[
        {
          "id": "posts-2026-03-two-year-anniversary",
          "title": "Two Year Anniversary!",
          "collection": {
            "label": "posts",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "vinyl, podcasting, music, collecting-music, banjo, anniversary",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/posts/2026/03/two-year-anniversary/",
          "content": "I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it’s our two-year anniversary! I know, I’m just as shocked as you!\n\n\n  \n  Two Year Anniversary!\n\n\nWhat started as a little experiment two years and twenty-four (admittedly inconsistent) episodes ago has grown into an incredibly fulfilling project and the most fun I’ve had with a hobby since the years I spent dragging my wife around Oregon, writing about craft beer and homebrewing. But that’s a story for another time.\n\nMuch like that previous stint in amateur journalism, this podcast has given me the opportunity to meet and interact with some incredibly awesome Christmas Aficionados. Not to be confused with Joe, the Christmas Aficionado, whose show just celebrated its fourth anniversary. Congrats Joe!\n\nI want to start off this anniversary post by thanking the Christmas podcast community.\n\n\n  \n  Totally Rad Christmas\n\n\nFirst, there’s Gerry D of the Totally Rad Christmas podcast. Gerry not only invited me into the Christmas Podcast community but continues to let me come onto his show and talk for way too long about ’80s Christmas movie soundtracks and obscure cartoons no one remembers.\n\nGerry, without your kindness, this podcast would not exist. It would have been a single, fleeting YouTube video and then maybe a post or two on Medium…or Substack…or whatever the kids are using now.\n\nAnd the same goes for the rest of the Christmas Podcast community. It has been the most welcoming, supportive group I’ve ever been a part of.\n\nA few more quick shout-outs to all the folks that have come on the show…or have invited me onto their shows…or I’ve just had the opportunity to bump into or interact with.\n\nThat includes:\n\n  Ken Kessler of the Sounds of Christmas\n  Jeff Loftin of the Lost Christmas Podcast\n  Sweet Timmy B himself, Tim Babb of Can’t Wait for Christmas\n  Alonso Duralde of Have Yourself a Movie Little Christmas, Linoleum Knife, Maximum Film, Breakfast All Day, Deck the Hallmark and the million other things he does.\n  Scott of the Holly Jolly X’Masu podcast\n  Robert at Behind the Bells\n  Charlie at Closer to Christmas\n  Alex at Twelve Songs of Christmas\n  Ashley at The Christmas Chapters Podcast\n  Mike at Advent Calendar House\n  Todd at Christmas Clatter\n  And the ‘Tis the Podcast crew, Anthony, Julia and Thom, who all host the definite Holiday podcast that starts with ‘Tis.\n\n\nAnd if you’re thinking, “Man, that’s a lot of Christmas podcasts,” that’s just scratching the surface.\n\nThere’s also:\n\n  Horror for the Holidays\n  The Christmas Morning Podcast\n  The TGI Podcast\n  Total Christmas Podcast\n  Christmas Cousins\n  Christmas Podding\n  Festive Foreign Film Fans\n  Season’s Eatings\n  Christmas Countdown\n  Tinsel Tunes\n  Christmas Every Day\n  Rose Suchak Ladder\n  Christmas Creeps\n  Weird Christmas\n  Christmas Past\n  Holiday’s After Dark\n  Snow in Southtown\n  12 Days Pod\n  Cozy Christmas\n  Merry Britsmas\n  Mary’s Merry Christmas\n\n\nAnd those are just the shows that have released a new episode between the beginning of December and whenever I checked the list.\n\nList you ask?\n\n\n  \n  ChristmasPodcasts.com\n\n\nThat’s the episode list over at christmaspodcasts.com where Sean, who also hosts the Christmas Podcasts Podcast does an amazing job keeping track of all the new episodes of all these incredible shows.\n\nI can’t overstate how awesome this community is and how grateful I am to have been a part of it for the last two years.\n\nSo, now that we have that long introduction out of the way, what are we doing today for our anniversary?\n\nI thought this would be a catch-up post.\n\nA lot has happened over the last year that hasn’t made it into the podcast or the blog.\n\nSo today, we’re going to cover a few of those topics. A bit of a peek behind the digital curtain.\n\nAnd we’re starting off with my Christmas Closet.\n\nNo, it’s not a new segment, it’s literally a closet.\n\nLast summer, my wife and I started renovating our home office but had to put that project on hold when we discovered water damage in our downstairs bathroom, which I mentioned in the last post.\n\nNow that we are on the other side of that impromptu project, and the bathroom-shaped hole in the floor is once again a functioning bathroom, we’re getting back to working on the office.\n\nPart of our plans for the office include setting up a permanent podcasting space…under the stairs.\n\nIt’s actually way cooler than it sounds. Our office has a big closet that runs the entire length of our staircase, including the landing area at the top of the stairs. Plenty of room to install a desk and my recording equipment, but still small enough to not cost a fortune to soundproof.\n\nAnd that’s pretty exciting. For the last two years, my podcasting has been, well, nomadic. The coffee table, the dining table, my mic stand hooked precariously through the steering wheel of my car during lunch.\n\nAs you can imagine, that comes with challenges.\n\nFor example, it took me three attempts to record the intro for the podcast episode. The first attempt was foiled by my dog repeatedly “thunking” his treat ball into the door. And attempt number two featured the vocal performance of a crow that posted up in the tree outside my window and seemed determined to caw every time I hit the record button.\n\nIn preparation for having a permanent recording space, I’ve also picked up some lights and camera gear. In the not-to-distant future, in addition to hearing me, you may also start seeing me in some videos.\n\nThat’s right Gerry, in a couple of months we’ll be closet recording buddies. Except your closet will still have 1000% more new-on-the-card Karate Kids action figures than mine.\n\nThe next thing I wanted to talk about is collecting music.\n\nAs someone who has a podcast dedicated to music, it would be a reasonable assumption that I have a large album collection.\n\nAnd I do. Well, largish. But until last year, I hadn’t added to that collection since the beginning of 2010, over 16 years ago.\n\n\n  \n  Swoon - Silversun Pickups\n\n\nI actually remember the exact day. My wife took me CD shopping for my birthday, and I came home with David Guetta’s One Love and Swoon by the Silversun Pickups.\n\nI’m someone who loves the whole experience of buying music. From flipping through albums, to making decisions based on the cover art, to the tactile moment you pop the disc into the player and listening for the first time.\n\nBut that time felt different. It felt like the rest of the world had moved on and there I was, performing some outdated, archaic ritual.\n\nI’ll go over this in more detail in an upcoming History of the Christmas Album episode, but the short version is that CD sales had gone from a peak of over 900 million units sold in 2000 to well under 300 million by 2010.\n\nPeople love to put the blame on Napster and other torrent services for killing music sales. The reality is that illegal music made far less of a dent in CD sales than the two technologies that immediately followed it. The first being Apple’s iTunes store, and with it the ability to buy any song for $.99. The second, as you’ve probably already guessed, early streaming services like Rhapsody and Pandora.