A Significance They No Longer Possess (redux)

To ring in the new year, I'm digging up and dusting off an old post that was inspired by some things I saw last New Year's Eve. The hoopla over the front-end Baby Boomers turning 60 this year was a bit much for me to take. In the original post (below), I expressed hope that sometime later in 2006, the media could "give some attention to the rest of us." That happened in a few cases, but 2006 was, generally, a very Boomer-centric year.

In spite of the fact that I'm quite critical of Boomers around here, I really don't have anything personal against any of them. I count many Boomers among my family and friends (including all my older siblings). But as a group, and as a cultural force, I really find them over-rated and overly celebrated in our society. That's why the title of this post was (and still is) "A Significance They No Longer Possess" -- one of my favorite titles from the last year. I have a prize for the first person who can tell me from what TV show I borrowed that phrase. No fair Googling it. And now, here it is:


New Year's Eve, I caught a glimpse of the future that was so disturbing, I've continued to ponder it ever since. Throughout the late evening, my husband and I were flipping channels between MTV, ESPN (yes, they had a New Year's Eve special), and New Year's Rockin' Eve on ABC. We saw Dick Clark's return to television, which was disturbing in itself (the best description I've heard was when Glenn Beck called it "heroic and sad"), but a commercial that soon followed is what really made me stop and think about the new year that was beginning.

Within moments of Clark's appearance, I saw a commercial for Ameriprise Financial which tells me: "This year, the Baby Boomers start turning 60. Some might say that's the end of an era. We say it's just the beginning."

Holy crap, I said out loud.

How frightening to think that the Boomer generation, which has lived as if it is the center of the universe since the 1950's, is going to continue to do so, even well into the retirement years. I wanted to jump up and scream at the TV, "It's not about you!" and I may have even done so.

Two other very important generations - Generations X (for which I could have been the poster child) and the Millennial Generation (or Generation Y) - are now impacting our culture in some very significant and positive ways, yet all we continue to hear about are the Boomers. Gen-X'ers and Millennials are highly present in the workforce and the marketplace, yet all we seem to hear about are Boomers who are scrambling to save enough to retire soon. Many X'ers and Millennials are parents now, and both are doing some unique things to change the work-family balance in our society, yet we hear more and more about Boomers discovering their role as grandparents.

As they begin to retire, Boomers are leaving the X'ers and Millennials a humongous mess to contend with, but society continues to celebrate them as if they invented sliced bread. (I had to look that up, just to make sure a Boomer didn't invent sliced bread, since it seems like they've gotten credit for darn near everything else that's good and right.)


For every step the Boomers have taken in life, our society has reacted as if Boomers were the first to do it - going to college, getting married, having children, sending kids to college, and now turning 60 and preparing to retire. In the first two weeks of 2006, there were numerous news features on the Boomers turning 60, including a series on ABC World News Tonight called "Boomer Breakthroughs." I hope sometime later this year, the media can give a little attention to the rest of us. The Boomers have made some very meaningful contributions, however, for every Bill Gates or Oprah Winfrey there is a John Tesh or David Hasselhoff. And as the Boomers near the end of their careers, our culture needs to shift focus to the next generations, or we're all going to be stuck watching 60-somethings moving into condos while a group of 30-somethings are changing the world. It's like ESPN staying on the Senior Open when the Cubs home opener is starting.

But even as they enter their sixties, the Boomers are refusing to let go of their younger image. One very prominent Boomer website is called Aging Hipsters. That name might sound cute now, but imagine a bunch of gray-hairs surfing over to that site to chat about incontinence or early warning signs of stroke. Some have predicted that the Boomers will make aging "cool" or "hip" - but I think if they aren't careful, they'll come off as kind of pathetic and awkward.

So happy birthday, Boomers, and now please step aside.

The Best Thing I've Seen All Day

Photo credit: Peter Thompson / Noggin

And you thought it would be a picture of my kids under the tree or something, didn't you? Feh.

It's Jon Stewart visiting Jack's clubhouse! Jon Stewart + funny hat + puppets = huge comedy. The folks at NOGGIN were kind enough to give me an advance peak at the new season of Jack's Big Music Show, so we have been in heaven here watching the season premiere and some of the fabulous new music videos that are set for 2007.

My concerns about the show trying too hard have pretty well been laid to rest. The only thing that I'm still not entirely sold on (and this is where my concerns really originated) is the video by Steve Burns from Blue's Clues and Steven Drozd from The Flaming Lips, called "I Hog the Ground (Groundhog's Day Song)". I kinda suspect it will air on or around Groundhog's Day. I watched the video alone first, and as I did, I predicted that my 6-year-old son would have difficulty with it. I was right.

It's a great song, and a fantastic video -- I have no complaints there. But seeing Steve out of context is kind of shocking -- maybe even disturbing -- for kids. And he's not just out of context in the sense that he's not on the Blue's Clues set wearing a striped shirt. He is Steve-but-not-Steve. He has a little bit of facial hair and a really short buzz cut (that seems to be masking some male pattern baldness, poor guy), and I almost didn't recognize him at first. Yes, I thought Steven Drozd was The Steve. What is unmistakably Steve about Steve in this video is that he works the camera just like he did on Blue's Clues. I've never seen anyone work a camera like this guy.

If I wasn't interested in staying on good terms with the NOGGIN people (because WOW, they sent me this really cool package of stuff about the new season and I feel like such an insider now), I would post the video on You Tube for you to see....mainly because I'm dying to find out other parents' reaction to this one. But we'll just have to wait for Groundhog's Day.

The rest of the videos I saw are fantastic -- AudraRox, The Quiet Two, Nuttin' But Strings (they're Walter's favorite, and oh my, these guys are amazing!) Lisa Loeb, Leon Thomas, and yes, I even kind of liked seeing a new video from the Laurie Berker Band. The new season will begin airing January 6.

