Holiday Beat
It’s almost Christmas. Santa’s no doubt gotten the oil changed on his reindeer and sharpened up their antlers. And an even surer bet is that I’ve been listening to a lot of Holiday music.
Holiday music covers a pretty diverse spectrum. Every genre of artist wants to get into the act, either because they love the holiday or because they see a chance to cash in. After all, you can even find Christmas albums by several prominently Jewish artists. And more than in most other types of music the novelty songs, the comedy songs, get a fair shake. The Chipmunks had their first success with a Christmas album. Everybody knows that Grandma got run over by a reindeer. And Christmas Rhapsody is one of the more amazing parodies that God and I have heard.
Even some “standards” are built around gimmicks. Consider “The Twelve Days of Christmas” and “The Little Drummer Boy.”
And that’s where I want to go off on a rant. I love “The Little Drummer Boy.” It’s an endearing little story with a fun approach and an approachable tune but I can’t say much for most versions of it. More than most Christmas songs, for some reason, performers like to bleed all the life out it. You’d think that groups with serious drummers would latch on to it and back up “pa rum pum pum pum” with some serious stick work. Instead what I keep running into is wimped out back up singers and pianos without punch, groups that seem to think that it’s amusingly ironic to do the song without a drum track at all.
Well it’s not. It’s pathetic. The Stylistics showed that you can do it with smooth vocals and still make it work, as long as you have a good drum track to back up the singers. But if you really want to hear the song done well, look up Bob Seger’s version. Now he showed that you can respect the source material but still make it live.
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