\n\nThose two things not only cratered physical music sales, but they completely changed how people listen to music. The album was quickly replaced with the playlist.\n\nInstead of choosing to listen to a cohesive work of art, something you thought was worth owning, worth purchasing, or at the very least worth pirating, you just slam that skip button until you land on something tolerable. No investment, no intention.\n\nMaybe this is just me being an old man yelling at clouds, but I hate it. I miss listening to albums, I miss the ritual, I miss the intention.\n\nFast forward to the beginning of 2025 and my wife gave me a turntable for my birthday.\n\nIt was one of the best gifts I’ve ever received. It was also incredibly generous. My wife absolutely hates clutter, so, giving me a present that also implicitly gave me the green light to start buying and collecting albums took an amazing amount of selflessness…possibly foolishness…I suppose we’ll find out.\n\nSo, I started my birthday in 2025 exactly where I ended my birthday in 2010, buying music.\n\nAnd what have I been buying? Well, everything.\n\nA few albums that have been getting some heavy rotation over the last year include Passover by the Black Angels. It’s a modern, grimy take on pych-rock from a talented group out of Texas. Also, the Black Pumas, both their self-titled release and their Chronicles of a Diamond album.\n\n\n  \n  Departures and Arrivals - Curtis Harding\n\n\nEvery Curtis Harding album, especially last fall’s Departures and Arrivals: Adventures of Captain Curt. This was my favorite album of 2025. If you’re not familiar with Curtis, or the album, check out the tracks “There She Goes” or “Out In The Black”. Fantastic stuff.\n\nI’ve also been enjoying Ray LaMontange’s Ouroboros. It’s a fairly stark departure from the rest of his works. It was produced by Jim Jame of My Morning Jacket and you can definitely hear the influence on tracks like “The Changing Man”.\n\nLeon from Leon Bridges, a beautiful album, full of beautiful songs like “Laredo”. The same can be said for Black Velvet by the amazing Charles Bradley and backed by the Menehan Street Band.\n\nAnd of course, the latest album by Alison Krauss and Union Station, Arcadia.\n\nOne thing I can say, every time one of these albums hits the needle, or the needle hits it I suppose, it hasn’t been lifted until the entire album has finished playing. Both sides.\n\nI also picked up a new-to-me Onkyo SACD player from the late ’00s and have once again been adding to my CD, and now SACD collection.\n\nAnd something I learned: Used CDs are cheap, like ridiculously cheap. I’m not sure I’d ever purchased a used CD until last year, but I couldn’t believe it.\n\n\n  \n  A Very She & Him Christmas\n\n\nLast week, I picked up a like-new copy of A Very She & Him Christmas, complete with the little red envelope and Christmas card insert and the 1991 reissue of The Beach Boys’ Christmas Album for $.99 each. That’s amazing.\n\nThere we go. We’ve finally mentioned something about Christmas music in this post.\n\nThough it took us a while to get here, most of my vinyl and CD collecting has been Christmas music.\n\nThe first nine Christmas albums I purchased were the nine albums that contain the songs that make up the Disneyland Main Street USA Holiday Loop. Research material for a still-upcoming episode.\n\nThose were:\n\n  The David Rose Christmas Album - David Rose\n  Christmas Favorites - The Hollyridge Strings\n  Ed Sullivan Presents: Music of Christmas - Ed Sullivan\n  Silent Night and 13 Other Best Loved Christmas Songs - Lawrence Welk\n  Seasons Greetings - The Holiday Strings of Felix Slatkin\n  Merry Christmas - Raymond Lefevre\n  Sound of Christmas Vol 2 - Capitol Records (for the track “Caroling, Caroling” by the Hollywood Pops Orchestra)\n  Music of Christmas - The Hollywood Bowl Symphony Orchestra\n  The Rita Ford Music Box Christmas\n\n\nMost of my favorite Christmas albums come from the late 1950’s to the early 1970’s. Alonso and I touched on it briefly on his Merry Mixtape episode.\n\nDuring this period, you had all these great conductors, these amazing symphony orchestras, all releasing Christmas albums with remarkable, meticulous production quality. Lush, smooth and incredibly polished.\n\nAll the albums I just mentioned fall into that category, with the exception of the Rita Ford album, which is literally an album of antique music boxes playing Christmas songs, but we’ll dive into that on the upcoming Main Street USA episode.\n\nOne of the best things about collecting Christmas music, especially from this period, is that if you do enough digging, you’ll find some extremely pristine records for not much more than they would have originally sold for, over a half-century ago.\n\nIt kind of makes sense if we think about how Christmas records were used. People would play them a couple of times during the holidays, then put them away for the rest of the year. This often meant actually packing them away with the ornaments and decorations. They didn’t spend much time on the turntable and they weren’t constantly being handled like the Elvis and Beatles albums of that time.\n\nWith only two exceptions, I paid between $3 and $10 dollars for every Christmas album I just named, and each one was in excellent condition.\n\n\n  \n  The David Rose Christmas Album\n\n\nThere are definitely outliers. Both Christmas Favorites by The Hollyridge Strings and The David Rose Christmas Album were north of $20, and both were a steal at that price. You don’t often see either for less than $50 in decent condition.\n\nThe Three Suns’ Ding Dong Dandy Christmas is another one that orbits in the $50-100 range, though they have a couple other Christmas albums that, while not quite as good, can be found under that $10 price point.\n\n\n  \n  Just a Lonely Christmas (credit: Discogs)\n\n\nThen there’s what might be the most expensive Christmas vinyl, The Moon Glows 1953 Chance records single “Just a Lonely Christmas”. This 45 has “Hey Santa Claus” on the B-side, which appeared in the shopping mall scene at the beginning of Christmas Vacation. There isn’t any Discogs sales history for the original pressing, but the estimated market price, should one come up, is around $3,000.\n\nOutliers aside, there’s a lot of amazing, inexpensive Christmas music out there.\n\nAnother example, I recently picked up a first pressing, mono copy of Merry Christmas From Lawrence Welk. Again, research for an upcoming episode. I paid just under $10 for it and it is in immaculate condition for a record that was stamped 70 years ago.\n\nHere are a few of the Christmas music sellers that I’ve had a great experience with:\n\n  bloustar on eBay\n  stl_vintage64 on eBay\n  Invest in Vinyl\n\n\n\n  \n  Invest In Vinyl Sleeves\n\n\nInvest in Vinyl also has stores on both Ebay and Discogs and they produce the inner and outer sleeves I use on all of my records.\n\nAnd of course, check your local record shops and thrift stores. From my non-scientific observations, record stores seem to put out their Christmas stock around the beginning of November (though it never hurts to ask if they have more hiding in the back), while thrift stores seem to get an influx of donations right after the first of the year. Which…makes sense.\n\nI picked up both Christmas with Conniff and Season’s Greetings from Perry Como, both in good shape, from one of my local record shops just before the holidays for $3 each.