORCHESTRA :: HANG YOUR WISHES ON THE TREE
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Great song. To bad they didn't do a whole album of Christmas music.
SERGIO MENDES & BRAIL '66 :: THE CHRISTMAS SONG
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
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The Saint Etienne and Claudine Longet versions have both been posted, so I thought it would be a nice idea to add the version by the song's creator, Margo Guryan.
Buy 25 Demos.
Sunday, November 26, 2006
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Only 0.7% of the Japanese population are Christians
So, for my first contribution to this blog, here is a song by my favourite group: Pizzicato Five, with their Christmas single "Juni gatsu niju yokka"', or 24 decembre'.
And, as a bonus; here are two versions of Silent night from their 'out-takes'-album Great White Wonder : version 1 and 2.
Saturday, November 25, 2006
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Here's another yuletide favorite, this time coming from The King of Colchester, ex-head-Cleaner from Venus, "Britain's busiest songsmith, tunesmith and horticultural assassin" and all-round Greatest Living Englishman, Martin Newell, celebrating the "shoe-string saturnalia" of "Christmas in Suburbia", including gallons of "cheap old cherry wine" and bouts of drunken sex . . . now that's what I call Christmas!
Martin Newell - Christmas in Suburbia
PS: Read all about the man (and the Cleaners and just about everything else) in Giles Smith's excellent - and very funny - book "Lost in Music".
Friday, November 24, 2006
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MIRROR IMAGE :: YULETIDE DISCO
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I like my Christmas to be sexy, and Marilyn is as sexy as it gets...
But... apparently I was fooled and it wasn't Marilyn after all.
Credit for this version should be given to Cynthia Basinet:
Cynthia Basinet - Santa Baby
Song has been removed on instruction of the management of Cynthia Basinet.
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CARY GRANT :: CHRISTMAS LULLABY
Spiked Candy Canes Part 1 : (link 1) (link 2)
Claudine Longet - Snow, Dressy Bessy - All the Right Reasons, Deerhoof - Xmas Tree, Isabelle Antenna - Noelle Hawai, Peggy Lee - The Christmas Spell, Stina Nordenstam - Soon After Christmas, The Diskettes - Noel, The Gems - Love For Christmas, The Kinks - Father Christmas, The Knife - Christmas Reindeer, The Pipettes - In The Bleak Midwinter, The Sonics - Don't Believe In Christmas (46 MB)
Spiked Candy Canes Part 2: (link 1) (link 2)
Belle And Sebastian - I Took Some Time For Christmas, Brian Wilson - On Christmas Day, Ginette Reno - Vive Le Vent, Julie London - I'd Like You For Christmas, Lauren Laverne - In The Bleak Midwinter, Marlene Paul - I Wanna Spend Christmas With Elvis, Nena - Wunder Gescheh'n, Of Montreal - My Favourite Christmas (In A Hundred Words Or Less), The Carpenters - Merry Christmas, Darling, The Shitbirds (ft April March)- Christmas Is A-Coming, Universal Robot Band - Disco Christmas, Yo La Tengo - It's Christmas Time (42 MB)
Two options for downloading - NetFileGo, and SnapDrive. I tried to find hosts that I can directlink to (so no ads, waiting etc) and that are supported by download accelerators (both worked well for me with Free Download Manager). But if you have any other preferred hosts you would recommend for the next large files I plan to share, please leave a comment.
In order to start I´d bring you an ep from 1965 belonging to one of the most admired spanish artists outside our borders that was named "Raphael canta a la Navidad" o "Raphael sings to Christmas", we are talking of Raphael. After more than forty years of his career as a singer, Raphael keeps on giving us the gift of many new recordings. Most of them see the light during this dates and are dedicated to the Holydays to come, Christmas.
To be concrete, we`d like to share with you, one version of the song "White Christmas", obviously traduced to spanish.
P.S. Thanks to Lush and Bruno for inviting me to participate in this blog.