Also, in other Jack news, there's going to be a live show touring in 2007. Not a lot of details there yet, but something to keep an eye on. Thanks, Danzel, for the link!

In With the New

The week between Christmas and New Year's is a time for getting organized. You can see droves of people out in the big box stores buying Rubbermaid totes and storage systems, envisioning a beautifully organized method of packing away not only their holiday ornaments, but also all the old stuff that has to be removed in order to make room for all the new stuff they got under the tree.

I haven't gotten around to organizing things at home yet. I could offer you many excuses. But instead, let me tell you what I have been doing.

I've been working on getting things organized around here. On the blog. Blogger (the system/service I use to publish this blog) recently added some new features, including labels -- or categories, as I prefer to call them -- for posts. I've been waiting nearly a year for Blogger to add categories, and I was thrilled to find that my approach of quietly grumbling to myself about this shortfall finally paid off. Because, you know, that technique has worked so well for me in other areas of my life. Really, it has.

But what does this mean to you, dear readers? What difference will categories make to you? It means things around here just got way more interesting.

When you read a post that has a category/label at the bottom -- let's say TV, for example -- and you find yourself wondering what other brilliant thoughts I've had on TV, you can just click that category/label to see other posts about TV. Also, you can look over there in the sidebar at the list of categories (these are just the more common ones), and click on any of them to get all the posts about music, music reviews, books and reading, etc. It's like the Dewey Decimal system right here on my blog.

Two notes about this fancy new technology:

1. I'm still working on categorizing a few posts.

2. Sometimes I will goof around with these category labels, like I did here or here. So don't be disappointed when you don't find 10 other posts about, say, Elvis spottings or pie.

A couple other changes on the horizon....I'm working on a plan to post more regularly about music -- maybe just one big music post/review/run-down per week. And I'm planning to post more mp3's for your listening pleasure.

I'll be writing more on some other sites in 2007 (more on that soon! it's exciting news!), but you can still count on plenty of fun and excitement around here. So stay tuned for a lovely and fabulous new year!

Merry Christmas to You and You and You...

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas, dear readers. Thank you for coming back time after time and for giving me such wonderful support and feedback over the past year. Thank you, especially, to my real-life friends and family who have cheered me on and said, "WOW, that's awesome!" even when you were thinking, "I'm not sure exactly what she's talking about, but clearly she's excited about some blogging thing again, and that seems to make her happy, so I'll go along with it."

Happy Holidays to all of you out there in Blog-land....it has been a pleasure reading you, getting to know you, meeting you, and collaborating with you on various projects throughout 2006. Thank you.

Happy Holidays to all of the musicians, publicists and other industry folks who have given me such wonderful material to discuss here, and who have been so gracious, appreciative, understanding, and fun to work with. It has been a joy getting to know you and your music.

Happy Holidays to all of your children. I hope you are enjoying wonderful holiday stories and songs and TV specials together, and having plenty of fun times just being together as a family.

Finally, here is some Christmas music to enjoy with your kids...plus a couple for the grown-ups.
"Deck the Halls" - The Roches
"We Wish You a Hairy Chestwig" - Ren and Stimpy
"Christmastime is Here" - Jill Sobule
"The Chipmunk Song" - Alvin and the Chipmunks
"O Holy Night" - from Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip

And for the grown-ups (but not terrible for the kids):
"Christmas Wrapping" - The Waitresses
"Merry Christmas from the Family" - Jill Sobule
(Family, if you're reading, this one is for you.)

Merry Christmas, everyone!!

A Very Brady Christmas

Brady Rymer is a children's artist I've mentioned several times around here. Although I haven't written a review of his 2006 album, Every Day is a Birthday, I do recommend it. Here is my mini-review: this album rocks. While it seems to have a fairly universal appeal to parents and kids, those who are fans of roots rock and/or alt-country sounds may like it best. In fact, I might go so far as to call Brady the John Hiatt of the kids' music scene.

So why am I talking about Brady today? There's a very good reason. Brady is the last of the holiday music guests! He has some excellent music to discuss, so read on and enjoy.


When I think of Christmas songs, I always return to the Motown collections: what a beautiful thing they did with their holiday records. They treated songs - classic and new - with great respect, and played them in the same beautiful spirit as their other hits. Full of spirit, innocence, soul, great playing, and joy. A perfect match for holiday music; to me, it just doesn't get any better than this music.

The ultimate classic family favorite for our family is A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector, with The Ronettes, Darlene Love, The Crystals; it’s just perfect. Beautiful, soulful, jingly, jangly, bringing back memories of holidays past… the sound of peace on earth, giving and love…what the holidays are truly about.

Other good Motown selections:

- The Temptations Christmas Card includes one incredibly groovy, funky “Rudolph”!

- Stevie Wonder's Someday at Christmas—both the song and album. What a song! The album includes beautiful originals and standards that capture the spirit of giving and peace.

It's been a tradition for me to listen to the oldies station while wrapping presents a few days before Christmas. My dad was never the best wrapper, so I would usually offer to wrap his gifts—this left me a lot of time to listen. They play those classics you only hear just once a year (and maybe for the better!). I really like Chuck Berry’s “Run Rudolph Run” and his “Merry Christmas Baby”—in that track, he says it all: “bought me a hi fi for Christmas, now I’m livin' in Paradise.” (I know that feeling: I remember the year when I got my brand new 1978 hi fi stereo, along with Fleetwood Mac's “Rumors”.)

Other songs it’s wonderful to catch on the radio: John Lennon’s “So this is Christmas”, Bing Crosby and Doris Day’s “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”, and Bruce’s “Santa Claus is Comin' to Town”. It’s definitely the time of year when individual songs carry incredible moods, love and memories; you gotta listen to the radio, so these songs can catch you by surprise and bring you back to a place you haven’t been in a while.