\n\n\n  \n  Merry Christmas - Johnny Mathis\n\n\nAnd I’ve found several albums at the local thrift stores since the beginning of the year. Everything from super common artists like Johnny Mathis and Mario Lanza, to more obscure items like It’s Christmas by The Lexington Singers and Christmas in the Old World, a Philips compilation of traditional songs from different European countries.\n\nI plan on making videos talking about some of these albums once the closet is online, but I also want to create a way for folks to be able to follow along with my Christmas music collecting.\n\nWhich brings me to my topic.\n\nI’ve been neglecting this website for some time.\n\nEach time I upload a new podcast episode, I rework the script into a corresponding blog post, like this one. Like everything else, this takes time and the website has been running a couple of posts behind the podcast for several months now.\n\nBut, as of today, today being the day this post goes live, everything is caught back up.\n\nAnd, while I was updating the website, I also made a few tweaks and additions.\n\nIf you look up at the top, there is now an Albums category. Here you will find all of the Christmas albums in my collection.\n\nIt’s pretty basic right now, but as time allows, or as it ties in with future episodes and videos, I’ll be adding more information to the entries. Less like album reviews and more like a personal Wikipedia.\n\nI was going to talk about how we’re making a similar switch away from video streaming services and reinvesting in DVDs and Blu-rays, but it’s a lot of the same points we just covered, so here are the fast highlights.\n\nNetflix, gone. Amazon Prime, gone. Hulu and Disney+, not gone yet, but definitely on borrowed time.\n\n\n  \n  Peanuts Deluxe Collection DVD\n\n\nPopping in my DVD copy of A Charlie Brown Christmas and not having to deal with an Apple TV subscription, or timing their free viewing weekend is so, so much easier. And buying the whole Peanuts holiday collection cost about the same as a month of a single streaming service.\n\nPro Tip: Barnes and Noble has an after-Christmas Christmas sale and it’s a great way to add to your own holiday music or movie library. They carry a surprising amount of Christmas titles, both in store and online. All of it is 30-40% off after the holidays and you get to stack your normal 10% discount if you’re a member.\n\nI didn’t pick up any albums this time around, but I did grab DVD copies of It’s a Wonderful Life, White Christmas and the 1970 Scrooge musical with Albert Finney, along with Blu-ray copies of Meet Me in St. Louis and Holiday Inn, all for under $50.\n\nI was also going to talk about buying a copy of The Sandlot after I got tired of it repeatedly disappearing it from Disney+ when I wanted to watch it. But, it was really just a ham-fisted set up to the final topic tonight. My Grandmother.\n\nMy grandmother lived with us my entire childhood, from the time I was born until I moved out after high school. She wasn’t a particular fan of television or movies; she preferred to read. Books, magazines, newspapers, she was always reading.\n\nThat said, there were a few things she would watch. The Thanksgiving Day Parade…if it was on the TV she could see from the kitchen while she was cooking. The Olympics, both summer and winter. The World Series. That was about it.\n\nOh, and she loved Superman. She was really into the ’90s Lois and Clark show when it came out.\n\nShe also liked The Sandlot. She said it reminded her of growing up in South Dakota and the neighborhood kids playing ball in an empty lot in town.\n\nShe bought me and my brothers a VHS copy of the movie the day it came out. There was a release promo copy where you got a Sandlot baseball cap with it. It was a white cap with blue stripes and had the movie logo across the front. I actually found one for sale on eBay, for almost $200!\n\n\n  \n  The Sandlot Promo Cap\n\n\nAnyway, my grandma kept that baseball cap. I think it was originally just to keep me and my brothers from fighting over it, but then she ended up wearing it. For years. It was one of the hats she wore when she was working outside or working around the house.\n\nShe often paired it with one of those “I’m A Toys-R-Us Kid” sweatshirts that listeners of a certain age will remember. She would look for them when they went on clearance and had accumulated quite a few different colors over the years.\n\nI remember being out shopping with her and someone saying something like, “Aren’t you a little old for that shirt?”\n\nI’m probably going to butcher this, but her reply was something along the lines of, “You don’t grow up, you choose when to stop being a kid and I haven’t chose to yet.” The exact words have gotten a little fuzzy with age, but the sentiment has stuck with me since that day.\n\nMy grandmother passed away a few months ago.\n\nThe evening she passed, I was talking with my mom and one of my brothers. My brother was teasing me about having a Christmas podcast. You know, the normal stuff you do to fill the awkward silences while you’re grieving.\n\nHe had asked me something like if I was already listening to Christmas music. And before I had a chance to respond, my mom said, very matter-of-factly, “I’ve been listening to a lot of Christmas music,” which caught me completely off guard.\n\nShe followed that by saying, “I’ve been playing it for grandma. It’s the only music she liked. The old stuff, you know, the crooners, not that new stuff. That’s what she liked. We’ve been listening to it for the last few weeks. It’s been…nice. I mean, why not?”\n\nWhat my mom said hit me…hard.\n\nIt was sweet, it was vulnerable. It was a nice, comforting thought during a hard time.\n\nIt was also the perfect epitome of my grandmother. She was stubborn, she knew what she liked and she didn’t care at all what other people thought of it. Of course she wore a Sandlot baseball cap and Toys-R-Us sweatshirt well into retirement. Of course she listened to Christmas music in October, simply because there was no other music worth listening to. It almost makes too much sense.\n\nOver the last few months, I’ve really been thinking a lot about that and, taking a page from my grandma, I’m attempting to do more things I enjoy…or at least try things that I think I’d enjoy, even if they seem silly or embarrassing.\n\nIn other words, and probably much to my wife’s chagrin, I’m getting weird in my mid-40’s. Like, weirder than having a podcast dedicated to Christmas music weird.\n\nPutting myself in front of the camera, like I mentioned at the top, is one example of this. Another is learning to play a musical instrument.\n\nI never took band in school, mainly because I was too embarrassed to perform in front of other people. And that’s largely the same reason I haven’t picked it up as an adult either.\n\n\n  \n  Rover Banjo\n\n\nBut, in an attempt to overcome that fear, maybe be a little more like grandma, I asked my wife for a banjo for Christmas. An Irish tenor banjo to be precise. And being the absolutely wonderful person that she is and, once again putting me above her own sanity, she obliged.\n\nI am…not good at it. But I’m trying. And I’m doing it out in the open, where my entire family can…well, enjoy isn’t the right word, but they can definitely hear it. My goal is to be able to play a few Christmas songs in time for this holiday season.\n\nAnd that seems like a good place to end things tonight. Once again, thank you all for your support and encouragement over the last two years.\n\nCheers and miss you Grandma!"
