WALL TO WALL CHRISTMAS BANGERS

NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL FESTIVITY

For all of my readers who celebrate it, I wish you merry Christmas, and for all who played Whamageddon, I hope you managed to avoid hearing ‘Last Christmas’.¹ Sadly, ‘tis the season for crap music these days, especially if you find yourself in any supermarket anywhere in the Western world (and probably beyond, now that globalism has spread desacralized mush-culture pretty evenly across the globe). In the interests of counteracting this, here are some of my favourite Christmas Bangers.

Arthur Cormack - Taladh Chriosda (Christ Child's Lullaby)

Taladh Chriosda, or the Christ Child’s Lullaby is a startlingly beautiful hymn from the Outer Hebrides, first transcribed in the 19th century. I first heard it in this arrangement, sung in Scottish Gaelic by Arthur Cormack, on a compilation CD entitled ‘A Celtic Christmas’ released in the 1990s. I was unable to find this version anywhere else on the internet, so I uploaded it. Often brings tears to my eyes, especially when I read the translated lyrics. Absolute banger.

Harald Foss - Draumkvedet

Credit to Adam Ormes for passing me this one. This is a Norwegian song, based on a visionary poem from the late Middle Ages. Recommended especially as a counterweight to all those Heilung clones distorting our perception of Northern European music.

Farya Faraji - The Huron Carol

Farya Faraji is one of my favourite interpreters of traditional folk and early music, with an impressive chronological and geographical breadth represented in his recording catalogue. This is a carol originally composed in the 17th century by Jean Brébeuf, a French-Canadian missionary. The first version was written in the indigenous Wendat language, and subsequently translated into French and English.

Type O Negative - Red Water (Christmas Mourning)

Here’s one for all you headbangers. One of the most infuriating things about modern pop music is the way it so often displays an obstinate refusal to deal with the reality of death. Christmas, as a midwinter festival (for the northern hemisphere) characterised by family gatherings, can be a particularly potent time to reflect on those we have lost. This song, based on singer Pete Steele’s own experiences of bereavement, is a frank and honest expression of grief at Christmas.

Andrew Lawrence-King, the Utopia Chamber Choir - Gaudete

While Alan Partridge might prefer the charmingly nasal Steeleye Span verison (“listen to this, it will blow your socks off”), I would still choose this percussive arrangement from Andrew Lawrence-King and the Utopia Chamber Choir. This is the first English carol we’ve had on this list, but not, in my opinion, the best; that title goes to…

King’s College Choir - The Coventry Carol

The Coventry Carol has a particularly personal significance for me, as we sang it at my brother’s funeral, about a month before this recording was made. The Carol incorporates an interesting bit of dissonance popular in Tudor music, as described by Howard Goodall, known as ‘false relations’, where the seventh-note of the scale is sharpened on an ascending melody and flattened on a descending, causing a clash when the two harmonic lines are combined.

What are your favourite Christmas Bangers? Leave a comment to let me know.

1. I didn’t, although the first version I heard this year had the altered lyrics “last Christmas, I gave you my kidney / but the very next day, you sold it on eBay”, which at least made for some initial novelty.