I will admit it; I dislike most modern Christmas music. There seems to be very little Christmas-related substantial content in them; Mariah Carey\u2019s lyrics, say, are fluffy and insubstantial. Same with \u201cJingle Bell Rock,\u201d \u201cRockin\u2019 Around The Christmas Tree,\u201d \u201cLast Christmas\u201d\u2014they\u2019re not really about the holiday, they\u2019re about people doing things.<\/p>\n
Despite (or perhaps because of) my faith, I want my Christmas music to have substance. I like carols in Latin, sung by boys\u2019 choirs; I want brass ensembles and classic vocals.<\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s the matter of memory\u2026<\/p>\n
We had three Christmas albums in heavy rotation growing up, each of which we had multiple versions of over the years. There was Glen Campbell, Jimmy Dean, and the one I\u2019m focusing on today, Nat King Cole\u2019s The Christmas Song<\/i>. <\/p>\n
Music, to a limited extent, allows time travel. When I listen to The Christmas Song<\/i>, I\u2019m not a 55-year-old man who is currently defeated by a new artificial Christmas tree. Instead, I\u2019m 12, or 9, or 6\u2014my grandmother is still alive making rum balls, my great-grandmother is making the killer cheese spread whose secret died with her, and my mother is\u2014well, my mother is sane, which didn\u2019t happen very often but did, sometimes, around her birthday, Christmas Eve. Cole\u2019s music lets me remember the good about her, instead of the\u2014the other stuff.<\/p>\n
It doesn\u2019t hurt that this album is absolutely killer. Cole was at his best; on songs like \u201cDeck The Halls,\u201d \u201cAdeste Fideles,\u201d and \u201cHark! The Herald Angels Sing,\u201d his voice is bright and melodic, fitting in well with the brass-heavy arrangements behind him.<\/p>\n
He has softer moments as well. \u201cO Little Town Of Bethlehem\u201d and \u201cO Holy Night\u201d are heartbreakingly beautiful. \u201cGod Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen\u201d is drenched in pizzicato strings. And \u201cA Cradle In Bethlehem\u201d is simply the most beautiful Yuletide song ever recorded.<\/p>\n
Let Wham! and Brenda Lee go by the wayside for a while. Get yourself a drink, sit by the fire (or a recorded version thereof), and let Cole\u2019s golden voice take you to another place, when Black Friday was just a memory and there would be snow on Christmas\u2014accompanied by rum balls and cheese spread.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":34927,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7950],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-46797","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-nat-king-cole","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46797"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}