Last year, I shared with you Amazon’s 25 Days of Free Holiday Songs, a recurring promotion they have offered which features 25 free MP3s to download for the holidays. The good news is it’s back, and the mixed news is it’s about as good as last year’s batch. Continue reading
Kelly Clarkson has been a force in the more than a decade since she first became a star as the first winner of “American Idol.” Her career of course has sustained itself on the power of a continuous string of strong tracks and her beautiful voice (she could sing the phone book). She didn’t rest in 2013, releasing some new tracks, a greatest hits CD, and a Christmas album, “Wrapped in Red.” Continue reading
In our first entry of the second annual round of Christmas Present posts (click here for a recap of last year, or here for an explanation of what Christmas Present represents), I go to another well-considered take of the classic Paul McCartney tune “Wonderful Christmastime,” re-envisioned by The Shins for a record last year. Continue reading
Merry Christmas! For the past month I’ve compiled selections in the inaugural year of the Christmas Present project; across 10 entries more than 20 songs have been selected for a different kind of holiday playlist. Here, I recap them in the final hours of Christmas Day, and next year we’ll add more to the list. Continue reading
Our last Christmas Present of the year is the first recommendation to come from a Facebook friend and co-worker, Ashley, who shared some of her own selections with me recently and, added bonus, they were made available as free downloads this season. Of them, I love most her recommendation of a 2010 track from Fitz and the Tantrums, “Santa Stole My Lady.” Continue reading
The song “Carol of the Bells,” with its elaborate musical progression, opens up a lot of options for arrangement. As such, while I love The Bird and the Bee’s version a lot, this year Pentatonix has released a version I also very much enjoy. Continue reading
In my introduction to the Christmas Present series, I panned Christina Perri’s attempt at covering Karen Carpenter’s “Merry Christmas Darling” for playing it too close to the original, but without having the vocal warmth of Carpenter. Fortunately, Perri’s “A Very Merry Perri Christmas” (ugh, the rhyme), released this year, has a gem of its own. Continue reading
One of the latest Christmas albums, released this year, comes from Cee Lo Green, who’s been a pretty creative force in music the past few years. A few of his tracks have been added to the “Christmas Present” playlist this year. Continue reading
OK, so here’s something completely crass, but it fits the “fun” element of the playlist: a song found on a number of Bob & Tom Show collections, where the song originated. Continue reading
Today I introduce some of my favorite tracks from what has proven to be my favorite Christmas album since I began my “Christmas Present” experiement: Relient K’s “Let it Snow… Let it Reindeer.” (Nice pun.) The Christian band makes Christmas music awfully fun. Continue reading