I also really love Willie Nelson’s Pretty Paper; you can’t help being drawn in by Willie singing laid-back classics like “Frosty” (with some great country harmonica). He does a wonderful job with the ballads as well. Great material for Willie and his band.

iTunes is making it really fun and easy to discover new Christmas songs; they've put together some great collections. One thing leads to another, and next thing ya know you've got a new favorite song! Like the compilation A Very Special Christmas 2 with a really nice Tom Petty track “Christmas All Over Again,” which I just came upon.

Just one last thought – of course, no holiday would be complete without the music from A Charlie Brown Christmas!

Spare the (Jingle Bell) Rock

Bill Childs, host of Spare the Rock, Spoil the Child, is today's holiday music guest, and I am clearly running out of clever holiday-related titles. With one of the most wide-ranging Christmas music collections I've yet seen (from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir to Jingle Punx), Bill has some great picks to share. Enjoy...


For us in the Spare the Rock, Spoil the Child household, Christmas begins and ends with A Charlie Brown Christmas. It's the first CD we play when we're decorating the tree and the last CD we play when we're taking it down. Predictable that a Gen-X family would pick it? Sure. But it's also perfect parts sentimental, funny, jazzy, and, well, Christmasy.

Besides Vince Guaraldi, the key CDs include Glenn Miller's In The Christmas Mood, which, through the magic of technology, makes us sentimental for a time decades before we were alive, Ella Fitzgerald's "Christmas", which is everything that was great about Ella Fitzgerald, and, of all things, Leon Redbone's "Christmas Island".

In recent years, we've added the strangely-unpunctuated Sinatra Crosby Christmas, with a photo on front that sure looks Photoshopped, and that, despite its name, doesn't actually have any songs on which both Sinatra and Crosby perform. (I should perhaps make clear that we're talking Bing, who, on the cover, is holding a dignified pipe, not David, who would presumably be holding a bong.) This year we also have added the instant classic New Orleans Christmas from Putumayo.

In less pop veins, Ella has been in the local ballet's production of The Nutcracker for a couple of years now, and we rather like the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra's performance of that, and I'm partial to the London Symphony Orchestra & Choir's Messiah from 1966. For big choral holiday music, we've got the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's Silent Night (which is, if memory serves, the only record I listened to when young that made this list - most of our music was LPs you could get from Texaco). And Shawn Colvin's Holiday Songs and Lullabies has some classics ("In the Bleak Mid-Winter", "Love Came Down at Christmas", etc.) done exactly as you'd expect her to perform them -- lovely, quiet, intimate.

But no survey of holiday music can be complete without the Jingle Punx. We've been playing at least one or two songs from them on the show for a couple of weeks now, and they really are better than a novelty band. I don't know a thing about their backgrounds, but it sure sounds like actual punk music versions of holiday classics. Their covers of Run DMC's "Christmas in Hollis" and Paul McCartney's "Wonderful Christmastime" are, in their own bizarre distorted-guitar way, heartwarming.

Happy holidays, everyone!

Big News from Jack's Big Show

NOGGIN released some details last week about the second season of Jack's Big Music Show. The most surprising news (to me, anyway) is the show will feature guest appearances by grown-up stars Jon Stewart (The Daily Show) and Cheryl Hines (Curb Your Enthusiasm). We'll also see a "video collaboration" by former Blue's Clues host Steve Burns and Steven Drozd of The Flaming Lips. My initial response is that Jack's producers and creators may be pushing the boundaries of making kids' music hip and cool and appealing to parents, and teetering on the brink of trying too hard. I'm very curious to see how it all plays out.

Musical guests this season will include Laurie Berkner, Justin Roberts, AudraRox, Music for Aardvarks, The Quiet Two (formerly The Quiet Ones) Lisa Loeb, and many more.

New episodes will begin airing January 6, and NOGGIN has put together a massive multi-media blitz to complement -- er, hype -- the show. In addition to sneak peaks on various wireless carriers (which became available this week), replays of episodes on Video On-Demand and on NickJr.com (beginning January 8), NOGGIN is also beefing up Jack content on their website with:

- downloadable clips from the series
- song books from the first and second seasons (yea!)
- music curriculum (hrmm....mixed feelings on this)
- Jack's Big Music Jamboree (an online game)

Finally, Nick Jr. Parents TV (an area of the Nick Jr. website targeted to parents) will stream a video segment with Laurie Berkner which includes an interview and "Do Together Music Making Tips." You can read full details on the new season here.

Now I have a better understanding of why season two was delayed -- there has been a whole lotta work going on behind the scenes. I just hope it was all worthwhile.

Of Otters and Fishes and Leg Lamps

Look! It's a mad rush of Christmas music guest posts! There are more...still more! Tonight's is from Eric Herman, whose album Snow Day (surprisingly not a Christmas/holiday/winter album) was released and reviewed back in the summer. Take it away, Eric!


Ah, Christmas memories... They really stay with you in a deep way. Like the one year when my little brother screamed so loud when they put him on Santa's lap... And that year when my friend got his tongue stuck to a flagpole... And the year I asked for that Red Rider BB gun with the compass in the stock and that thing that tells time and then accidentally shot myself in the eye... Er, wait a minute... Hmmm... I guess I should probably stop watching all 24 hours of the Christmas Story marathon every year. I'm starting to get those events mixed up with my own actual Christmas memories.

But regardless, Christmas has always been an enjoyable time for me, even with all of its hectic running around and commercialism and fruitcakiness. It may have helped that I grew up in Buffalo where we were frequently walking and shoveling in a winter wonderland. For some reason, a nice fresh eight foot high pile of snow can really help you feel that holiday spirit. And I think the music of Christmas has also had a lot to do with how well I connect with the season.

