Tags
Fun., Gregory Pepper, Lannie Flowers, New Pornographers, Pugwash, Quiet Company, Rob Clarke and the Wooltones, The Monkees, The Pooches
Christmas music gets a bad wrap (pun intended). Some people seem to think that you can take any old song and throw a seasonal reference in and – voila! – holiday classic. Hardly. Every year an ocean of new Christmas songs hit the holiday beach but few have any staying power. There is something inexplicably magical about the combination of tune, sentiment, and bells that maketh music genuinely seasonal. Kinda like if tinsel and marzipan had a soundtrack. Fortunately, there are a few tunesmiths who still understand how to work the formula, with some of the finest featured here on our now annual holiday music post!
Nine. I don’t why or how I settled on that number but my three previous holiday music posts have all featured nine artists. Weird. Well, I’m not one to needlessly buck tradition so here’s nine more … starting with the amazing Lannie Flowers. Flowers is a longtime veteran of the power pop/indie music scene, charming audiences with his consistently Beatlesque melodic hooks. He returns this year with a remixed version of his 2013 holiday release, “Christmas Without You,” a song that nicely combines jangle with just a hint of country. Next up is a very modern take on seasonal themes, namely, that surely Joseph would have had some doubts about just what was going on with Mary and their miracle baby. Only the New Pornographers could pull off such content and they do on “Joseph, Who Understood,” a new holiday, sing-along classic. Proving their recent comeback Good Times! album was no fluke, the Monkees return this year with a whole album of festive music, with a similar crew of indie pop royalty providing the tunes and musical direction. There’s plenty of good stuff here but “The House of Broken Gingerbread” stands out for me as a superior poprock tune, written by celebrated author Michael Chabon and FOW’s Adam Schlesinger. I’m kinda cheating a bit with this next contribution from Gregory Pepper who just released his holiday-themed four song EP Tsundere. I’m treating his effort like a double-A sided effort, but one with four songs. Pepper’s work sounds deceptively simple but melodically and lyrically he’s a master of so many genre styles and a brilliantly funny and smart lyricist. Spend some time with these tunes. Anybody who can song-check both Macca (“Secret Satan”) and the mopey one (“Home Alone”) knows what he’s doing!
Lannie Flowers – Christmas Without YouThe New Pornographers – Joseph, Who UnderstoodThe Monkees – The House of Broken Gingerbread
Digging a bit deeper into our Christmas music bag, Pugwash prove they are the deserving inheritors of XTC’s brand of hooky, intelligent indie poprock with “Tinsel and Marzipan,” capped with a darling Irish-accented child at the end! Crossing the water to Liverpool Rob Clarke and the Wooltones Mersey up the Christmas music scene with a whole album of festiveness on Bring Me the Wooltones This Year! It’s a very Beatles-ish collection of serious and not so serious contributions, with new songs and old faves. The double-A single for me would be “Another Wooltones Xmas Record/Santa Claus.” It can’t be a Christmas tune-age roundup without a tender ballad of seasonal longing so now we head a bit north to Glasgow to hear from The Pooches and their simple song of needing to be with someone as the yuletide comes, “Christmas, With You.” Both stark and moving. Super poprock stars Fun. haven’t put out much in terms of albums but they did put out a holiday single shortly after their first album. “Believe in Me” bears all the hallmarks of that band’s winning formula: intriguing change ups in the song structure, toy piano solos, and plenty of hooks of course.Pugwash – Tinsel and MarzipanThe Pooches – Christmas (With You)Fun. – Believe in Me
Wrapping up this year’s holiday blog post (literally this time), something more traditional. Well, sort of. Quiet Company love the holidays and we’ve featured their stellar coverage of the traditional canon before. Now they’re back with a timely release that captures the distemper of the times with Baby It’s Cold War Outside. With song titles like “Merry Christmas, The President is Terrible” and “Alone on Christmas (You’re Going to Die)” the sense of seasonal dread really comes through. But the traditional themes of hope are there too with “Little Drummer Boy” and particularly on their original reworking of “Carol of the Bells/Setting the Trap.”
Dear readers, this past year you have given me the gift of your precious and scarce attention. I hope I’ve given you some poprock joy to carry you through whatever challenges came your way. Hey, I know, let’s do it again next year! Right now, why not give Lannie Flowers, the New Pornographers, the Monkees, Gregory Pepper, Pugwash, Rob Clarke and the Wooltones, The Pooches, Fun., and Quiet Company the gift of newfound popularity and check out these holiday offerings and their regular catalogue.
Merry ho ho to all!
This turn around the dial provides a blast of Americana in various forms, with just a dash of melodic British 1960s-influenced psych-rock.