        },
        {
          "id": "posts-2026-01-the-history-of-the-christmas-album-part-two",
          "title": "The History of the Christmas Album: The First Format War (1890-1925)",
          "collection": {
            "label": "posts",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "victor-herbert, thomas-edison, sheet-music, phonograph, peter-wilhousky, mykola-leontovych, music, leon-jessel, irving-berlin, graphophone, gramophone, emile-berliner, alexander-graham-bell, 78",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/posts/2026/01/the-history-of-the-christmas-album-part-two/",
          "content": "Today is our first post of 2026 and the second installment in our History of the Christmas Album Series: The First Format War.\n\nIn the last History of the Christmas Album post, we covered the rise and fall of sheet music from the mid-1800’s, on through the 1910’s.\n\nWe’ll pick up where we left off last time, or, more accurately, slightly before where we left off, and look at the period starting with the first commercial sound recordings in the late 1880’s and ending with the industry adoption of the 78rpm record in 1925.\n\nThis era saw a rapid evolution in sound recording technology, spurred on by the battle between Thomas Edison’s wax cylinders and Emile Berliner’s shellac discs to dominate the home market.\n\nAs we discussed in part one, sheet music, propelled by the new marketing and distribution techniques of Tin Pan Alley and the availability of cheaper, mass-produced pianos in the late 1800’s, experienced peak sales shortly after the turn of the 20th century. But, within two decades, the medium was in a free fall, largely due to the advent of radio and the growing popularity of recorded music.\n\n\n  \n  Edison Standard Phonograph (credit: Bubba73)\n\n\nThomas Edison introduced the phonograph in 1877. And while we could easily fill an entire episode on that topic alone, we’re going to try to stick to just the highlights.\n\nSoon after Edison unveiled his sound recording technology, Alexander Graham Bell’s Volta Laboratory introduced the graphophone. Bell’s device was based directly on Edison’s design, but the graphophone had several improvements, including a move from using tin cylinders to wax-coated cardboard tubes.\n\nNeither the phonograph nor graphophone was originally envisioned as a music playback device. They were designed to be dictation machines, used by businesses to capture, store and replay audio, replacing the need for stenographers.\n\nEdison quickly moved on from the phonography to other inventions, allowing a business made name Jesse Lippincott to purchase his Speaking Phonograph Company and exclusive rights to his patents. Lippincott also purchased a stake in the American Graphophone company and sales rights to the Graphophone. Through these acquisitions, Lippincott created the North American Phonograph Company and a network of offices to lease and sale both phonographs and graphophones as dictation machines.\n\nThe use never caught on, and Lippincott’s company would go bankrupt a few years later. But, during that time, an alternate use developed for phonographs and graphophones: the playback of pre-recorded music. This use also rekindled Edison’s interest in his own invention, and, in 1888, he released the “Perfected Phonograph” through his new company, Edison Records.\n\n\n  \n  Edison Records Ad (credit: Centpacrr)\n\n\nBuilding on Bell’s improvement to his original phonograph, the following year, Edison Records began releasing its own wax entertainment cylinders. These early pre-recorded cylinders were laborious to produce. Performances had to either be captured live, etched into cylinders in real-time or duplicated by playing a recording on one phonograph while other machines, connected by tubes, recorded copies of it. It was like a very early version of using two VCRs to rent and duplicate movies. Not that any of us ever did that…\n\nBetween the cost of cylinder production, their incredibly short lifespan (initially as few as 20 plays) and the high cost of the phonograph itself, devices were sold almost exclusively to nickelodeons. These were businesses where patrons could pay a small fee for entertainment. This ranged from short, silent films to live acts to the chance to witness the technological marvel of recorded sound and listen to music on a player.\n\nEdison’s technology continued to advance quickly. He refined the ability to mass-produce cylinders from a single “master” recording and the cylinder’s composition itself was improved, moving to a harder wax formula that could withstand hundreds of plays, not tens. These advances, along with the development of much cheaper phonograph devices that were targeted specifically for in-home use, ushered in the era of sound recordings in the late 1890’s, mirroring the rise of pianos and sheet music a few decades earlier. But it wasn’t just Edison’s wax cylinders that people were buying.\n\n\n  \n  Kämmer and Reinhardt Gramophone (credit: Wikimedia)\n\n\nAround the same time Edison was pivoting his interest back to the phonograph, Emile Berliner was introducing the gramophone. The gramophone leveraged technology similar to the phonograph, but instead of wax cylinders it played sound recordings from shellac discs.\n\nThough Berliner’s shellac discs held less audio than Edison’s wax cylinders, consumers immediately noticed several other advantages.\n\nBeing flat, gramophone discs were much easier to store than individually boxed cylinders. They were also generally more durable, and, unlike wax cylinders, which were completely covered with the recording surface, discs had a bit of unused room at their centers. The perfect spot for a label.\n\nThis might seem trivial, but it was quite a big deal. Initially, cylinders didn’t contain any information about the performance that was etched into the wax. That changed over time, first with information etched into the dead wax (the area of the cylinder that didn’t contain music), then with printed information on the edge of the cylinder.\n\nBut, in the earlier days of the format war, if your cylinder was separated from its box, you no longer knew who and what was on it, which is why they often included a spoken introduction of the artist and song.\n\nThere was also the ability to record on both sides of the disc. That was kind of a big deal as well, allowing for two unique tracks on a single piece of media.\n\nAll these consumer advantages, paired with easier mass production of media and mechanically simpler, less expensive playback devices gave the shellac disc a clear lead.\n\n\n  \n  Edison Gold Moulded Phonograph Cylinder (credit: M. Dupres)\n\n\nEdison did continue to improve the wax cylinder during this time, first with the “gold moulded” process to create higher quality, mass-produced media and then later with his line of superior “Blue Amberol” cylinders that swapped the wax for celluloid, a durable early plastic. But, seeing the writing on the wall, in 1912 Edison pivoted from the cylinder and released his own disc format, the Diamond Disc Record.\n\nEdison’s discs used the same vertical groove format as his wax cylinders, with the sound produced by the needle moving up and down in the groove. This gave his discs a longer play time and superior audio quality compared to all other disc manufacturers who used lateral groove discs, where the sound is made by the needle moving back and forth between the left and right sides of the groove.\n\nThis also meant that Diamond Discs were expensive and could only be played on proprietary, equally expensive Diamond Disc phonographs, which themselves were incompatible with discs from other manufacturers. This was Edison attempting a walled garden a hundred years before Apple, but without the massive base of cult-like fanboys needed to pull it off successfully.\n\nThat same year, Columbia Records, one of the largest independent producers of both cylinders and discs at the time, abandoned Edison’s platform to focus solely on gramophone discs.\n\n\n  \n  Edison Diamond Disc (credit: Wikimedia)\n\n\nEdison continued releasing both discs and cylinders until 1929, but from 1915 onward, all new releases were recorded for disc, with the cylinders being merely dubs, produced for customer who owned the now “older” cylinder phonograph players. This is similar to the early 2000s when record labels were still releasing cassettes of their tops artists, but they were clearly an afterthought. The first format war was over, and the winner was Berliner’s lateral cut shellac discs.