In my opinion, some of the greatest songs ever of any kind are the hymns of Christmas. Most significantly, there are the profoundly stirring songs like "Silent Night" and "O Holy Night". Although "Silent Night" is deeply moving with almost anybody singing it, "O Holy Night" kind of depends on a particularly good singer to pull it off. For example, I may appreciate their original material, but I don't think I'd want to hear Bob Dylan or Leonard Cohen attempting to sing "O Holy Night". And on the more upbeat side, "Carol of the Bells" has really cool riffs and rhythms that compare to the best progressive rock, and “Angels We Have Heard on High” has that wonderfully soaring counterpart chorus.

Then there are the yearly TV specials, which have yielded some true classics; the Burl Ives anthems “Silver and Gold” and “Holly Jolly Christmas” from the ever-watchable Rudolph show; the “Heatmeiser/Snowmeiser” songs from A Year Without a Santa Claus; “Hole in the Washtub”, “Brothers” and “River Bottom Nightmare Band” from Emmet Otter's Jugband Christmas; the Vince Guaraldi piano themes from the Peanuts special (used in other Peanuts specials, of course, but they always evoke the holidays when I hear them); “You're a Mean One” from The Grinch; and several others.

There are also a bunch of good miscellaneous Christmas songs, my favorite being the evocative rendition of “Santa Baby” by Eartha Kitt. I also like some of the melodic crooner songs like “White Christmas” and “The Christmas Song” (by the way, Mel Torme “shot” me with his finger gun at a concert once... how cool is that?!), but one thing I'm not fond of is the proliferation of crooner Christmas songs that seem to be on the radio, where every other song has some syrupy croonerish take on it. Merely singing a song with some smarmy Sinatra-esque phrasing doesn't necessarily make it "Sinatra cool" (which is why I groan every time a new crooner is introduced on American Idol). There are some good novelty and parody Christmas songs like “I Am Santa Claus” (parody of “Iron Man”) and “The Restroom Door Said Gentlemen” from Twisted Christmas, and “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” (though that one got old pretty quick). I've always been more of a John than Paul person, solo career-wise, but I like both John's “So This is Christmas” and Paul's “Wonderful Christmas Time”. And let's not forget "Jingle Bell Rock" and "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" and "Oh, Christmas Tree" and "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas". Ah, there are just too many more to list here, that's for sure.

I recently discovered a new favorite Christmas CD when I picked up Trout Fishing in America's Grammy-nominated Merry Fishes to All. It was a little weird to be listening to that for the first time in the middle of August, but it has a lot of great tracks that cover different aspects of the holidays, all written and performed with their usual high level of musicianship and humor. Favorite tracks of mine are the new take on “The Twelve Days of Christmas” called “The Eleven Cats of Christmas”, the elegantly jazzy “Snow Day”, the loot comparing silliness of “I Got a Cheese Log” and the bouncy ode to identical twin snowflakes called “Bob and Bob”.


So by and large, when the Christmas music starts getting pumped into the airwaves earlier and earlier every year, I'm okay with that. In fact, in the case of some songs, I wish I would also hear them at other times in the year. After all, it's always Christmas in heaven, which reminds me of that song from Monty Python's The Meaning of Life. Ah yes, so much great music to share, and share it I will with my family for years to come as we gather together every holiday season around the warm glow of my father's prized leg lamp.

Christmas Milkshake

Today, another guest post in the holiday tunes series. This one is from Lisa Mathews of Milkshake, whose new album I reviewed just a couple weeks ago. While most of these guest posts have left me wishing for a certain Christmas album, this one leaves me wishing I had been present for Baltimore's Night of 1,000 Elvises. Enjoy!


I grew up listening to Herb Albert and the Tijuana Brass' Christmas album, and every year it starts the season off for me, and instantly gets me in the mood. It also brings me back to my youth, when our home in Queens, NY would be full of guests. My parents loved to throw parties. I would crawl up to bed and fall asleep to the sounds of that Christmas album more often than not. So that is by far my favorite.

Second on my list is the Charlie Brown Christmas album for similar reasons. Instantly takes me back, and gets me in a Christmas mood. And then, I think of the Charlie Brown Christmas TV special, which is just about perfect, and it seals the deal.

Next comes Elvis, with his voice like no one else's. I performed at a benefit concert here in Baltimore some years ago. It was called "A Night of 1,000 Elvises" and was chock full of Elvis impersonators and bands doing nothing but Elvis songs. Since it was close to Christmas,
our band chose "Blue Christmas." I came out in a sequined gown and threw blueberry candy canes out into the audience while we did the song. Crazy fun.

How the Grinch Stole Christmas is always fun, a perfect mix of songs and story. If we happen to do a holiday show, Mikel and I like to give presents to kids who can answer Grinch-related questions or sing the Whoville Christmas song. Boris Karloff's narration is unforgettable.

Mel Torme's "Chestnuts Roasting O'er an Open Fire." Every year Mel makes me wish I had written that song!

Step Away from the Cookies

Since the holidays have so many of us (and by "us" I mean "me") distracted, I'm going to hold off until January to post any more music reviews. But I do have a few guest posts to roll out for you yet this week, and some other fun things to keep you entertained. If necessary, I will post photos of the delicious cookies I am baking.

Nah. I have something better than cookies.

This is a little ditty from Ginger Hendrix. Have a listen (those are her sons singing along with her, making her kind of like Shirley Partridge, except...um, totally not). She is perhaps the most hilarious children's artist I have yet heard. Her album, Macaroni Boy Eats at Chez Shooby Doo, was in my top 10 of 2006, and I've written quite extensively about why I love it so much. Ginger has her own blog, too, which is most excellent. If you still think you want cookies, go read her pretend interview with Barbra Streisand instead. Cookies have never made me laugh that hard.

No Comment

Are you reading the spectacular pop culture blog MamaPop? I'll be showing up there a bit over the next couple weeks -- so if you're not already a regular, you now have a fabulous reason to check it out. Here is my first appearance. More on the way.

