| 1. Deck The Halls 2. Auld Lang Syne 3. Joy To The World 4. Oh Come All Ye Faithful 5. Up On The Housetop 6. We Wish You A Merry Christmas This masterpiece of mayhem is a super rocked-out take on everyone's favorite holiday classics. Lovingly produced with reckless abandon. Blazing jingle bells! |  |
Collecting music is a crazy gig, man. Christmas music even more so.
A lot of Christmas music obsessives were formerly employed in radio. One of the things that made them obsessive about collecting Christmas music, I find, is that the radio stations they worked for wouldn't let them do Christmas shows the way they thought they should be done. A lot of that has changed as radio stations fight to remain relevant in a time where so much media is at everyone's fingertips. But going back 30, 35 years, playlists were tight and formats were strictly enforced--even at Christmas...especially at Christmas.
Anyway, when former radio people become Christmas music obsessives, one of the things they are most delighted to find in the used record bins or the Good Will stores (or, these days, on eBay) are records of Christmas production music. It's weird, though, because production music beds tend to run either 30 or 60 seconds (and the always intriguing 10, 15 and 45 seconds). So they're not all that useful in a Christmas mix (unless you're dead-set on backtiming and producing a mixtape that is precisely 60 or 80 minutes). They're mostly instrumental, though finding some with tag singers at the beginning and/or end of the cuts is kinda the balls for people who dig them, even though that makes them even less useful in a mix (unless you're making your own commercials). But they are a treasure because they are relatively scarce and a fascination, but also for the same reasons certain Christmas music gets your motor running...nostalgia. Yeah, I've got several in my collection. I love 'em. They have that familiar smell of (deep sniff) the old production library. Ahhhh! Back in the day, most radio stations would pay an annual subscription fee to a production house and they'd ship you a bunch of new production records every couple of months (they'd tell you to "retire" the old ones, but, of course, you never did that).
These days, that's changed, too. Production music is mostly transmitted digitally. Booooo! No more production vinyl. And, because the music industry is also undergoing changes, a lot of it is being sold to the public...as if they were regular label releases. We've spoken about this before. I came across a real good one, earlier, but kinda lost track of it (if I find it again, I'd definitely recommend it...you know...if you're into that sort of thing).
Long introduction to a short EP. "Christmas Punk" is production music from Warner/Chappell which was created to be licensed for commercials and other production uses. Warner/Chappell has 9 brand new volumes of Christmas production music available for licensing this month (all digital), but "Christmas Punk" is the only one I've seen available for purchase by the general public. The musicians are anonymous--either house musicians or guys hired for the gig. The only "credits" given are for the songwriters and the arrangers (David Dykstra and Garrett Breeze).
The EP looks short, but that's because the full "album" (not for sale to you and I) includes dozens of variations and shorter workparts. The tracks each run between a minute and a minute-30. And, to be honest, I'm not sure how "Punk" they are, though they're certainly Rock. Here's another cool aside, production music often comes with very creative descriptors to make it easy for the Production Director to grab the mood he's looking for without necessarily having to listen. For example, "Auld Lang Syne" promises "rebellious and rowdy guitars" while "O Come All Ye Faithful" is described as "dramatically retro Kitsch Metal". (Kitsch Metal. Heh. I'm gonna use that.)
The tunes rock pretty good (in a...commercial kinda way), and there is certainly far worse competing for your Christmas collecting dollar. "Deck The Halls" is undeniably fun and I rather liked the rendition of "Up On The Housetop" here. The $1.29 per track seems a bit steep. But, hey, just letting you know that this is out there to be had. Maybe you're looking for a minute-10 intro track that says, "Hey, you friends o mine, listen to my damn mixtape (now 20% off)." It could happen.
A lot of Christmas music obsessives were formerly employed in radio. One of the things that made them obsessive about collecting Christmas music, I find, is that the radio stations they worked for wouldn't let them do Christmas shows the way they thought they should be done. A lot of that has changed as radio stations fight to remain relevant in a time where so much media is at everyone's fingertips. But going back 30, 35 years, playlists were tight and formats were strictly enforced--even at Christmas...especially at Christmas.
Anyway, when former radio people become Christmas music obsessives, one of the things they are most delighted to find in the used record bins or the Good Will stores (or, these days, on eBay) are records of Christmas production music. It's weird, though, because production music beds tend to run either 30 or 60 seconds (and the always intriguing 10, 15 and 45 seconds). So they're not all that useful in a Christmas mix (unless you're dead-set on backtiming and producing a mixtape that is precisely 60 or 80 minutes). They're mostly instrumental, though finding some with tag singers at the beginning and/or end of the cuts is kinda the balls for people who dig them, even though that makes them even less useful in a mix (unless you're making your own commercials). But they are a treasure because they are relatively scarce and a fascination, but also for the same reasons certain Christmas music gets your motor running...nostalgia. Yeah, I've got several in my collection. I love 'em. They have that familiar smell of (deep sniff) the old production library. Ahhhh! Back in the day, most radio stations would pay an annual subscription fee to a production house and they'd ship you a bunch of new production records every couple of months (they'd tell you to "retire" the old ones, but, of course, you never did that).
These days, that's changed, too. Production music is mostly transmitted digitally. Booooo! No more production vinyl. And, because the music industry is also undergoing changes, a lot of it is being sold to the public...as if they were regular label releases. We've spoken about this before. I came across a real good one, earlier, but kinda lost track of it (if I find it again, I'd definitely recommend it...you know...if you're into that sort of thing).
Long introduction to a short EP. "Christmas Punk" is production music from Warner/Chappell which was created to be licensed for commercials and other production uses. Warner/Chappell has 9 brand new volumes of Christmas production music available for licensing this month (all digital), but "Christmas Punk" is the only one I've seen available for purchase by the general public. The musicians are anonymous--either house musicians or guys hired for the gig. The only "credits" given are for the songwriters and the arrangers (David Dykstra and Garrett Breeze).
The EP looks short, but that's because the full "album" (not for sale to you and I) includes dozens of variations and shorter workparts. The tracks each run between a minute and a minute-30. And, to be honest, I'm not sure how "Punk" they are, though they're certainly Rock. Here's another cool aside, production music often comes with very creative descriptors to make it easy for the Production Director to grab the mood he's looking for without necessarily having to listen. For example, "Auld Lang Syne" promises "rebellious and rowdy guitars" while "O Come All Ye Faithful" is described as "dramatically retro Kitsch Metal". (Kitsch Metal. Heh. I'm gonna use that.)
The tunes rock pretty good (in a...commercial kinda way), and there is certainly far worse competing for your Christmas collecting dollar. "Deck The Halls" is undeniably fun and I rather liked the rendition of "Up On The Housetop" here. The $1.29 per track seems a bit steep. But, hey, just letting you know that this is out there to be had. Maybe you're looking for a minute-10 intro track that says, "Hey, you friends o mine, listen to my damn mixtape (now 20% off)." It could happen.
(Image of Capitol production record borrowed from A Christmas Yuleblog)
RSS Feed
