The holiday season is the time of year where people are supposed to come together for peace and joy across the land, which we find excruciatingly boring because we are terrible people and are OWNING THAT. Why come together when we can needlessly turn trivial things into competitions? It's the American way isn't it? How else do you explain almost every game show in existence like "Silent Library" on MTV, where the crux of the show is people having to stay silent in, you guessed it, a library. Or the game show "Minute to Win It," hosted by Food Network D-bag du jour Guy Fieri, which we think his abysmal hair deserves its own co-hosting title as it does probably more work than Guy does on the show, where people try to complete all sorts of mindless tasks within yet again you guessed it, a minute.
And think about it, flip through any gossip magazine or scroll through any fashion blog and you will see the red carpet turned into a fashion throwdown as fashion writers constantly do "WHO WORE IT BETTER" polls. And really? Let us be honest for a second. 80 percent of the time the poll shouldn't be called "WHO WORE IT BETTER" but instead "WHO LOOKED LESS A MESS" since so many of the things that make it to the red carpet are a DISASTUH because everybody nowadays is aiming for edgy and forgetting that edgy is just ugly with a bigger budget and better public relations.
Since we as a society just are simply fascinated with turning even the slightest thing into a knock down, drag out competitions, we here at the Majak Kingdom wondered why we shouldn't do that to Christmas tunes? Not all Christmas tunes are made equal, that's for sure, and since some songs most definitely seem to be perennial favorites, you might as well pit them against each other in a CAGE MATCH TO THE DEATH.
First up, we take on the Donny Hathaway classic "This Christmas." As a young child, every year we made the trek from the La Crosse area to Chicagoland for Christmas to visit the mother's side of the family. Generally speaking, we weren't awake until just outside of Chicago when the magic of 107.5 WGCI came on and the glory of R&B Christmas hit us. And there is no greater staple of an R&B station during the Christmas time that Hathaway's "This Christmas."
Simply marvelous. First up in our little competition, Trey Songz stops trying to be R.Kelly for one split second of his career and decides to tackle "This Christmas."
We are just impressed that Trey Songz didn't add a verse about how this Christmas, he's going to be hitting it, flipping it and reversing it under the mistletoe.
Elsewhere, Patti Labelle delightfully oversings the crap out of this simple tune with her own rendition.
Apparently the whole song was recorded on a Casio keyboard? Maybe? It certainly sounds like it in all of its 1980s adult contemporary production quality.
Not to be outsung by Labelle, Christina Aguilera does her own spin of the song. And not unsurprisingly, the first 30 seconds of her version is just Aguilera caterwauling up a storm for no discernible reason other than she can.
Christina.....
We're pretty sure all Christina Aguilera songs would half as long if she just SANG THE ONE NOTE.
In this fight, it's easy. No version of "This Christmas" will ever touch the magic of Donny Hathaway.
Next up, it's the Carpenters vs. "Glee" as they tackle the tune "Merry Christmas Darling."
This one we'll actually say is a draw as both Karen Carpenter and Lea Michelle have amazing singing voices of different qualities. Carpenter has a very sweet, gentle singing voice that always sounds depressed even on the happiest of tunes. Michelle, for her part, is a lot more brassy usually but is able to keep that aspect of her voice in check for the most part on the song until the end where she tries to sing for the cheap seats in the back as per usual.
Next up, The Ronettes, The Jackson 5, Amy Winehouse battle to see who saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus best.
For us, The Ronettes version of the tune is always the definitive since people have ripped off the Phil Spector/Wall of Sound production for it. The Jackson 5 version somehow sounds like a mash-up between "I Saw Mommy" and Smokey Robinson's "Tears of a Clown." And Amy Winehouse's version is the most melancholic version of the tune we've ever heard as she sounds truly pained at the fact that Mommy sort of seems like a skank. I mean, think about it, the song is based around the idea that a child thinks their mother is a big ole cheating bitch to their father. It's basically grounds for therapy put to music.
And with that happy note, we end today's Yule Blog. Check back tomorrow when we celebrate special holiday episodes of everything from "The O.C." to "Rugrats."
Mr. Schue is totally excited for this.
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