Silent Night, Holy Night: Songs for Hope

I was contemplating a couple posts for the remaining month...one that would feature some of my favorite cover versions of Silent Night and one that would be for Martin Luther King Jr. Day/Inauguration Day.

I have to say it's harder to find serious Christmas songs for the Inauguration. Some silly songs about black elves were about as close as I could find, or I could have celebrated the best in Christmas music by African American artists. Just not a whole lot of political Christmas songs that aren't novelty joke songs.

But I came across one track that was quite a delight: Joan Jett's take on "Silent Night." If you purchased the Christmas compilation Blackheart Records put out this past Christmas, you may have already heard it. Or perhaps you bought it and it's still stacked up in your CDs to listen to pile. Or perhaps you never knew about Joan's take on the song. It's receiving attention for using sound bytes from Obama, and other sound bytes from this past year's presidential run. It's a very interesting track, and it inspired me to combine my two planned posts: to celebrate MLKjr Day and the Inauguration by focusing on Silent Night cover versions.

Why not? Barak Obama symbolizes new hope for the nation, and for the world. This is not to compare Obama to the Lord Jesus Christ. Not in the least. In fact, it may be debatable if Obama will bring the change that people expect of him. But even if it turns out to be more of the same politics, his election signals a realization of a hope that was only dreamed of 40 years ago. Silent Night is a song that celebrates one night when the world changed, when hope that was once dreamed of was now realized. So while Obama may not compare to that night by a long mile, the ideals behind him being elected and winning the election by such a large margin is still quite inspiring.

I decided to do this compilation because I was trying to decide on what songs to put on this year's favorite cover version compilation and I found that I was choosing WAYYYYY too many versions of "Silent Night." To break up the mix, there are a few songs on here that are not "Silent Night" but revolve around the same theme. I think those songs kind of are a nice break to the run of "Silent Night" songs.

So, without further adieu...I hope you enjoy. There are reasons why I chose each song and for their placement in the compilation, but I will decline to comment on each song for now...I hope the work of the artists involved speaks more than I could write about them.

01-The Blackhearts and Special Guests-Silent Night
02-Mahalia Jackson-Silent Night, Holy Night
03-Big Maybelle-Silent Night
04-Dinah Washington-Silent Night [Brazilian Girls Remix]
05-Huey 'Piano' Smith & The Clowns-Silent Night
06-Rotary Connection-Silent Night Chant
07-Martha Tilton-Silent Night
08-Free Spirit-Holy Noel
09-The Medical Mission Sisters-Silent the Night
10-Aden - Silent Night
11-Joe Dolan-Silent Night
12-Bee Gees-Silent Night, Hark the Herald Angels Sing
13-Lisi-My Silent Night
14-Violet Burning-Silent Night
15-Dusty Wright-Christmas (Is Coming Down)
16-The Snow is the Rainbow-Silent Night
17-Mark 700-Silent Night (The Weapon of Love)
18-DJ Tabernacle - Enjoy the Silent Night
19-The Ravens-Silent Night
20-Simon & Garfunkel-7 O'Clock News, Silent Night

Santagold: The My Space Collection Vol. 2

You know you've been waiting for it, so phone the neighbors and wake the kids because IT IS HERE!!! The SECOND ANNUAL TWELVE MONTHS OF CHRISTMAS MY SPACE COLLECTION!

Whether you love, hate, or are ambivalent to the current state of My Space (my relationship with them is a love/hate one, actually) the fact remains that this is perhaps one of the few places on the 'net where I can find such a wide variety of Christmas music. Granted, the bit rates on the songs are not the greatest, which frustrates me. Other websites (not nearly as large as My Space, granted) can permit their artists to upload higher bit rate MP3s. So sound quality of some of these songs aside, I do feel that these are the rare singles of tomorrow. Some of these songs are only up for a limited time, and I've seen some bands remove them from their page the day after Christmas. Some of these songs are only released for the fans to hear online, and are not on any of the artist's CDs. So somebody has to curate what they can find, and while it's a long process to do so, it's quite rewarding in the end.

