Ah well. What can I say about a Holiday season where I can walk outside without a jacket?
I can say this much: I have figured out why I don't like X-mas carols. I thought I was just being a curmudgeon, but the simple fact is: 99% of carols are crap, and the writing is not the blame, its the performers.
I realized this recently when I was in Sears during lunch break. They had the background music of X-mas tune, not too different than the 'All X-mas tunes' radio station that plays in the warehouse at work. Anyway, one song started up, with little more than a cheap drum machine and a synthetic guitar, followed by the most anemic woman singing the lines to 'Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer'. The term 'lack of effort' might start to describe the apathy evoked by this version of the song. The singer might as well have been singing with the lines 'Whatever the whatever-Whatever had a very what-ev-er'. I am now convinced there are several types of X-mas tunes:
1)
The Good, but overplayed. Some of these are really cool. Even the weirdest, with Bing Crosby singing duet with David Bowie is neat. As is Bruce SpringStein's 'Santa Claus is comin' to Town', along with a handful of others. These are fine tunes, but they get played so much you quickly get sick of them.
2)
The poorly written, thus annoying. Heaven help me..does anyone fucking LIKE 'Grandma got run over by a reindeer?! I was sick of this from when it came out in my childhood. Add to this mix the goddamn dogs barking jingle bells, that Damn X-mas Donkey song, and a bunch of others.
3)
Trying Too Hard Get some crooner, pretty boy, or latest variation on a Britney with a bundle of energy in the recording studio and they want to put their personal stamp on it. This is usually pretty lame, such as using their heavily modified in-studio voice (i.e. Ride the wild synthesizer) and the attempt to push some their own twist on the song. This is often something dumb, such as one crooner's adding of a few 'LA's to the Falalalala-la-la-la-la portion of 'Deck the halls'. Oh yeah. Real impressive. Sadly, about 90% of the 'Motown' versions of X-mas carols fall into this category. Most of them are faked modern motown, however.
4)
Not Trying This is where the majority of X-mas tunes lay. You can see it now: Soon to be breaking onto-the-scene Miss Flavor of the year is signing contracts in April when someone suggests a Christmas Album for later int he year. Wonderful idea! She thinks. More exposure! Fun times! Then she goes on her speed-fueled tour of assigned MTV sites and concerts and gets exhausted from lip-synching and co-ordinating dance routines. In late September the Label points at the calendar and tells her to get her butt into the studio to record them Happy X-mas tunes. First she's posed in front of a red background holding up a wreath and wearing white fur-trimmed tights and high boots. Then she's limo-ed to the studio and without much planning decides to just bark out a few of the more popular tunes with help from the beat machine and some old strings in the back of the hard drive on an mp3. The CD is pressed, and the fans buy it up. Whoop-dee-doo.
Am I ranting? I must be.
Things are not great. I don't know why but I have been really anxious at work for no legitimate reason. This morning I was on the verge of just marching out and saying the hell with it all. I calmed down by the afternoon, but there was no reason for such anxiety in the first place. I hate when I get this way. It might be some kind of minor burnout, I've had them before but usually without such spiking symptoms.
SaraBelle goes in for treatment tomorrow and I fear she needs it. She's been listless the past couple of days (she was good over the weekend) and she is breathing heavily. I hope this isn't a bigger problem.
