Friday, December 22, 2006

Alternative Christmas

On the way home from lunch & Christmas shopping, I heard Jimmy Eat World's "If You Were Born Today" on the radio. It caught my attention (so much that I called Jen ...) mostly because of the lyrics -- I think it's sort of rare these days to find artist-original holiday songs that are about Jesus/religious Christmas ideals. Well besides musicians in the Christian music industry. Anyway, it's an awesome song ... reminds me of Jimmy Eat World's Clarity days ...

So in the spirit of Christmas being three days away, here are some Christmas songs (new and traditional) I dug up from my iTunes. Most of the songs are from the Maybe This Christmas series.

My favorites on the list are Sufjan Stevens and Over the Rhine/Sixpence None the Richer. Sufjan Stevens' rendition of "O come" is sort of somber, but just wait until the "rejoice, rejoice" part and it's absolutely amazing. As with Over the Rhine -- I was a big fan of theirs years ago. I sort of lost touch with what they've been doing lately, but regardless, Karin Berquist's vocals will get you. What I really like about Over the Rhine is that every year, they have a Christmas concert in Ohio (Taft) and they usually have original holiday albums as well. This particular song was from their 2000 concert w/ Sixpence None the Richer. You can also listen to their new holiday album on their myspace ...
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1 comment:

stephanie said...

i love how your taste in music is awesome. or.. at least the same as mine. :)

merry christmas, ellen! you rock like no other.

5:12 PM

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