Every Christmas — rather, in Christmases past, before my family surrendered to atheism and laziness entirely — my mom would bust out a collection, kept hidden for the other 11.5 months, of god-awful Christmas tunes sung by god-awful has-been or never-were pop artists, weird chamber outfits, and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, which, despite being good at the singing, still has the word “Mormon” in it.
So we’d sit with our coffees and egg nogs — non-alkie, aside from my own* — and listen to Conway Twitty’s rendition of “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer,” silently cursing the Midwestern Lutheran proclivities that make it too fucking hard to have fun at a family gathering.
Alright, its not quite that bad. But I do wonder how and why Christmas albums get made. I get the feeling they’re not all quite as well planned as Tori Amos’ Midwinter Graces, which dropped yesterday. See for yourself. Notice the words “research,” “Oxford Book of Carols,” “Peabody Conservatory,” and “theology.”
Big, grown up words there. Enough that I think I’ll check this out, keeping the bar relatively low, as one NY Mag commenter reminds us:
Tori hasn’t made anything worth listening to now in many years. Each album floats by like a wispy douche commercial, yet still leaves me feeling not-so-fresh.
*The day I discovered my mom keeps a handle each of Jack and Captain Morgan, both probably a decade old, for special occasions, Christmas not being among them, was one of life’s better days
Tori Amos put a modicum of thought into her Christmas album. That’s a headline, in my book.
Every Christmas — rather, in Christmases past, before my family surrendered to atheism and laziness entirely — my mom would bust out a collection, kept hidden for the other 11.5 months, of god-awful Christmas tunes sung by god-awful has-been or never-were pop artists, weird chamber outfits, and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, which, despite being good at the singing, still has the word “Mormon” in it.
So we’d sit with our coffees and egg nogs — non-alkie, aside from my own* — and listen to Conway Twitty’s rendition of “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer,” silently cursing the Midwestern Lutheran proclivities that make it too fucking hard to have fun at a family gathering.
Alright, its not quite that bad. But I do wonder how and why Christmas albums get made. I get the feeling they’re not all quite as well planned as Tori Amos’ Midwinter Graces, which dropped yesterday. See for yourself. Notice the words “research,” “Oxford Book of Carols,” “Peabody Conservatory,” and “theology.”
Big, grown up words there. Enough that I think I’ll check this out, keeping the bar relatively low, as one NY Mag commenter reminds us:
*The day I discovered my mom keeps a handle each of Jack and Captain Morgan, both probably a decade old, for special occasions, Christmas not being among them, was one of life’s better days