I also recommend checking out the heated debate about the Wiggles that has been going on over at (sm)all ages. Is their music "incredibly annoying crap" or does it have some value? Bill and Stefan have weighed in on their own blogs. I'll let you all speculate as to why I'm not jumping into this one:

1. I dated Murray in college.

2. The Wiggles own me. And my blog.

3. I am collaborating with Captain Feathersword on a tell-all documentary (called Cold Spaghetti) and don't want to give anything away.

My husband (he has a Ph.D. and is therefore smarter than most of us -- just ask him, he'll tell you all about how smart he is) believes the reason so many musicians are bitter towards The Wiggles is that they didn't come up with this concept first. I believe he may be speaking from personal experience. Enough said.

A Zooglobble Holiday

More holiday music guest post-y goodness! Stefan from Zooglobble offers a peek into his Christmas music collection. It speaks of tastefulness, moderation, and finding good CDs stuck to the back of a cereal box. It also speaks of really amazing Christmas music that I didn't even know existed until I read this -- They Might Be Giants' Holidayland. (But this is a big part of why I planned this series of guest posts, so we could all have these kind of discoveries.) Read on.


Christmas gets asked to meet so many -- and conflicting -- expectations that it's really not fair to the holiday. Compare Christmas to, for example, Thanksgiving, a holiday for which everybody's pretty clear why we're celebrating it, and for which we have exactly one themed CD, from Williams-Sonoma, that gets virtually no attention at any point through the year, including Thanksgiving itself. Christmas, on the other hand, is open to so many different interpretations, spiritual, secular, and commercial, that it's no wonder that the number of Christmas CDs seems limitless.

We really like Christmas, but we also work hard to keep Christmas constrained and with some focus on the spiritual meaning of the holiday. One way we do that is by imposing a strict "no-Christmas-music-before-Thanksgiving" rule. My wife actually subscribes to an even smaller timeframe, but I'm happy with a 5- or 6-week window. Of course, Christmas CDs are sort of like kids' CDs in that there are maybe 15-20 songs that everybody knows. And so if you have more than a dozen Christmas CDs, you're likely to have at least 3 versions of a few songs, which gets old pretty quick, even if they're good versions. (Our daughter sings the first two lines of "Hark! The Herald Angel Sings" ad nauseam throughout the season, and then some.) Which is why we don't have a dozen Christmas CDs. We have exactly ten:

1. A Charlie Brown Christmas Original Soundtrack - Vince Guaraldi Trio: A stone-cold classic in both its cartoon and soundtrack form. How can something so secular be so spiritual?

2. Holiday Piano Favorites - Lorie Line and her Pop Chamber Orchestra: Line, who's well-known around the midwest, has a nice collection of religious standards done in, well, pop chamber style. What makes this CD unusual is that we got it off the back of a box of Chex cereal. Definitely the best cereal-related CD we've ever heard.

3. Hawaiian Slack Key Christmas - Various Artists: We really like slack key guitar.

4. Holidayland - They Might Be Giants: Can you say "completist?" We really, really like They Might Be Giants. But unless you are a Christmas song completist, the CD is for fans only.

5. The Carols of Christmas: A Windham Hill Collection - Various Artists: Sometimes you need your Christmas music to be unobtrusive. I'm not sure "unobtrusivity" is a word or a good quality in music, but this CD has it.

6. Ella Wishes You a Swinging Christmas - Ella Fitzgerald: I don't know -- I got this just after Christmas last year, and given our Christmas music window, I'm only now getting around to listening to it. But it's Ella Fitzgerald -- how can it be bad?

7. Christmas Adagios - Various Artists: Same deal as the Ella CD. I just felt we needed a fairly comprehensive recording of religious standards, soberly recorded...

8. New Orleans Christmas - Putumayo (Various Artists): This CD is being released this month. It strikes me that it will have a different tone than the Adagios CD.

But wait, the eagle-eyed among you say, that's just eight! Yes, you're right. I wanted to draw special attention to two others:

9. December - George Winston: Remember I said we observed a strict time window for Christmas music? Well, this album gets permission to violate it. Now, since the leadoff track is "Thanksgiving," it's not entirely crazy that it gets played at other times of the year. But it's mostly because Winston's spare piano work is so evocative of the winter season that it seems a shame to limit it to the month of December. January's cold, too.

10. Songs for Christmas - Sufjan Stevens: Are there a bunch of banjos? You bet. Are there renditions of Christmas classics? Certainly. But I can already tell that the reason that we'll be
listening to this many Christmases from now is that Stevens isn't afraid to take a shot at creating his own Christmas songs. Only time will tell if any of them are classics, but it doesn't really matter if they're not -- they're different, and amidst the sea of "Silent Nights" and "White Christmases," that's often enough.

The other thing I like about the Stevens CD is the essay by Rick Moody in the liner notes, which by itself is worth the price of the set. I don't want to quote from it here, because the power of the essay comes from its repetitive nature and its reveal in the final paragraph, but it does talk about the power of singing in this season. Most of these CDs I've listed remind our family of the joy that can come from singing. For Christmas is the one time of year in which it's acceptable for people to sing out, and in a family that's trying to sing out more often, it's nice to have others join in.

But wait! A bonus 11th CD!

11. How could I forget The Nutcracker, which I did in the initial draft of this piece? Maybe it's because there are no words, and it's the words that people usually remember about Christmas music. (It's hard to go carolling and sing the Dance of the Sugarplum Fairies.) In any case, we have a Naxos version of the complete ballet, which, frankly goes on a bit too long (I'd recommend sticking with a 1-CD highlights disk), but always gets played at this time of year. We dance to it, though we're not quite so graceful as our local ballet.

