In our final installment of Enter Snowman, holiday-music expert Jon Solomon—whose 20th annual 24-hour Christmas show kicks off at 6 p.m. ET!—shares a seasonal classic from the Boston-via-Iowa punk outfit The Law:
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The efforts of Clear Channel's programmers have probably helped you already get sick of holiday music, but there are many fine celebratory songs that would never cross their airwaves out there. To help cut through the clutter we've asked Jon Solomon, whose 20th annual 24-Hour Holiday Radio Show on WPRB kicks off at 6 p.m. on Christmas Eve, to offer up some seasonal cheer in MP3 form. Today's song brings together George W. Bush and John Lennon's Christmas wish for the world:
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The efforts of Clear Channel's programmers have probably helped you already get sick of holiday music, but there are quite a few seasonally appropriate songs worthy of your time out there. To help cut through the clutter we've asked Jon Solomon, whose 20th annual 24-Hour Holiday Radio Show on WPRB kicks off at 6 p.m. on Christmas Eve, to offer up some seasonal cheer in MP3 form. And you may be interested to know that he uses the phrase "early-'90s pop 45s" to describe the song he's brought our way today:
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The efforts of Clear Channel's programmers have probably helped you already get sick of holiday music, but there are quite a few seasonally appropriate songs worthy of your time out there. To help cut through the clutter we've asked Jon Solomon, whose 20th annual 24-Hour Holiday Radio Show on WPRB kicks off at 6 p.m. on Christmas Eve, to offer up some seasonal cheer in MP3 form. Today, he brings us a few Christmas tunes from the Delaware bands Walleye, Zen Guerrilla, and Bullette:
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The efforts of Clear Channel's programmers have probably helped you already get sick of holiday music, but there are quite a few seasonally appropriate songs worthy of your time out there. To help cut through the clutter we've asked Jon Solomon, whose 20th annual 24-Hour Holiday Radio Show on WPRB kicks off at 6 p.m. on Christmas Eve, to offer up some seasonal cheer in MP3 form. Today, he brings us a new take on a 19th-century Christmas carol:
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The efforts of Clear Channel's programmers have probably helped you already get sick of holiday music, but there are quite a few seasonally appropriate songs worthy of your time out there. To help cut through the clutter we've asked Jon Solomon, whose 20th annual 24-Hour Holiday Radio Show on WPRB kicks off at 6 p.m. on Christmas Eve, to offer up some seasonal cheer in MP3 form. Today, he brings us a track that eschews sentimentality for strumming:
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The efforts of Clear Channel's programmers have probably helped you already get sick of "All I Want For Christmas Is You" and that damned Don Henley holiday track, but there are quite a few seasonally appropriate songs worthy of your time out there. To help cut through the clutter we've asked Jon Solomon, whose 20th annual 24-Hour Holiday Radio Show on WPRB kicks off at 6 p.m. on Christmas Eve, to offer up some seasonal cheer in MP3 form. Today, he brings us TW Walsh's version of an old Christmas carol:
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The efforts of Clear Channel's programmers have probably helped you already get sick of "All I Want For Christmas Is You" and that damned Don Henley holiday track, but there are quite a few seasonally appropriate songs worthy of your time out there. To help cut through the Christmas clutter we've asked Jon Solomon, whose 20th annual 24-Hour Holiday Radio Show on WPRB kicks off at 6 p.m. on Christmas Eve, to offer up some seasonal cheer in MP3 form. (He also hopes that by supplying these songs, his myriad commenter-password reset e-mails will finally go answered.) Up first, we have a little bit of holiday jangle from Philadelphia popsters The Swimmers:
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All Hallows Eve is still a few weeks away, but one creepy crawly record that's getting a lot of pre-Halloween play here at Idolator is Soundboy Punishments, a two CD collection of singles from England's Skull Disco label that will be released on Rough Trade on Oct. 23. Run by gloomy producers Shackleton and Appleblim, Skull Disco's music blends the desolate, reggae-tinged sway of London dubstep with tribal house beats that are downright haunted and all sorts of phantasmic effects designed to wig you out on late night walks with your iPod. (Ghouls and rude boys might even be able to cut a rug to it.) And we've got two exclusive MP3s from the collection to get your weekend off to an eerie start:
