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The sun is red like a pumpkin head
Dec. 8th, 2006 10:06 amTalking of Ms Love:
Darlene Love - Marshmallow World in which Darlene reinvents the winter landscape as a Hansel and Gretel/Nutcracker-esque world of sweets.
I'm not sure why The Phil Spector Christmas album remains so embedded in our consciousness; Elvis, Frank and Ella had all made Christmas albums that subverted the Christmas standard norm before Spector got in on the novelty Xmas record act. And there are some pretty dire efforts on it - The Bells of St Mary, and the frankly execrable Silent Night by Phil-the-alleged-murdered himself.
Maybe it was the extremity of it all, the way that the songs, ancient, modern and traditional all had the fat juicy Spector stamp all over it. Perhaps it's the fact that some of the songs are now the accepted standard - you can't do a cover of Sleighride without the Ronettes' ding-a-ling-aling-dong-dings in it somewhere. Perhaps it's the ridiculousness of it all - something Darlene Love acknowledges when she does a middle-8 rap in White Christmas about it being a sunny day in LA.
Whatever, the wonderfulness of the aforementioned Baby Please Come Home, Sleighride, Marshmallow World, there's The Crystals doing Santa Claus is Coming to Town and Rudoloh the Red Nosed Reindeer, Darlene (again) with her terribly jolly version of Winter Wonderland and the Ronettes sweet/paedophile-baiting covers of Frosty the Snowman and I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus and Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans redeeming themselves with Here Comes Santa Claus. It's as camp as Christmas.
Darlene Love - Marshmallow World in which Darlene reinvents the winter landscape as a Hansel and Gretel/Nutcracker-esque world of sweets.
I'm not sure why The Phil Spector Christmas album remains so embedded in our consciousness; Elvis, Frank and Ella had all made Christmas albums that subverted the Christmas standard norm before Spector got in on the novelty Xmas record act. And there are some pretty dire efforts on it - The Bells of St Mary, and the frankly execrable Silent Night by Phil-the-alleged-murdered himself.
Maybe it was the extremity of it all, the way that the songs, ancient, modern and traditional all had the fat juicy Spector stamp all over it. Perhaps it's the fact that some of the songs are now the accepted standard - you can't do a cover of Sleighride without the Ronettes' ding-a-ling-aling-dong-dings in it somewhere. Perhaps it's the ridiculousness of it all - something Darlene Love acknowledges when she does a middle-8 rap in White Christmas about it being a sunny day in LA.
Whatever, the wonderfulness of the aforementioned Baby Please Come Home, Sleighride, Marshmallow World, there's The Crystals doing Santa Claus is Coming to Town and Rudoloh the Red Nosed Reindeer, Darlene (again) with her terribly jolly version of Winter Wonderland and the Ronettes sweet/paedophile-baiting covers of Frosty the Snowman and I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus and Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans redeeming themselves with Here Comes Santa Claus. It's as camp as Christmas.