Friday Afternoon Video

I've mentioned before my career goal of being the Martha Quinn of a kids' music video channel, which I swear is going to materialize in the next two years. When my music video channel launches (see, now it's become my channel, as Disney and Noggin and the rest seem to be ignoring my advice), this is one of the first videos I will air: "Tricycle" by Frances England.

Hooray! Frances has made a video! And it rocks! After all, how can you possibly top lyrics like "Tour de France in my underpants"?

Bah Humbug, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Christmas Music

It's time for another guest to share some holiday music favorites. This little project has surfaced some incredible ideas -- Chag's New Wave Christmas, Audra's Squirrell Nut Zippers album and Have Yourself a Jazzy Little Christmas, Jefito's Phil Spector collection and amazing mix of downloads, Rebecca's Chieftans holiday album, and Frances' Sufjan Stevens Christmas box set.

Better yet, I still have a few more of these guest posts to put up here in the next 10 days! And I'm even going to give you a tiny peek into my holiday collection. As you might guess, there is a bit of cheese in there, but I promise I won't post any songs from A Partridge Family Christmas Card (yes, I own that CD). Unless you really want to hear some.

But now, without further ado, I give you Bryan Townsend of The Pokey Pup!


I will start by saying that I do not really like Christmas music. I get a lot of grief for that, especially from my wife who loves Christmas music. It all started when I was in high school working at a record store and then continuing to work at a record store through college and then owning a record store myself. Anybody who has worked at a record store (or any retail store for that matter) knows that starting November 1st it is all Christmas music all the time for two months. No other music exists during that time in the retail world. So, after the millionth time you have heard Mannheim Steamroller tear up “Little Drummer Boy” or have Kenny G bore you to death with “Silver Bells”, one can slowly start to despise Christmas music as I did.

My one saving grace was whenever I had a chance, I would slip A Charlie Brown Christmas by Vince Guaraldi in the disc player and all Christmas music sins would be forgiven. The soothing cool jazz groove of Vince Guaraldi’s Trio not only captures the fun spirit and charm of the Peanuts characters, but it provides a perfect backdrop for a festive holiday season. Listening to this album would always bring me back to my childhood of watching the television classic A Charlie Brown Christmas with my family. This is still my “go to” Christmas CD to get me in the spirit of the holidays and to make me forget all of the bad Christmas music that I have had to listen to over the years.

How do you make a Christmas classic even better? Fantasy Records has recently re-released a brilliant remastered CD version of A Charlie Brown Christmas with four unreleased bonus tracks. This version sounds much better than any previous versions ever released on CD. So, if you do not have A Charlie Brown Christmas on CD or are looking for a good gift, this newly remastered edition is the quintessential version of this timeless holiday music classic. It might even make someone start to like Christmas music!

Daily News and Cookie

The New York Daily News has an excellent feature on kiddie rockers Princess Katie and Racer Steve today.

And Cookie magazine highlights more of my favorites this month - Uncle Rock and Elizabeth Mitchell, along with Dogs on Fleas, SteveSongs, and Putumayo's New Orleans Christmas.

If you're looking for holiday tunes to share with your kids, New Orleans Christmas is a great one to add to your collection. It's the kind of music you could play while frosting Christmas cookies with pre-schoolers or at an adults-only holiday cocktail party, and either way it would be a huge hit. As the title implies, it's Christmas music performed New Orleans style -- jazzed up with plenty of swing, blues, and Dixieland. Making it even more fitting for the holiday season, a portion of the proceeds go to New Orleans Habitat for Humanity to support the Musicians' Village Project.

Another Top Ten

Since Stefan and Bill and some of the other Fids and Kamily judges have posted their lists, and since a few of you have asked, here are my own top 10 kids and family albums for 2006:

Frances England: Fascinating Creatures
Ginger Hendrix: Macaroni Boy...
Elizabeth Mitchell: You Are My Little Bird
Dan Zanes: Catch That Train!
Uncle Rock: Plays Well with Others
AudraRox: I Can Do It By Myself!
Justin Roberts: Meltdown!
Mr. David: The Great Adventures of Mr. David
Charity and the JAMband: Rock Your Socks Off
Princess Katie and Racer Steve: Songs for the Coolest Kids

Canada's Answer to Debbie Gibson

You can thank me later.

Stay Cool

I've been wanting to write about Baby Rock Record's series of Rockabye Baby CDs for quite some time. What held me back was that I didn't really want to listen to them.

And I still haven't listened to them. But since I'm not going to talk much about the actual music on these discs, I think that's okay.

What I would much rather discuss is Baby Rock Records' misguided attempt to appeal to the hipster parent market. And how they are making hipster parents (or "grups" or thirtysomething parents) seem shallow, self-absorbed, and scared to death that parenthood will make them uncool.

For those of you who are not familiar with the Rockabye Baby CDs, these are instrumental versions of rock songs, recorded mainly on mellotron, vibraphone, and glockenspiel. Each of the CDs covers a different band or artist -- including the Beatles, Led Zepplin, The Cure, U2, No Doubt, Nine Inch Nails, and (because no hipster parent endeavor would be complete without them) the Ramones.


As I mentioned, I have not listened to any of the Rockabye Baby CDs -- only the online sound samples. And I have not yet met anyone who owns one of these. If I did, I would seriously question their reasoning. This music seems to be for new parents who are insecure with their new role as a mom or dad and clinging desperately to the "cool" and "edgy" music of their younger years. They're afraid that if they stop listening to Radiohead or the Pixies, they will turn into Ned Flanders overnight. Unfortunately, this (trying too hard, not Ned Flanders) is the image too many people have of hipster parents and Gen X parents in general.

A post last week on Idolator is what really prompted me to finally address Baby Rock Records. Especially this:

And if you think that the new wave of thirtysomething parents is going to be different--that they're going to raise kids with both good ears and rebellious dispositions--you're forgetting about the baby boomers. They were the ones who talked a big game about keeping their counter-cultural spirit alive in the bloodline, only to start sending in checks to the PMRC when gangsta rap came along.