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The L.A. band Army/Navy were pitched to us as a "new indie pop gem," and if there's one phrase that will get me clicking on the MP3s in my e-mail, it's that one. (Publicists, take note.) "Saints," which we've posted below, is a shimmery bit of jangle that sounds like the offspring of distorto-pop heroes Teenage Fanclub and Tiger Trap (the harmonies on the chorus make my knees weak); if you're into that, you should definitely check out "My Thin Sides," which is on their MySpace page and which sounds like a lost Orange Juice track that's had about 50 layers of distortion added to it. Seriously, I could listen to songs like this from now until the end of time:
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One of my most treasured flea-market finds ever was a three-dollar, perfectly preserved copy of the Young Marble Giants' 1980 album Colossal Youth that I found at a flea market outside of Philadelphia about 10 years ago; the album's full of quiet, spare songs that turned the idea of what sort of music could be considered "punk" inside-out, which only made the culmination of my quest even more sweet. (Cardiffians, which is curated by Idolator commenter/fanzine pioneer mike a, has an exhaustive amount of info on the band.) Youth was recently given the deluxe-reissue treatment over here (complete with a bonus disc of Peel Sessions) after being criminally out-of-print for way too long; we've posted the gently looping "Wurlitzer Jukebox," which is probably the album's most oddly catchy song, below:
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The Swedish indiepop duo Club 8 has been putting out laid-back, sweetly hummable music for about 12 years now, making the two members elder statespeople of the genre (and making me feel kinda old). Their forthcoming album The Boy Who Couldn't Stop Dreaming is their first full-length in five years, and if the track "Heaven" is any indication, their ability to turn bright guitars and gently swaying beats into scrumptious pop confections hasn't been ill-affected by the layoff:
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It's been pretty well-established that I'm lukewarm on "funny" cover versions of songs, and four years at a major Midwestern university have caused me to shudder involuntarily whenever the words "a capella" are uttered. So why am I so into Petra Haden's version of "Don't Stop Believin'"—which itself is part of an all-"guilty pleasures" covers album that's actually not 100% terrible? Maybe it's because any time I hear "Don't," I get reminded of my second-favorite Flash animation of all time, or maybe it's because I've been entranced with Haden's weirdly spooky covers before—her MySpace has her lovely take on "God Only Knows." Or maybe it's just because I have no memories of an army of Petras (wearing matching crew-neck sweatshirts, natch) interrupting my bleary-eyed cereal-and-Pepsi dinner. Either way, her ability to mimic Journey's keyboards is pretty fantastic, and I only wish she'd gone as all-out on the song's chorus as Steve Perry does:
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Ex-Moloko lady Roisin Murphy's solo debut Ruby Blue was my favorite album of 2005, a mix of torch songs set to sumptuous house beats and fuzzed-out electronic glam rock co-masterminded by click-and-cut sampler whiz Matthew Herbert, with Murphy's dusky diva voice as the album's true star. From the forthcoming, multi-producer sequel, Overpowered (due in October), "Modern Timing" is a little less quirky than anything on Ruby Blue, but compensates by being Murphy's most pleasingly direct slice of grown-up disco-pop to date, complete with Daft Punk voices as the Pips to her Gladys and strings to die for. If you can't listen to anything Madonna's done since Bedtime Stories without a single tear running down your cheek, this may be for you:
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Rogue Wave's third album, Asleep At Heaven's Gate, hits stores on Sept. 18, and "Lake Michigan" is the first track from it to make its way out to the Internet; it's a pretty, chiming song that's overflowing with harmonies and hand-claps. The file is kind of low-fidelity, but it actually adds to the song's starry charm—so snag it now, and save it for the mix CD that'll accompany your final, celebratory bonfire/shore trip/fire-escape sitting session of the summer:
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There's a little less than four weeks to go until this year's Video Music Awards—can you feel the excitement? even if, for me, it's more like a looming sense of dread?—and the NME is reporting that Mark Ronson is going to help out Timbaland as far as "musical director" duties go; he'll conduct the house band, which will be made up of some dude from Jamiroquai and the Dap-Kings. All well and good, except for the part where the NME refers to as "Amy Winehouse's band." Not to play fact-checking cuz, but come on—Winehouse doesn't even use that band all the time in your home country, NME. Where's the love for Sharon Jones, who has a new album with the Dap-Kings coming out next month? Maybe if Amy's still out of commission, she can step in last-minute, push Ronson out of the way, and burn through "100 Days And 100 Nights," so there'll at least be one watchable moment during the telecast:
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