\n\nThis coalescence of the sound recording industry around a single format also helped create and solidify a standard. The earliest discs were recorded at speeds varying from 60 to 130 rpms, though most fell somewhere between 60 and 90 rpms. Many players employed speed regulators or governors to allow listeners to adjust the revolutions of each disc to attempt to match the recording speed. In 1912, the Gramophone Company chose 78rpms as their recording standard and started producing new players that advertised this standard and had the governors pre-set to the speed.\n\nBy 1925, the 78rpm standard was being adopted by all the major record companies as their recording and playback speed. Wax cylinders had been dying for over a decade, but I consider 1925 the true end of the format war since it marks the point where the recording industry as a whole settled on both a single format and a single recording standard.\n\nThough it wouldn’t become commonplace for another two decades and was created mainly to distinguish the shellac discs of this period from the vinyl LP’s and 45’s that would come to replace them, this standardization is what led to the term “78”.\n\n\n  \n  Early Record Album (credit: CommonismNow)\n\n\nAnother important term that started appearing around this time was the “Album”.\n\nAs Alonso and I touched on briefly in his Merry Mixtape episode back in October, unlike wax cylinders, which were sold in boxes, early discs were largely sold in paper sleeves. As the format gained in popularity, photo album manufacturers saw an opportunity and started producing “record albums” to house and protect these discs. This was the great-great grandfather to those 300-disc Caselogic CD binders we all had in the late ’90s.\n\nOf course, record companies quickly jumped on the trend themselves and started releasing multi-disc sets in their own bound jackets around the same time.\n\nNow that we’ve looked at the battle of early sound recording formats, we can see if any Christmas recordings were being produced during this time.\n\nThe short answer is yes, and a lot.\n\nAn instrumental version of “Jingle Bells”, performed by banjoist Will Lyle is believed to be the first recorded Christmas song. No known copies exist, but a 1898 wax cylinder of the Edison Male Quartet performing “Sleigh Ride Party”, a variation of “Jingle Bells” has survived.\n\n\n\nBy the turn of the century all the major recording companies, including Edison, Victor, Zonophone and Columbia, were producing Christmas recordings.\n\nThe University of California Santa Barbara is home to the Discography of American Historical Recordings and, using their online search tool, I was able to find Christmas recordings in their archive all the way back to 1901.\n\nPopular early recordings included “Joy to the World”, “Silent Night”, “O’ Tannenbaum”, “Adeste Fidelis”, “Auld Lang Syne” and the aforementioned “Jingle Bells”…or “Sleigh Ride Party”…or “Sleighing Party” depending on the recording.\n\n\n  \n  Noel (O Holy Night) (credit: The Great 78 Project)\n\n\nAnother great resource for early Christmas sound recordings (or early sound recordings of any variety), is Archive.org’s The Great 78 Project, which now contains over 180,000 preserved sound recordings.\n\nOne interesting difference between this period and the one the preceded it: while there were plenty of Christmas recordings during this time, there wasn’t a lot of new Christmas music being created.\n\nI’m not sure if this was due to the shift from sheet music to sound recordings disincentivizing the creation of new Christmas music in favor or recording existing songs or if it was more a result of the general focus at the time on traditional hymns and carols, but it was hard to find new Christmas music between 1900 and 1925.\n\nIt’s also possible that was in fact new Christmas music, but none of it had a lasting cultural impact like the music of the periods immediately preceding and following it.\n\nThat was the answer Google’s AI gave me, though I think there are some flaws with it. As we’ve discussed, the first two decades of the century saw the proliferation of sound recordings. If there was truly a forgotten treasure trove of Christmas music from this time, there would be some record of it. Pun intended.\n\nBut I was hard pressed to find anything. In fact, the only new Christmas song I could definitively pin to this period, is 1909’s “Christmas-Time Seems Years and Years Away”, by Irving Berlin and Ted Snyder. Outside of that, we have to get a bit more creative.\n\n\n  \n  Nikita Balieff's The Bat (credit: Wikimedia)\n\n\nThere was “The Parade of the Tin Soldiers”, composed by Leon Jessel in 1897. But it wasn’t co-opted by the holiday season until Nikita Balieff’s vaudeville revue The Bat hit Broadway in 1922.\n\nBalieff’s show included a version of the song retitled to the much-more-Christmas-familiar “Parade of the Wooden Soldiers”. This version became wildly popular and led to several hit recordings throughout the 1920’s, including versions by Carl Fenton’s Orchestra, The Vincent Lopez Orchestra and Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra. The track became a bonafied holiday song when the Radio City Rockettes began including a version in their Christmas Spectacular in 1933.\n\nSimilarly, the songs “Toyland” and “March of the Toys”, both from Victor Herbert’s 1903 operetta, “Babes in Toyland”, didn’t have a strong Christmas association out of the gate. It wasn’t until the 1950’s that these songs started popping up on Christmas albums, including Jo Stafford’s Happy Holiday in 1955 and the 1957 album Christmas Music by the previously mentioned Vincent Lopez Orchestra.\n\n\n  \n  Babes in Toyland (credit: Disney)\n\n\nAnd we can’t not mention Disney’s 1961 film adaptation. For the film, Disney not only did a major rewrite to Herbert’s plot, but also tinkered with the lyrics and tempo of many of the songs to better fit the movie’s more upbeat, light-hearted tone. The final product was a far cry from Herbert’s original operetta, but Disney’s use of Christmas imagery cemented the music’s association with the holiday season.\n\nAnd then there’s “Carol of the Bells”…sort of.\n\nThe song started as “Shchedryk”, a Ukrainian Shchedrivka, or New Year celebration song, composed by Mykola Leontovych in the early 1900’s and based on a traditional Ukrainian folk chant.\n\nThe song tells the story of swallow that flies into a home to inform a family of their prosperous new year. And if you’re thinking that doesn’t sound at all like “Carol of the Bells”, well, you’re right!\n\nAfter touring for a couple of year, the Ukrainian National Chorus brought the song to New York City in October 1922, where they performed it at Carnegie Hall and recorded it for Brunswick Records. After this performance, the song was adapted by Peter J. Wilhousky.\n\nWilhousky rearranged Leontovych’s melody for an orchestra and changed the lyrics from a song about an auspicious bird to the now familiar lyrics about bells ringing because to him, the melody sounded like handbells. Wilhousky’s “Carol of the Bells” because extremely popular, in no small part because of his role as arranger for the NBC Symphony Orchestra which allowed him to get his song in front of a large audience.\n\nBut that all happened around 1936, a full decade after the period we’re discussing.\n\nAnd that’s it, that’s all I could find.\n\nBeyond sound recordings, Christmas sheet music was still being sold, albeit less each year. And Christmas songs were starting to appear on the radio.\n\nWhile it was nothing like the modern stations that do a full format flip to Christmas sometime in November (that didn’t start happening until the very end of the 1980’s), as soon as commercial licensed stations came on the air, around 1920, you could find familiar holiday tunes around Christmastime. This would have been a mix of both sound recordings and live performances, as most of the large early broadcasters employed their own live orchestras.\n\nAnd with that, we’ll end part two of our The History of the Christmas Album series. In part three we’ll look at how the introduction of the electric microphone ushered in the next advance in recorded music and explore the heyday of the 78, from the 1920’s to World War II.\n\nCheers and Happy New Year!"