While I agree with the Idolator's assertion that (some of) today's parents are trying too hard to maintain their hipness and "indoctrinating" our children with cool music, I can't agree at all with the comparison made between today's Gen X parents and the Baby Boomers. I don't recall the Boomers ever talking much about "keeping their counter-cultural spirit alive in the bloodline" (except for fictional characters like Steven and Elyse Keaton on Family Ties), though that part about supporting the PMRC, well, yes, I do remember that.

In my view, Boomer parents immersed themselves in an artificially-constructed parent identity, complete with cookie-cutter suburban houses and conservative political views. For Boomers, part of being a good parent meant sheltering their kids from exactly the kinds of things they used to enjoy – rock and roll music, liberal politics, long-haired members of the counter-culture – and creating a 1950’s-like atmosphere for them. That's a far cry from the approach of most Gen X parents.

On the flip side, Baby Rock Records is also a far cry from the approach of most Gen X parents. Baby Rock seems to be targeting the small segment of our generation that is trying too hard to stay hip and cool (and, as a result, coming off as a bit desperate). But because many people don't see a distinction between the trying-too-hard hipster parents, the broader audience of hipster parents, and the even broader audience of Gen X parents, the Rockabye Baby CDs are reinforcing negative images of our generation and discrediting us as parents.

I'll bet my Brady Bunch lunchbox they were created by Boomers.

Elvis Was My Gateway Drug

Another holiday music guest post! Hooray! Another day I can slack off on writing anything really new or insightful. Hooray! I'll have lots more to say this week, but for now enjoy this: Chag from the very excellent Cynical Dad shares some of his holiday music favorites. The more I read from these holiday music guest posters, the more I realize this is a lot like giving people a Rorschach Test. Now let's take a peek into Chag's psyche, shall we?


When I was eight or nine, I heard Elvis Presley's "Blue Christmas" for the very first time and instantly fell in love. I begged my parents for the LP until they finally relented. I must have played that song nonstop that December. It was "Blue Christmas" that began my love affair with Christmas music.

I have purchased many Christmas albums over the years. I tend to shy away from traditional fare and instead gravitate towards Christmas music that is humorous, cynical, or offensive. And if I'm lucky, all three!

Here are four albums that deserve a spot in your Christmas collection:

Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics

If you're not a fan of South Park or are easily offended, this disc is definitely not for you.

South Park, along with The Daily Show With John Stewart, is one of the last great bastions of American satire. Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics manages to ridicule Jews ("The Lonely Jew On Christmas" and "Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel"), Christians ("The Most Offensive Song Ever," which hilariously lives up to its name), and every other religion in between ("Merry F**king Christmas"). There's a fair amount of filler on the album (songs like "Carol Of The Bells," "I Saw Three Ships," and "O Tannenbaum"), which I feel are just excuses to put other characters on the disc. But it's worth muddling through the filler just for the Meat Loaf-tastic "Swiss Colony Beef Log," Cartman's ode to his favorite holiday snack.

New Wave Xmas

This is a great Christmas album. This Rhino compilation features Christmas songs from Los Lobos, Squeeze, Throwing Muses, and XTC. Two of my favorite songs on New Wave Xmas are Timbuk 3's anti-violent-toy folk song, "All I Want For Christmas" and Wall of Voodoo's tale of a Christmas Eve massacre, "Shouldn't Have Given Him A Gun For Christmas." There's also perennial Christmas favorites like They Might Be Giants' "Santa's Beard," the David Bowie and Bing Crosby duet "Peace On Earth/The Little Drummer Boy," and the greatest Christmas song ever, The Pogues and Kristy MacColl's "Fairytale Of New York."

Unfortunately, New Wave Xmas is out of print, but you can easily pick up a copy on Ebay if you're so inclined.

Punk Rock Xmas

Another Rhino compilation, Punk Rock Xmas sports Christmas originals like Fear's forty-seven second ditty "*uck Christmas," openly gay punk band Pansy Division's delightfully lewd "Homo Christmas," Bouquet Of Veal's surf-punk inspired "It's Christmas," TVTV$'s "Daddy Drank Our Xmas Money," and the Ramones' classic "Merry Christmas (I Don't Wanna Fight Tonight)." Traditional Christmas staples aren't safe as The Dickies cover "Silent Night," El Vez takes equal parts "Feliz Navidad" and Public Image's "Public Image" to create "Feliz Navi-Nada," and Stiff Little Fingers spit out a country version of "White Christmas" before turning it into full-fledged punk.

If you're looking for something a little edgier than the usual Christmas fare, you should definitely check out Punk Rock Xmas.


We Wish You A Hairy Christmas

An album of Christmas tunes by hair bands! You know you can't resist it.

Warrant covers The Kinks' "Father Christmas," L.A. Guns weigh in with their version of the classic "Run Run Rudolph," and Gilby Clarke, one of the 3,689 former guitarists for Guns N' Roses, contributes his take on "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus." There are three cuts on We Wish You A Hairy Christmas that really stand out above the rest: Danger Danger's playful "Naughty Naught Xmas;" Pretty Boy Floyd's "Happy Family," a semi-cover of the Ramones' "We're A Happy Family" with more Christmas-centric lyrics and the guitar riff from Weezer's "El Scorcho;" and former Faster Pussycat lead singer Taime Downe's hideous industrial version of "Silent Night."

I'm biased because I love the genre, but We Wish You A Hairy Christmas is a very solid effort, minus Taime Downe's misguided contribution.

Consider This

All Things Considered aired a fabulous interview with Stefan from Zooglobble today. In case you missed it, NPR has posted the piece (with audio) on their website.

For those of you who landed here via NPR and Zooglobble, welcome! Take a look around, and check the new "About" section over there in the sidebar.

