Think you know everything there is to know about music? Prepare to be blown away as we take a look at some of the most interesting, unbelievable facts about musicians and the music industry.
1. The song originally known as “Stille Nacht Heilige Nacht” comes home to Germany – mutated into three minutes of psych-rock riffing on the iconic melody, anchored by Jaki Liebezeit’s propulsive drumming. It’s innocent and instantly familiar, yet at the same time cerebral and strange. When Santa takes the Autobahn, this is his driving song. – ROBERT LEVINE..Listen here.
2. Most nonagenarians concern themselves with the wondrous world of fiber, but when late screen legend Christopher Lee turned 90, he unleashed a surprisingly crushing (and decent!) metal Christmas project. You don’t really know “The Little Drummer Boy” until you hear Saruman (or Count Dooku, if you’re more of a Star Wars Stan than LOTR nerd) intone “parrrRUM-pa-pum-pum” with all the eloquent relish of a British knight. – JOE LYNCH. - Listen Here.
3. A very slowcore Christmas? Low’s 1999 holiday EP is cold comfort you can sink into, the sonic equivalent of a sweater against the season’s chill, and the band’s version of “Little Drummer Boy” somehow ended up in a Gap ad (see it here). Stockinggaze began here. – R.L.
4. McCartney’s solo career has zig-zagged between accessible and experimental – think Wings on one hand, collaborations with the producer Youth on the other. But that doesn’t explain how this reggae-tinged instrumental take on “Rudolph” ended up as the B-side of “Wonderful Christmastime.” It’s hard to tell if he’s kidding – harder still not to smile anyway. – R.L. Listen here.
5. By the time William Shatner cast himself as Shatner Claus on a 2018 holiday album, he was fully in on the joke of his oddball sing-speak histrionics. But even knowing that, it’s hard to prepare yourself for the experience of Captain Kirk stumbling over the word “Donder” and telling Rudolph, “dude! you’re gonna go down, down man, in history!” while ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons – the only man whose beard puts Santa’s to shame – tears away on the gee-tar. – J.L. Listen here.
6. Naturally at some point Christian rapper TobyMac was going to release a holiday album, but you probably didn’t expect “Fireflies” hitmaker Owl City to swoop in and join him on a couple album cuts. The most confounding is their revamp of “The First Noel,” which melds Owl City’s earnest electropop with the sound of TobyMac getting turnt while shouting out Newsies and New Testament shepherds. The whole thing is as sickly sweet as your third slice of candy cane pie, but on the other hand, have you really experienced the reason for the season until you’ve heard “b-b-BORN is the King of Israel!” shouted out as an emo-synth rallying cry? – J.L. Listen here.
Weird cHRISTMAS Music History
The Vandals, “Oi to the World!”
“If God came down on Christmas Day… he’d say to every boy and girl, where’s the oi I gave to the world?” With “Oi to the World,” The Vandals’ Dave Quackenbush, a SoCal punk adopting his best/worst British working-class accent, spins an utterly bizarre holiday yarn about a punk named Haji defending himself against a racist skinhead on Christmas. They end up bleeding out on a rooftop until Haji “saw the North Star shining more than ever” and decides to save the aggressor’s life, subsequently drowning their differences in bourbon. No, it’s not exactly peace on earth, but it did attract the attention of No Doubt, who covered it for 1997’s A Very Special Christmas 3. – J.L.
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