Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for December 22, 2023

There are so many it takes 365 days just to hear them all. I’m pretty sure there are stations in every city that starts playing them at Thanks Giving and they run until after New Years.

My favorite Jazz Christmas song is “I Bought You A Plastic Star For Your Aluminum Tree” by Michael Franks on the 1997 – Warner Bros. Jazz Christmas Party.

Acid Grunge rock is what’s required!

Back in the days before YouTube… or Spotify… or Sirius (or even Napster) I made a sort of Christmas ‘mixtape’ with selections from all of my different Christmas cassette tapes.

It was well received as an annual play on Christmas eve, into the years where I would join the folks for a cocktail in front of the tree before dinner that evening. But they never were too fond of my choosing Ray Charles’ version of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”, heh.

(I took more than one selection from Anne Murray’s “Christmas Wishes” album from 1981.)

For me it’s Sy Cranston and dancing the Christmas Twist!

Jazz is always good. And the Blues.

The only thing worse than Christmas music is commercials that rewrite lyrics to Christmas music.

Didn’t suggest polka?

Didn’t mention New Age .

Vince Gauraldi!! NOW!!

Didn’t Christmas begin the day after Thanksgiving?

I noticed that he didn’t mention Rap.

Elvis made some memorable Christmas hits but my favorite doesn’t get much air play, probably because it’s almost six minutes long:

https://m.youtube.Com/watch?v=M_ibLRdviUI

Quiet, that works for me.

And don’t forget the great 1979 Christmas classic by Elmo Shropshire, Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.

Is he talking to Alexa?

Today’s strip is disconcerting. JJ didn’t mention the winter solstice.

Jazz is working for Peanuts.

Got any klezmer Christmas songs?

Talk about more music styles, A & J, here ya go! What the world’s got, in plenitude:

acid rock

aleatoric music

alternative rock

ars nova

Australian Aboriginal music

bebop

bel canto

big band

bluegrass

blues

boogie woogie

Byzantine music

calypso

Caribbean music

Carnatic music

cool jazz

country

country and western

Czech music

disco

dixieland

early Baroque music

easy listening

electronic

Elizabethan music

Empfindsamkeit (mid-18th century Europe)

expressionism

folk

free jazz

funk

fusion

futurist

galant

gamelan music

gospel

hard rock

Hindustani music

impressionism

Irish music

Japanese gagaku

late Baroque music

Latin American music

light rock

mariachi

medieval polyphony

military music

minimalism

musique concrète

musique d’ameublement (“furniture music”—its first public performance given in 1920 by Erik Satie & Darius Milhaud, in a Paris theater lobby, music they didn’t want anyone to stop and listen to; its successor of a sort, the company Muzak, was founded in 1934)

nationalism

neoclassicism

new age

organum

plainsong

post-modernism

post-Romanticism

progressive jazz

punk

ragtime

rap

reggae

Renaissance dances

Renaissance polyphony

rhythm and blues

rock ‘n’ roll

rockabilly

Romanticism

Russian music

Scottish music

serialism

socialist realism

soul

third stream

Tudor church music

The various native north American musical styles

Venda music

Viennese classical

zydeco

and much, much, much more!

sigh, a back-in-the-day rant. I remember that after Thanksgiving, Christmas songs were sprinkled throughout the playlist. It wasn’t until the week before the big day that Christmas songs were played all day.

saw Elvis live in ’75…still the king

We’re into A Capella this year. Specifically Pentatonix.

That’s my dilemma most weeks: I have endless choice so I feel like I’m wasting an opportunity if I don’t find something different and good. And if I do find something I like, I’ll forget the details and not be able to find it again later.

I’m gonna go put on some AC/DC and turn it up loud, then perhaps Led Zep! Come on pretty momma let’s move it!

“Jawas roasting on an open fire, sandman picking at his nose,” And it goes on. I’ll not bore you with the rest of it.

No holiday playlist is complete without “Christmas with James Brown”. I especially like the cuts “Clean for Christmas” and “Mom & Dad”.

I like Spotify as I was able to create a playlist for my sister and I of our Childhood Christmas Memories albums with only one exception… the Do-Re-Me Children’s choir CHRISTMAS Album. It takes us back.

How about some easy listening music……

I thought Arlo was listing Christmas music by genre. They all have their takes.

Have you ever listened to Bruce Springsteen singing “Santa Claus is coming to town”? Absolutely dreadful.

Apparently Arlo hasn’t discovered the numerous heavy metal groups that have been doing Christmas albums over the last few decades.

Manowar’s version of “Stille Nacht” is actually on par with many choirs.

I love “Carol of the Bells” by ManheimSteamroller. Saw TransSiberian Orchestra’s Christmas shows twice.

Only fellow dedicated Christmas music junkies will fully appreciate this!

OK, Space Case, Thanksgiving, our national holiday is one word, without an acceptable alternate spelling or format.

Ugh glad it’s all over.

I listen to music on the radio a lot. The stations I listen to played a few Christmas songs, but did not overdo it. The Christmas music I listened to was:

Jon Moshier’s annual Christmas special on WDET (2 hours of songs you will hear nowhere else).My favorite Christmas LPs on my turntable (nothing you would be familiar with. Nonesuch Christmas (rennaissaince) and an album of nice brass instrumentals recorded in Columbus, Ohio in the 1980s).My 2 favorite Christmas CDs (Aaron Neville and Leon Redbone).Christmas music on CBC Christmas day.