        },
        {
          "id": "posts-2025-11-christmas-podcast-day-fishbone-its-a-wonderful-life",
          "title": "2025 Christmas Podcast Day: Fishbone - It's a Wonderful Life EP",
          "collection": {
            "label": "posts",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "ska, punk, music, its-a-wonderful-life, funk, fishbone, columbia-records, christmas-podcast-day",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/posts/2025/11/christmas-podcast-day-fishbone-its-a-wonderful-life/",
          "content": "Today is November 1st, which means Halloween is over, my family gets a reprieve from me constantly playing the Over the Garden Wall soundtrack and it’s time once again for that most magical of fall holidays, Christmas Podcast Day!\n\n\n  \n  Christmas Podcast Day!\n\n\nChristmas Podcast Day, celebrated each November 1st, is a day when members of the Christmas podcast community get together to release special episodes of their shows. Last year I likened Christmas Podcast Day to a Whitman’s Holiday Sampler and in doing so, may have made some disparaging remarks about people who enjoy orange cream chocolates.\n\nSo, I’d like to start this Christmas Podcast Day by apologizing to anyone I slighted. But more so, I want to recognize the spouses, partners and significant others of those orange cream loving individuals. I can’t imagine that is the only unhinged behavior you endure on a regular basis and I respect your resilience.\n\nThis year, to keep things more neutral I’ll describe Christmas Podcast Day as an all-you-can-eat buffet. It’s an opportunity to sample new episodes from all across the Christmas Podcast community. If you find something new that you like, you can go back for another helping or two, safe in the knowledge that no matter how much you consume, the risk of norovirus is way, way lower than the average trip through the Golden Corral. And with that, I’ll scratch another name off my list of potential sponsors.\n\n\n  \n  It's a Wonderful Life\n\n\nThis Christmas Podcast Day, the theme is It’s a Wonderful Life.\n\nSeveral Podcasts are releasing episodes dedicated to the various television and movie parodies and adaptations.\n\nThe Advent Calendar House gang is covering the Psych episode, “The Polarizing Express”.\n\nOn Closer to Christmas, Charlie is talking about the Garfield and Friends episode, “It’s a Wonderful Wade”.\n\nMatt at the TGI Podcast is covering the season four opening episode of That ’70s Show, simply titled “It’s a Wonderful Life”.\n\nAt Totally Rad Christmas, Gerry D is talking about the 1983 SCTV Christmas Special, “It’s a Wonderful Film”.\n\nAdam at Merry Britsmas has chosen the season three closing episode of Basil Brush, “It’s a Wonderful Brush”.\n\nStill more podcasts are covering other “It’s a Wonderful Life” related topics.\n\nOn Lost Christmas, Jeff is talking about The Greatest Gift, the Philip Van Doren Stern short story that is the basis for the It’s a Wonderful Life film.\n\nOn Cozy Christmas, Art is covering the 1997 TV movie Merry Christmas George Bailey, a live recreation of the Lux Radio Theatre’s 1947 production of It’s a Wonderful Life.\n\nSpeaking of which…that original Lux Radio Theatre version is the topic of Troy’s episode on Christmas Every Day.\n\nAnd then there’s Can’t Wait for Christmas where host, comedian and lover of all things Christmas Tim Babb is starting Muppetvember off with a bang. His episode not only covers the 2002 adaption, It’s a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie, but Tim also has an interview with Jimmy Hawkins, the actor who played Tommy Bailey in the original 1946 film.\n\nIf any of that sounds interesting, then I highly recommend you head over to https://christmaspodcasts.com where you can find all these Christmas Podcast Day episodes, plus dozens of other awesome Christmas podcasts by equally awesome Christmas podcasters.\n\nAnd with that, we’ll jump into our Christmas Podcast Day topic: Fishbone and their 1987 EP It’s a Wonderful Life.\n\n\n  \n  Fishbone: It's a Wonderful Life\n\n\nFishbone…is a hard band to describe. At least succinctly. That’s what I’ve learn while attempting to write this post.\n\nIt would be easy to just call them a ska band or a ska-punk band and be done with it, but that’s like calling Final Fantasy Tactics just another RGP.\n\nIt’s really just scratching the surface. Sure, there’s a good helping of ska, but there’s also enough funk drown half of Parliament. Then add a healthy dose of ’80s SoCal punk, some metal, and a sprinkling of jazz, soul, R&B, early alternative and new wave. Filtered it all through a socially conscious lens that has been unapologetic in calling out racism, fascism and inequality for over 45 years and you’re starting to flesh out what makes Fishbone so unique.\n\nFishbone’s history is just as interesting and eclectic as their music. The band was formed in the Los Angeles area in 1979, when the founding members were still in junior high. The original lineup consisted of the Fisher brothers, Philip and John Norwoood, on drums and bass respectively, Kendall Jones on guitar, Walter Kibby II on vocals and trumpet, Christopher Dowd on keyboard, trombone and vocals and Angelo Moore, Dr MadVibe himself on saxophone, vocals and the criminally underused theremin.\n\nI can’t stress enough that this was a sextet of 14- and 15-year-old kids cranking out music with funky hooks, ska beats and a punk rock attitude at the dawn of the 1980s. Fishbone quickly became part of the SoCal music scene, establishing friendships with other up-and-coming acts like the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Jane’s Addiction.\n\n\n  \n  Fishbone: In Your Face\n\n\nThings started to take off when they were signed to Columbia records in 1983. They released their first self-titled EP in 1985 which contained the single “Party at Ground Zero”. This was followed up by their first full length album, In Your Face the following year.\n\nIn 1987 Fishbone went on the road as the Beastie Boys’ opening act on their License to Ill tour. 1987 was also the year they released their It’s a Wonderful Life EP.\n\nBut, before we dive into the record, I want to take a few minutes to run through the almost 40 years of Fishbone that has happened after its release.\n\nSince In Your Face in 1986, Fishbone has released another seven full length albums. I won’t go over each one, but a few of my favorites are:\n\n1991’s The Reality of My Surroundings, which saw the band pivot further into hard rock and metal.\n\n2000’s Fishbone and the Familyhood Nextperience Present: The Psychotic Friends Nuttwerx which features a dizzying array of guest artists including Donny Osmond, HR of Bad Brains, Gwen Stefani, George Clinton, Rick James, Chad, John and Flea of the Chili Peppers and Perry Farrell.\n\n\n  \n  Fishbone: Stockholm Syndrome\n\n\n2025’s Stockholm Syndrome, their latest album, which adds ragtime and rockabilly to the arsenal of ways the band delivers their political and social messages.\n\nAnd since we’ve invoked the name of Perry Farrell, I’ll also mention that Fishbone played both the original 1991 Lollapalooza Tour and the ‘93 tour where they shared the main stage with acts like Alice in Chains, Primus, Tool and Rage Against the Machine.\n\nThis is where I first heard Fishbone. No, 11-year-old-me didn’t get to attend Lollapalooza, but 11-year-old-me was completely obsessed with Primus. The Pork Soda album had just come out, and I was sure people would one day be talking about it with the same reverence as Sergeant Pepper or Pet Sounds.\n\nSo, I somehow ended up with a copy of the ‘93 Tour promo CD, which not only contained “Mr. Krinkle”, a Primus track from said Pork Soda album, but also the song that introduced me to Fishbone, “Swim”.\n\nFishbone has done their fair share of summer tours, including appears on the Vans Warped Tour in 1996 and 2007, as well as the 25th anniversary tour in 2019 and this year’s 30th anniversary tour.\n\nAnd if you’ve never been to Lollapalooza or the Warped Tour or a Fishbone concert, you may still have seen the band in one of their many guest appearances in films or music videos.\n\n\n  \n  Back to the Beach\n\n\nFishbone’s first theatrical appearance was in the 1987 movie Back to the Beach. This was a parody of the 1960’s beach party films and featured Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello, both stars of the original genre. Fishbone performed a version of “Jamaica Ska” onscreen, with Funicello providing the vocals.