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| "Do I look out of focus to you?" |
And here's the third of our Christmas Novelty Songs--hell, it's a cover of a Christmas Novelty Song that I cited in my last entry as The Last Great Perennial Christmas Single.Idiot Glee is from Kentucky, and are apparently the alter-ego of James Friley. Idiot Glee has also apparently made it a habit to produce a Christmas covers EP ever year; this rendition of the Wham! UK cover is from their first, An Idiot Glee Christmas. The female vocalist you hear is Ashley Crawford...and I guess as a cover, it's okay. It really doesn't do much to make it stand out. There is the sleigh bells, the Casiotone synth does give it a strange, swirly feel that's at turns very open and very claustrophobic, and Crawford's vocals have an odd quality all their own--when the male vocals come in for harmonic support, they're very startling...and to be fair, they also serve to give the rendition a slim golden chain-like anchor to that original 1980's version.
I don't know what else to say. As I was saying to a friend yesterday, the biggest reason who so many people (you know, like me) have grown to loathe Christmas music is that there are these three dozen or so songs that have been ossified into an Acceptable Holiday Canon...and musicians have spent literally decades just picking from this Canon and reworking them with only minimal exertion of creativity. And that's what Mr. Friley has done.
Incidentally, the EP is still available for a dollar here.
Sorry our little sidetrip into Christmas Music didn't end on a more epic note...but maybe next year....
No video for this one...but here's Mr. Friley and Ela Orleans from the same EP collaborating on the 'delightful' Christmas paen to Date Rape, "Baby It's Cold Outside."
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