Let’s face some festive facts, shall we? Most contemporary Christmas music is tantamount to sonic root canal. Don’t even get me started. My feverish loathing for Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas is You” is well established, by this point, but it’s not just shrill Mimi. In Carey’s (anemic) defense, at least she had a hand in writing the fucking godawful thing – a stab at originality, when most artists seem hellbent on “re-booting” canonical favorites and holly-scented warhorses. I can’t even begin to pick my least-favorite of these, although I was in the Astor Place Kmart the other evening, dispatched on a mission to procure some thin-wire Christmas lights for our surprisingly diminutive tree (it looked bigger on the sidewalk, honest), and was subjected to a seemingly endless dance remix of Christina Aguilera’s nauseatingly melismatic rendition of “The Christmas Song” (“Chestnuts RooooOOOooOOOOAAsssting on an Oh-whoa-whoooooapen FiiIiIIIIIIIIRrrrree….” etc.) that almost made me sharpen up the nearest candy cane to bloodily plunge into my own eardrums. That shit sucks. You know it. I know it. Hell, Christina Aguilera knows it. Humbug.
My friend Alexandra posted the video for “Do They Know It’s Christmas” on YouTube – which I’ve discussed here now and again – and asked for everone’s submissions of favorite Christmas tunes. Without a second’s hesitation, the track below sprang to mind.
Sure, the Ramones’ “Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want to Fight Tonight)” and Siousxie & the Banshees’ elegiac “Il Est N’est Le Divine Enfant” are both truly great, but I will forever swear allegiance to Fishbone’s frenetic tribute to “It’s a Wonderful Life,” because it’s simply goddamn incredible.
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