\n\nThe following year, they appeared as the band Ranchbone in the John Cusack and Tim Robbins film Tapeheads.\n\nMembers of the band have also made appearances in Idlewild, The Tripper and I’m Gonna Git You Sucka, while their iconic logo has graced the t-shirts of characters in even more films and television shows.\n\nMarlon Wayans’ character, Seymour Stewart wears a Fishbone shirt in Mo’ Money, as does Tim Robbins’ character “Nuke” Laloosh in Bull Durham. Darren Burrows’ character Ed Chigliak can be seen wearing a Fishbone shirt throughout his run on Northern Exposure. On A Different World, Freddie and Lena are both depicted as Fishbone fans.\n\n\n  \n  Say Anything\n\n\nBut the biggest Fishbone merch moment goes to John Cusack’s character Lloyd Dobler in Say Anything, who sports a black Fishbone t-shirt in the film.\n\nNo, it’s not the shirt he’s wearing during the iconic boombox scene. That happens to be a Clash t-shirt, but that scene does have an interesting Fishbone tie-in.\n\nOriginally, Cusack didn’t want to shoot the boombox scene, thinking it was too passive of a move for his character Lloyd. Cameron Crowe on the other hand, who wrote and directed the film, though it could be the hallmark of the movie. Spoiler alert: he was right.\n\nPeter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes” ended up being the song used in the film, but for a period of time, it was going to be a Fishbone track. Crowe convinced Cusack, who was a Fishbone fan to try filming the boombox scene in part by telling him they were going to use a Fishbone song.\n\nNow, there are some conflicted accounts from interviews with Cusack and Crowe as to which exact song was going to be used, but from what I’ve been able to piece together:\n\nThe song used on set for filming was either “Party at Ground Zero” or “Turn the Other Way”, but “Question of Life” was the song used to initially score the scene. After watching the scene during editing, Cusack wanted a fourth Fishbone song, “Bonin’ in the Boneyard” to be used before it was finally switched to “In Your Eyes”.\n\nThere’s a whole separate story about how Crowe convinced Peter Gabriel to grant clearance for his song, but we’re already deep into this post and still haven’t talked about the main topic.\n\nI’ll wrap this section by saying that Fishbone did make it into Say Anything, albeit not in the boombox scene, but with yet another song, “Skankin’ to the Beat”. There is also a cool Say Anything homage in Hot Tub Time Machine where Cusack’s character Adam holds up a Fishbone shirt.\n\nAnd with that, let’s dive into It’s a Wonderful Life.\n\nIt’s a Wonderful Life (1987)\n\n  It’s a Wonderful Life (Gonna Have a Good Time)\n  Slick Nick, You Devil You\n  Iration\n  and Just Call Me Scrooge\n\n\nAs I mentioned at the top, the EP came out in 1987. It was Fishbone’s 3rd physical release after their self-titled EP and first full length album. And it’s a great example of how the band, even early on, was drawing from a wide range of musical styles.\n\nStarting with the title track, it tells the events of the film It’s a Wonderful Life from George Bailey’s perspective. Saving Harry in the lake, losing the bank deposit, wrecking his car, getting punched, Clarence granting his wish, and realizing that he does in fact have a wonderful life are all mentioned.\n\n“It’s a Wonderful Life” is the song on the EP stylistically closest to the music Fishbone was putting out at that point in their career. A big, funky bassline, lots of ska horns and Angelo on lead vocals. It’s also the only song from the EP to have a music video.\n\nThe video, produced in black and white, starts with the scene from It’s a Wonderful Life where Mary plays the “Buffalo Gals” record in her living room. The rest of the video is rapid, back and forth cuts between scenes from It’s a Wonderful Life and the band performing the song. It ends abruptly with a needle scratch and the movie clip where Mary pulls the record off the player and smashes it.\n\n\n\nOne interesting bit of trivia. The copyright for It’s a Wonderful Life was not renewed in 1974, making the film public domain until Republic Pictures reasserted copyright 1993. That is another story in and of itself, but the short version is that it allowed television stations to broadcast the film without paying royalties for almost 20 years, which they took full advantage of, and which resulted in the movie’s rise in popularity during that period.\n\nThe 20-year lapse is also the reason Fishbone was able to use all the movie clips completely free their music video, as well as that image of Mary breaking the record as the album art.\n\nThe next song on the EP and my favorite of the four tracks is “Slick Nick, You Devil You”.\n\nThe song tells the story of a Grinch-like Santa who’s not only steals Christmas, but televisions and stereos as well. Unlike Dr Suess’s Grinch, who steals candy from the stockings, Slick Nick refills them with Mad Dog.\n\nI’m probably not doing a great job of selling it, but it really is a fantastic song. Jeff of the Lost Christmas podcast and I discussed it a bit on our Warped Tour episode earlier this year. It’s a stripped-down, soulful R&B track, driven almost entirely by an electric organ and handclaps.\n\nAnd while quite different from most of the music Fishbone was releasing in the late ’80s, it gave an early glimpse of the sheer talent and variety of music the band would be producing over the next several decades.\n\nThe third song on the EP, “Iration” is more of a worship song than a Christmas tune. We get soulful, gospel lyrics over a reggae beat and some great horn work at the end. Again, if you were to play this track, I don’t think anyone short of a die-hard fan would know they were listening to either a Fishbone song or a Christmas song.\n\nThe final song on the EP, “Just Call Me Scrooge” veers yet another musical direction with a straight-up funk track. If you created a Venn diagram of Parliament, Prince, Morris Day and Christmas, you would find “Just Call Me Scrooge” right in the center. With a massive bass line, bouncing keyboards, tight drumming and blasts horns, you could easily mistake this for a ’00s track produced by a studio wizard, not an ’80s track recorded by live musicians.\n\nI just have to point out again the talent of this band. When this EP was recorded, they would have all been around 22, 23 years old. I came across a discussion on Fishbone some time ago where a commentor described seeing them perform looked like a bunch of guys dancing around on stage and having a great time while a CD played in the background. That’s how effortless they made it look.\n\nIt’s a Wonderful Life was released on both Vinyl and Cassette in 1987, with a second vinyl pressing the following year. You can tell which version you have by looking at the record label. It will either have a ‘87 copyright for the original or an ‘88 for the repress.\n\nIf you’re interested in owning your own copy of the EP, it’s not too terribly difficult to find. I was able to pick up an incredibly clean copy of the original pressing from a collector who bought it new in ‘87 and had only played it once each year since then. A copy in similarly good shape will likely set you back $20-30 us dollars, plus shipping. Or, if cassettes are your thing, you shouldn’t have a hard time finding one for under $20, shipped.\n\n\n  \n  Fishbone Japanese CD\n\n\nThe EP was never released on CD in the US, but it did receive a Japanese-only release in 1992. These can also be found for a relatively reasonable price as long as you’re not hung up on finding one with the obi strip intact.\n\nOther than those limited releases, the only other way to get these tracks, on physical media anyway, is through compilation albums. The 1996 compilation album, Fishbone 101 contains all four tracks, as does 2003’s The Essential Fishbone.\n\n“It’s a Wonderful Life” also appears on the 1994 Christmas compilation CD A Different Kind of Christmas. “Slick Nick, You Devil You” appears on a few compilation CDs including 1995’s Rock and Roll Christmas, 2015’s The Classic Christmas ’80s Album and the 1991 Columbia Records Promo “Tis the Sampler which gets extra Christmas points for its name.\n\nAnd with that we’ll end our Christmas Podcast Day post and our look at Fishbone and their 1987 EP It’s a Wonderful Life.\n\nAgain, I encourage everyone to head over to christmaspodcasts.com and check out all the other amazing Christmas Podcast Day episodes.\n\nCheers and Merry Christmas!"