And in the end I had nearly 8 hours of music, well over 130 tracks, all compiled from My Space this year. I could have easily turned this into a "boxed set," and there are certainly tracks I left off this compilation that I REALLY wanted to include. As it is, two discs just isn't enough, but I guess having extras will make for some interesting compilations to share in the future. But I still say having to leave off some of the tracks I did is like leaving out the cranberry sauce from Christmas dinner. Oh well...we gotta do what we gotta do.

And what you have here is what I think is a pretty solid collection of music, and spans a good range of styles and has a little of something for everybody.

I took a cue from our friends at Sounds Familyre for the downloads...I chose to utilize the "widget" feature on box.net as I found downloading from Sounds Familyre to be MUCH better using this feature than downloading from any other site, hands down. I hope you find it much easier to use as well, and if you downloaded the Sounds Familyre Christmas comps in the past, then you already know what to do. If not...well, it should be self explanatory once you click your mouse on a title. If you have any problems, let me know. Just remember to right click over the song icon and you can select your options to play or download from there.

Also, just FYI....some of these songs (believe it or not) COULD have been on the Wayside Waifs CD! I won't name any names - you know who you are if you are reading this - but there are bands/artists listed here that I contacted personally to see if they could contribute and they never responded but then their Christmas song gets slapped up on My Space. Oh, I'm not bitter. I just mention it to show any potential artists/bands (and I know some are reading this blog...I get emails!) that I contact that it was a legit deal, and not spam as some suspected.

(And if you are an artist/band I contacted, I didn't check your profile to see if you had a Christmas song you withheld...I checked it because I was sincere when I said I loved your style and that I wanted to see what you could do with a Christmas track!)

You will also note there are a few New Years Day, Boxing Day, and Hanukkah songs here as well...I tried to make it a nice, varied collection.

The track listing:

Disc One
1) The Singles-New Year's Eve
2) A Smile and A Ribbon-Heavenly Christmas
3) Sean Porter Experience-Christmas Time Is Here
4) The Revelations feat. Tre Williams-It's That Time of Year
5) Huggie-Rockin' on Xmas
6) Dean Farnell-Why Don't Christmas Go Away? I'm Bored With the Wizard of Oz
7) Jace Blues-Christmas Time
8) Kja & the Jersey Cowboyz-Christmas Without You
9) Alyssa Bonagura-Come Back this Christmas
10) Hajen-Hajens Julsång
11) Ingrid Michaelson-Snowfall Kind of Love
12) Jimmy Robbins-Hurry Back to Me
13) Paper Route-The Sound
14) Sleeping At Last-A Cradle in Bethlehem
15) The Violent Husbands-Home Sweet Home
16) The Features-Christmas Wish Book
17) Mike Ryan and the Wabbits-Ah, It's Christmas
18) Poos-Bad Boys and Girls Club
19) Mid Knight-Christmas Star
20) We Know, Plato!-Christmas Ain't a Nursery Rhyme
21) Metro Jets-Jingle Jangle Christmas
22) Socratic-A Christmas Coal Carol
23) The Vonage-Kitten in the Snow
24) Brownie Points-Auld Lang Syne

Disc Two
1) Camera Obscura-You're the Only Star in my Blue Heaven
2) Jens Lekman-Run Away With Me
3) Wolfkin-Christmas Comatose
4) Steven McKay-Sounds Like Christmas
5) Said the Whale-This Winter I Retire
6) The Margarets-Christmas in a Northern Town
7) Bicycles-Snow
8) Jack Hayter-Blind Man's Fog
9) My Skinny Valentine-Christmas Crime
10) Oliver North Boy Choir-Blizzard
11) The Boy Least Likely To-The First Snowflake
12) The Leisure Society-The Last of the Melting Snow
13) The Teenage Prayers-Yuletide
14) Wave Pictures-We Dress Up Like Snowmen
15) Love It or Leave It-You, Me and this Christmas Tree
16) First Class Fever-Mary's Christmas
17) Champagne Riot-December Slopes
18) Captain Polaroid-You'll Never See Christmas
19) Amanda-Cookie Santa
20) Gravity Wave-Lil' Baby Isaac Newton
21) Koo Koo Kanga Roo-Seth Cohen
22) My First Earthquake-Fa La Freezing


Santagold Disc One


Santagold Disc Two


Thank you for listening and for reading!