Friday, December 24, 2010: Whitney Houston - Do You Hear What I Hear?

Christmas Eve.  Do you hear what I hear?

There are about a thousand songs I could have chosen for this day, but I had to start somewhere, right?

And I can think of very few, if any, better starting places than this performance of Whitney Houston on the Jay Leno Show, 1991.

This is pre- Whitney Houston. Pre-tabloid fodder Whitney, pre-Bobby Brown Whitney, pre-train wreck Whitney.

We are still in the era of number 1 hits like "I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)", "Where Do Broken Hearts Go" and probably one of the most stirring renditions of the Star Spangled Banner ever performed.

And pre- Whitney has, to this day, one of the greatest voices that has been recorded.  I'm not saying she's better than Ella Fitzgerald, but she's certainly breathing down her neck.  Whitney had "it", that magical component that elevates a talent up from merely very good into the stratosphere of rarefied expression.  Whitney had "it" in truckloads.

There are always up and coming singers who are billed as the next Whitney Houston.  Let me be clear.  There will never be another Whitney Houston.

And, yes, I'm using the past tense.  Whitney is still great, mind you, but that IT that she had is such copious amounts as all been squandered away by now.  Her voice is something different.  Like Billie Holiday in her later career, its a voice that carries a different message, expresses a different feeling.  Sings a different tone.

It kills me that I can't get a better recording of this, but a snapshot of the Mona Lisa is still looking at the Mona Lisa.  And a crummy YouTube capture of Whitney Houston singing, for me, the definitive version of this oft covered Christmas classic, is still Whitney Houston singing.

And that is as close to magic as we come in this season of magical wishes and visions.

Gentle Readers, thank you for all your support of this humble blog so far, and may you all have a blessed Christmas.

God bless you, every one of you.

CSOTD Bonus Edition: Otis Redding - White Christmas

The second post at the beginning of CSOTD was a live version of I Can't Turn You Loose by Otis Redding.

I said on that blog that someone wanted me to define cool, I would first point them to Miles Davis. But, the close second would be that Otis Redding performance.

Otis remains, for me, one of the Titans Of Cool. And that performance set the standard of this blog. I confess, I've been struggling to live up to that level of cool ever since that post.

So, therefore, it's fitting that we end the year as we started this blog, with the epic soul of Otis Redding.

I mean, who else could turn this stale, staid Irving Berlin tune into over flowing river of cool?

Only Otis, baby, only Otis.

Thursday, December 23, 2010: Run-DMC - Christmas In Hollis

Ok, after yesterday's songs, let's get back into a more of a cool party mode

And Christmas never got cooler than Run-DMC

Rhymes so loud and prod you hear it, it's Christmas time and they got the spirit

Word.

CSOTD Bonus Edition: Mormon Tabernacle Choir - Carol Of The Bells

Got's to have me some MOTAB for the Christmas Season.

I know, I know: how does this qualify for CSOTD, I hear you ask?

Well, for one, Carol Of The Bells is my single favourite Christmas Carol. It manages to convey a slightly haunting, almost macabre tone to it. It could almost be a Halloween song as much as a Christmas song.  On a dark winters solstice you can even hear some echoes of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells.

And, second, whatever you think of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, they are masters of what they do, and world class excellence is always cool.

So there.  Neener neener neener.

Don't like it, get your own frickin' blog!

Wednesday, December 22, 2010: Alison Moyet - Coventry Carol

The Gospel According to Matthew

Chapter 2, verses 16 - 18

"Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, was in a furious rage, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all the region who were two years old or under, according to the time which he had ascertained from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah:


"A voice was heard in Ramah,
wailing and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
she refused to be consoled,
because they were no more."

Dating from the 16th Century, Coventry Carol provides the perfect counterpoint to the happy, frivolous music that saturates this season.

It also allows us to see a oft-overlooked picture of what happened while baby Jesus was asleep at peace in his manger:

Herod, the king, in his raging,

Charged he hath this day

His men of might, in his own sight,

All children young to slay.

Most singers and choirs go high, whispy and flightly with this carol, but the truly great Alison Moyet gives a pitch-perfect delivery, conveying the weight of the material with a voice rich and mystical.

And, more than just recounting a past horror, this song gently nudges us to consider the holy innocents lost to senseless tragedy even today, among our parties and merrymaking and hallow calls for Peace On Earth.

This is a haunting, complex and very, very cool holiday song.  And those are very, very few indeed.

Tuesday, December 21, 2010: Thousand Foot Krutch - Heat Miser

I'm convinced that most of the animated shows I watched when I was a kid were produced by people deep under the influence of psychedelic drugs.

You can't hardly look at any of the shows by Sid & Marty Krofft and not come to the same conclusion.

I mean, Lidsville? Seriously?

The Christmas classic The Year Without Santa Clause is another prime example.  You can't watch the stop motion animation, or try to follow the exploits of elves Jingle and Jangle, without thinking that there was much, much more than egg nog in somebody's holiday mug.

Of course, the stand out character in the show wasn't Santa, or the elves, but the eternally awesome Heat Miser.

Who was Heat Miser? Was he an ogre? A demon? Just a harmless puppet? Whatever he was, he managed to nest into the subconscious of an entire generation, my generation. You can pin very few labels onto my Generation X, but I tell you what, brother, we all love us some Heat Miser

While many other animated cartoon classics are warm, heartfelt and faintly nostalgic, Heat Miser was a singing, dancing, bad ass nightmare you wake up from after eating too much pizza and ice cream and falling asleep to a Christopher Lee vampire film.

A lot of bands try to cover this straight. A lot of bands get it wrong.

God bless Thousand Foot Krutch, every one of them.

Monday, December 20, 2010: Louis Jordan & Ella Fitzgerald - Baby, It's Cold Outside

Is global warming a myth?

Who knows. All I know that unless you are in the southern hemisphere, it's cold outside. Baby.

And for a cool song to kick off Christmas week here on CSOTD, how can we even think of a warming planet when we've got the epic cool of Louis Jordon and Ella Fitzgerald.

Here is a holiday song often covered, but never bettered.

Enjoy.