Matt Whipkey’s Best New Music may just be. His 2017 release is a solid album, sprinkled liberally with melodic rock influences that range from 1970s to the 1990s. The most likely single, “Aliens,” kicks off with a killer Byrds-influenced guitar introduction, but then shifts to a nice country-infused lilting number a la Wilco in hit mode. “Danielle” is another song with a great roll-out introduction, this time exuding a more Springsteen vibe. “Amy You Are Everything” has a familiar diminished chord progression that attentive listeners will recognize from so many songs (for example, Lennon’s “Happy Xmas”) but melodically pulls on the more pop elements of Springsteen’s 1980s work, with some nice jangly lead guitar. And there are many more highlights. Whipkey has an enormous back catalogue which you can purchase from 
New Jersey’s The Mylars hail from that state’s Union City and named their debut album after the local record store, Melody Records. It makes sense because the record is an updated homage to that great period of American poprock, circa 1978-83. The band even offers up an inspired cover of the Cars’ “Let’s Go,” just in case you didn’t catch on. It all comes together on the debut single and video, “Forever Done,” with its wall of surging guitars and hooky, sibilant vocals. The single has a great AM radio-friendly rock and roll sound c. early 1980s, though without sounding derivative. In fact, the whole album is eminently listenable and would undoubtedly sound great live. There’s no protection from this kind of ear worm, thankfully.
Austin’s Quiet Company have always provided more adult fare at the poprock table, adding just a bit more depth and complexity to the three minute problems that conventional singles typically handle. Though lately they’re becoming a bit darker and noticeably less quiet. 2017 witnessed the band release two EPs rather than a more conventional album, each offering up a harsher sound and seemingly harsher view of human relationships and the world they exist in. It’s Not Attractive and It Changes Nothing came out in April and its opening track “Celebrity Teeth Poacher” sounded deceptively typical of Quiet Company, at least at first. 
Nice acoustic guitar and melodic vocals open the song but things turn a bit more discordant in the chorus. “On Single Moms” is a nice pop single, with some great horns appearing here and there. By August Your Husband, the Ghost arrived, featuring more complex, harsh textures and messages. Melody is still there, particularly on the epic “We Should Go to Counseling,” but the listener has to work a little harder to feel the hooks. This is a band going somewhere, though they’re honest enough to admit they don’t really know where.
Crossing the pond with our final spin of the dial, The Keepers mine that particular vein of British poprock that stretches from late 1960s psychedelia through a variety of 1980s and 1990s indie sounds. Their new single “Here Comes Spring” is a delightful mélange of 1960s organ and fuzzed out guitars, a decidedly more slick and radio-friendly sound than their more garage rock sounding (though no less delightful) debut album, 2015’s No Exit. How this fits into a new album is not clear yet but the single is very promising. While waiting for more new releases, check out the band’s catchy remake of the Fine Young Cannibals’ “Good Thing” on 
It’s almost like somewhere a gargantuan holiday music factory is just pumping them out, songs that are largely indistinguishable from the regular commercial fare but for their obligatory invocation of Santa, mistletoe, and snow. But buried amongst the dreck are always some well crafted seasonal tunes, if you’re paying attention. Over the past year I’ve set aside any good holiday material I’ve run across for this very special Hooks for the Holidays blog entry.
Let’s begin with that classy poprock elder statesman, Nick Lowe. Considering he once eschewed the idea of recording a Christmas album as ‘vulgar, tawdry commercialism,’ his finished product is pretty impressive. Quality Street squeezes subtle hooks out of clever covers and new material. Though Lowe was once the quintessentially mercurial poprock artist, he has honed a more laid back, almost jazzy crooner sound over his last few albums. Quality Street continues in this vein. Check out the instrumental backdrop to Boudleaux Bryant’s classic, “Christmas Can’t Be Far Away” – arranged to perfection like expert miniature painting. Other highlights include Ron Sexmsith’s “Hooves on the Roof” and Lowe’s co-written composition with Ry Cooder, “Dollar Short of Happy” (the lyrics on the latter are hilarious). A lot of critics like Lowe’s sardonic “Christmas at the Airport” but my faves would have to be the raucous reworking of the traditional “Rise Up Shepherd” and Lowe’s own quietly moving “I was Born in Bethlehem.”Rise Up ShepherdI Was Born in Bethlehem
We began the year with Quiet Company, an amazing band from Texas, so it seems only fitting to fit a few selections from their terrific 2012 seasonal EP, Winter is Coming in here. This band loves the holiday, as evident from the series of house concerts they are doing throughout their home state this month. Here you can see they excel at both commercial and traditional Christmas fare, delivering fantastic versions of both “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” and “Angels We Have Heard on High.”
Poprock Record 