NBC's Plan to Ruin Christmas

In yet another example of how the media of our childhood is being re-packaged and re-sold to us and our children (like I've discussed a few times before), NBC is airing a two-hour live-action movie version of The Year Without a Santa Claus on Sunday night.

They've replaced adorable claymation characters with live actors, including John Goodman as (who else?) Santa, Harvey Firestein as the Heatmiser, and Michael McKean as the Coldmiser; and they've added a whole lot of something (dialogue? music? long pauses?) to stretch it from one hour to two. Why?

The original version, the one so many of us know and love, has held up incredibly well over the years -- much better than other TV and movies from that era. So why did they feel the need to re-make it? Again, why? I'm curious to see how they try to re-interpret this classic. For now, here's a little clip:

Waiter, There's a Tutu in my Milkshake

I'm not normally a fan of tutus. But Lisa Mathews, the lead singer of Milkshake, may be changing my mind.

Glancing through the liner notes of Milkshake's new release Play! I saw that I could order my own tutu (just like Lisa's) at the band's website. So I checked. They don't have my size. It seems the tutus are for kids, not adults.

Ah, well. I'll stick to listening to their albums. Especially this new one.

Milkshake writes amazing pop-rock songs that just happen to be for kids, and Play! is packed with 15 of them. These songs are musically sophisticated, super-catchy, and not at all formulaic. The lyrics are loaded with positive, nurturing messages, yet are happily without (much) sap. Many of the songs -- like "Pirates", "Home on the Range", and "Imagination Nation" -- encourage imaginative play in fun and intelligent ways.

Like their past albums, Play! is well-produced -- not over- or under-produced, but, like Baby Bear's porridge, just right. The full band sound is balanced and versatile. Standout tracks include the Beatle-esque "Imagination Nation", the irresistible "Bowling With You" (which somehow synthesizes Shawn Mullins' "Lullaby", Springsteen's "Born to Run" and handful of other songs...quite successfully), and the surprise Cal Ripken guest vocal on "Baseball".

My measures of a great album for kids are (in order of priority):
1. Does it make my children dance and/or sing along?
2. Does my six-year-old request repeated play of certain tracks, or the album itself?
3. Do I (happily) agree to repeated play?

Play! succeeded on all of these, which was actually no great surprise, considering my son is still singing songs from Milkshake's last album, Bottle of Sunshine. You can read more about Play! and listen to a few sample tracks here. Also, I'm including a little bonus right here (with Milkshake's permission, of course) -- the title track, for your listening pleasure.

I Give it a "Oh, Brother!"

Even though you wouldn't guess it from seeing his performance of Lazy Sunday, we're pretty selective about what we let Walter see on TV. Because he's so interested in comedy, we sometimes let him see a clip from Saturday Night Live. Our new favorite on SNL is Aunt Linda, a middle-aged culture correspondent performed by Kristin Wiig on Weekend Update. I love Aunt Linda for two reasons:

1. She is an eerily accurate portrayal of a LOT of the women in my family.

2. I can (kind of) identify with her, especially when she gives movies ratings like "Oh, Brother!" or "What?"

Here is her first appearance from earlier this fall:

Holiday Tunes from Audra

Audra Tsanos is the lead singer of AudraRox, a super-fantastic group out of Brooklyn. (I've written about her here and at Cool Mom Picks.) After reading her guest post, I realized Audra and I had some of the same Christmas albums as children. And by albums, I mean LP's. Vinyl. Actual records that play on a turntable. Amazing! Since she mentioned that December 1 is the official starting date for holiday music in her home, I thought tonight was the perfect time to share this. Read on....I love the variety of artists she mentions.


Growing up in a fundamentalist Christian family in Kansas, we didn't have much music in my house that was NOT religious. GOOD news - lots of great holiday music IS religious!!

I was always Mary in the Christmas pageant with the big solo, and in the adult choir doing the Christmas Cantata - the great story of Jesus' birth. My favorite Christian Christmas song by far is "What Child is This?" -- the haunting minor tune of "Greensleeves" with the lyrical mystery that asks who is this? what's happening? I do remember, though, that we had an old LP that had "Suzy Snowflake" and Snoopy's "Red Baron" on it, and somewhere along the way we acquired the Chipmunk Christmas album -- "AAALLLLLVANNNNN....."

And then I found my REAL home in Brooklyn, met my hubby Chris right away, and we made a family. We are not a religious family -- more spiritual pagans if you will -- much more in tune with seasonal solstice celebrations than biblical stories. We have always had a Christmas tree much too big for our tiny New York apartments. We love to do it up! Chris has a rule though, no Christmas music until December 1. What do you expect from a Jew from Queens?

Receiving a mixed CD of obscure Christmas tunes is a coveted seasonal gift!! (Thank you David & Nancy! Check out their kids' band - I mean with real kids - the Tiny Masters of Today at their myspace page). Pearl Bailey singing "A Big Ole' Box of Money", "Cool Yule" by Louie Armstrong, or Otis Redding singing "Merry Christmas Baby".

When I first moved here, I picked up a copy of Have Yourself a Jazzy Little Christmas on the street. It has Dinah Washington doing "Ole Santa" and Ella singing "White Christmas".

But I have to say our all time family favorite is the Squirrel Nut Zippers' Christmas Caravan. You have to check this out -- songs like "Indian Giver", "Winter Weather" and "My Evergreen" celebrate the winter season perfectly. Plus the Squirrel Nut Zippers are great ALL year long!

A little nerdy, I know, but I have a crush on Harry Connick Jr.! Love that New Orleans thing, and his song "It Must Have Been Ol' Santa Claus" swings!

Music is such a HUGE part of our family. My boys (10 and 8) are playing drums, piano, sax and trumpet these days. I think I'll get them to rock out a few seasonal tunes for the holiday parties this year!

Happy Holidays, everyone!!!