To be concrete, we`d like to share with you, one version of the song "White Christmas", obviously traduced to spanish.
P.S. Thanks to Lush and Bruno for inviting me to participate in this blog.
Gamine count French film noir and Julie London among their influences, and don't disappoint, bringing just the right amount of drama and style to their beautiful, grand piano-backed torch songs. 'Oh, What A Kiss!' is not strictly a Christmas song as such, but an ode to a passionate and possibly illicit first kiss, the tale taking place on a cold night before Christmas:
We'll drive
Through streets of ice
The lights,
A feast for the eyes.
Decked out for Christmas,
Especially for us.
Les rues
Sont enneigées
La ville
Est illuminée
Ces décors de Noël
Me paraissent irréels.
Watch 'Oh, Mon Cheri' on YouTube.
Gamine on MySpace.
Thursday, November 23, 2006
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SUPERMAN :: LIGHT UP THE CHRISTMAS TREE MR. PRESIDENT
BATMAN :: CHRISTMAS CAROL CAPER PART 1
BATMAN :: CHRISTMAS CAROL CAPER PART 2
WONDER WOMAN :: PRISONER OF CHRISTMAS ISLAND
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I’ll start of with my favorite soul singer who nailed some great Christmas classics. But then again, if Otis would have been singing his grocery list it would have sounded great as well…
Otis Redding – Merry Christmas, Baby
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One of the most famous Dutch X-mas songs is Fay Lovsky's Christmas was a Friend of Mine. Released in 1981, it became an evergreen and nowadays is on every Christmasplaylist of every Dutch radiostation. Still, it manages to stay fresh, cool and seasonal. Fay Lovsky (real name: Fay Luyendijk) is a multi-instrumentalist, who started out as a singer-songwriter, but generally transferred to music for commercials and films. She worked with famous cartoonists Robert Crumb and Joost Swarte, and plays very funny theatrical shows with her band.
Fay Lovsky - Christmas was a friend of mine
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
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James Brown - Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
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Papa noël
BONUS especially for Kate!
I'm gonna lasso Santa Claus
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From a Christmas special staring both the Sinatra and Martin families on the Dean Martin 60's TV Show. Here's Frank and Dean doing a long duet of standard favorites, full of humor and great fun. In the end, we will see their family decorate a Christmas tree in the studio. Cheesy, but awesome! Christmas 1967.
Monday, November 20, 2006
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gggggg
gggggggggggg
Also with a (very similar) version by Danish darling Gitte
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Okay, so nobody dies in the old hymn Oh Come Emmanuel, is in prison or alone (see Prince-post below), but you can tell there's been a lot of suffering. Based on seven antiphons sung in medieval monasteries beginning a week before Christmas, these twelfth-century Latin verses were translated and reduced to five by the nineteenth-century English carol writer John M. Neale. Singer-songwriter Jonatha Brooke adds her own angelical voice, plus the vocal chords and glacial effects of Kevin Gilbert
Sunday, November 19, 2006
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Give or take a few jolly classics, I only like Christmas songs about someone being alone, dead, or in prison. Here's a great example by Prince:
Your father said it was pneumonia
Your mother said it was stress
But the doctor said U were dead and I...
I say it's senseless
Prince - Another Lonely Christmas
Saturday, November 18, 2006
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Ultra-rare FG B-side, in which Mlle Gall sings about being a snow-plough that would clear frosty paths all the way to the Himalayas to be in the arms of her love. Yet another gem from her early 70s period that has yet to see light of day on a CD release. Thanks to Gerry for this one.
Links: Record sleeve, Lyrics
Thursday, November 09, 2006
You won't see any Wham, Band Aid, or Christmas Smashhits vol. 29 here. Think Christmas when the candy tasted a little sweeter, the Christmas tree was a bit greener, and the snow whiter. This is our collection of the funniest, sweetest, and best of the classic Christmas songs ever, that will get you in the right spirit and get you the best compilation ever!
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