        },
        {
          "id": "posts-2025-10-merry-mixtapes-alonso-duralde",
          "title": "Merry Mixtapes: Alonso Duralde - Have Yourself A Movie Little Christmas",
          "collection": {
            "label": "posts",
            "name": "Posts"
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          "categories": "music, merry-mixtapes, have-yourself-a-movie-little-christmas, bing-crosby, alonso-duralde",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/posts/2025/10/merry-mixtapes-alonso-duralde/",
          "content": "Fall brought me an unexpected surprise this year: an impromptu bathroom remodel due to a poorly installed shower (from the previous bathroom remodel eight years ago), which resulted in a not small amount of water damage and dry rot.\n\nSo, instead of recording new podcast episodes, I’ve spend the last several weekends chiseling out tile, removing dry rot and installing a new subfloor.\n\n\n  \n  Alonso Duralde\n\n\nBut, I had to take a break from all the home repairs to release this special episode. I’m excited to share this latest entry in our Merry Mixtapes series, where I am joined by film critic, podcaster and author of Have Yourself a Movie Little Christmas, Alonso Duralde!\n\nAlonso, whose book Have Yourself A Movie Little Christmas was just released two weeks ago in a revised and expanded edition, was kind enough to come on the show and share his mixtape of holiday songs that span the history of Christmas cinema.\n\n\n  \n  Have Yourself a Movie Little Christmas\n\n\nFor information on the Merry Mixtapes series and how it got started, you can check out the last post, or Episode 10 of the ‘Tis the Soundtrack podcast.\n\nAnd a tremendous holiday hug to Alonso for sharing his mixtape and his love of Christmas films.\n\nTo hear more of Alonso, check him out on:\n\n  Linoleum Knife\n  Maximum Film\n  Breakfast All Day\n  Deck The Hallmark\n\n\nYou can also follow Alonso at:\n\n  @aduralde on Bluesky\n  @alonso.duralde on Instagram\n  @DxAxTREE on Instagram (Holiday Decorations with Dave White)\n\n\nYou can purchase the new, revised edition of Have Yourself a Movie Little Christmas here:\n\n  Powell’s Books\n  Barnes & Noble\n\n\nAlonso Duralde - Have Yourself a Movie Little Christmas\n\nMusic of Christmas Cinema\n\n  White Christmas - Bing Crosby (Holiday Inn)\n  Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas - Judy Garland (Meet Me in St. Louis)\n  The Bells of St. Mary’s - BOne More Sleep Til Christmas,” Kermit the Frog – The Muppet Christmas Caroing Crosby (The Bells of St. Mary’s)\n  Silver Bells - Bob Hope (The Lemon Drop Kid)\n  The Holly and the Ivy - Choir of King’s College Cambridge (The Holly and the Ivy)\n  Snow - Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, and Trudy Stevens (White Christmas)\n  Hooray for Santa Claus - Milton DeLugg (Santa Claus Conquers the Martians)\n  Do You Know How Christmas Trees Are Grown? - Nina (van Pallandt) (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service)\n  I Like Life (Reprise)/Father Christmas (Reprise)/Thank You Very Much (Reprise)/A Christmas Carol (Reprise) – Scrooge (1970)\n  Hazy Shade of Winter - The Bangles (Less Than Zero)\n  Put a Little Love in Your Heart - Annie Lennox & Rev. Al Green (Scrooged)\n  Main Title - John Williams (Home Alone)\n  One More Sleep Til Christmas - Kermit the Frog (The Muppet Christmas Carol)\n  What’s This? - Danny Elfman (The Nightmare Before Christmas)\n  Baby It’s Cold Outside - Zooey Deschanel & Leon Redbone (Elf)\n  Christmas Everywhere - Fran Alexandre (Christmas, Again)\n  White Winter Hymnal - Fleet Foxes (Love the Coopers)\n  It’s That Time of Year - Marli Siu (Anna and the Apocalypse)\n  This Day - Justin Cornwell & Sharon Rose (Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey)\n  All I Need Is a Miracle - Mike + the Mechanics (Spencer)\n  That Christmas Mornin’ Feeling - Will Ferrell and the cast of Spirited (Spirited)\n  Medley - The Swingle Singers (The Holdovers)\n  The Point of No Return - Gene McDaniels (Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point)\n\n\nYou can listen to Alonso’s mixtape below on YouTube.\n\n\n\nIt is also available to stream here on Tidal.\n\nPlease note: the version on Tidal is missing track 16, “Christmas Everywhere” by Fran Alexandre and the tracks from “Scrooge (1970)” are not the reprise versions.\n\nThank you again Alonso for taking the time to share your mixtape.\n\nCheers and Merry Christmas!"
        },
        {
          "id": "posts-2025-08-the-history-of-the-christmas-album-part-one",
          "title": "The History of the Christmas Album: The Rise and Fall of Sheet Music (1840-1910)",
          "collection": {
            "label": "posts",
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          },
          "categories": "sheet-music, music, irving-berlin, frank-sinatra, bing-crosby",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/posts/2025/08/the-history-of-the-christmas-album-part-one/",
          "content": "I recently made the mistake of asking, “What was the first Christmas album?”\n\nIt seemed like an innocent, straightforward enough question. A quick Google should surely return the definitive first Christmas album, right? Like most things in life, it wasn’t that simple.\n\nFor starters, how do we define what first album means? Is it the first collection of Christmas songs to appear on a single piece of physical media?\n\n\n  \n  Christmas Songs by Sinatra (credit: Discogs)\n\n\nIf so, then it would likely be “Christmas Songs by Sinatra”, which was released by Columbia Records in 1948. This is generally regarded as the first Christmas album released as a single LP, or long play record. This brand-new format, unveiled by Columbia just a few months prior, allowed up to 48 minutes of music to fit on a single, vinyl disc.\n\nOr, if we’re not hung up on the single piece of media requirement, does first album mean the first collection of Christmas recordings sold as a set? By that definition, Bing Crosby’s “Merry Christmas” is considered to be the first commercial Christmas album, released as a collection of five 78’s with one song on each side of each shellac disc.\n\n\n  \n  Bing Crosby: Merry Christmas (credit: Discogs)\n\n\nWhile Google seemed to agree that Bing was the correct answer, record companies had been releasing box sets of 78’s for over 30 years by that time and I can’t imagine that a holiday release or two didn’t make it in there somewhere.\n\nOr, maybe we get a bit more esoteric and ask if the first album needs to be an audio recording at all. Would a modern collection of holiday arrangements with lyrics be in the running for first Christmas album? What if it was a three-book collection? Could we consider that a Christmas box set that predates the invention of the 78?\n\nBut I’m getting a little ahead of myself now…\n\nAttempting to answer my question sent me down the rabbit hole that is the fascinating history of the American music industry. From the music publishers of two hundred years ago to the consolidated recording industry of today and the technological advancements that have shaped how we listen and what we listen to every step of the way, Christmas music included.\n\nWhile that journey was terrible for my general productivity, it was a boon for content.\n\nIn this first part of The History of the Christmas Album, we’ll look at the rise and fall of sheet music from roughly the 1840s to 1910, what Christmas music looked like during that period and how it set the stage for sound recordings.\n\nThroughout the 19th century, music was primarily produced and consumed in a single form. Sheet music.\n\n\n  \n  Jingle Bells Sheet Music (credit: Henry Aldridge & Son Ltd)\n\n\nIf you wanted to hear that catchy new Christmas tune “Jingle Bells” when it was release in the 1850s, there was no YouTube, no Tidal, no Bandcamp. No radio stations, no record stores.\n\nYou went to a specialty music store, purchased the sheet music, took it home and performed it yourself on piano. If you didn’t live near a sheet music seller, have the disposable income to purchase sheet music, possess the skills necessary to read and perform it or own the requisite piano, then you were out of luck.\n\nYour next best chance of hearing “Jingle Bells” was to score a dinner invite from a friend, neighbor or family member who did check all the boxes above and hope the evening went well enough that it progressed from the dining table to the parlor. Or, if a new song was popular enough, you might be able to catch a public performance by a local community or church choir. But don’t hold your breath for the latter. “Jingle Bells” was far too secular for most mid-19th century church services.\n\n\n  \n  Tin Pan Alley (1910)\n\n\nDespite all the limitations of this early format, several factors led to the exponential rise of sheet music sales in the latter half of the 1800s. American music publishers, songwriters and composers began concentrating in an area along Manhattan’s West 28th Street, which would later be known as Tin Pan Alley. Initially a derogatory term for a run-down piano, due to the success of this cohort and the music they produced, “Tin Pan” quickly evolved to mean a “hit song writing business.”\n\nIn addition to the hit music itself, Tin Pan Alley also birthed the new promotional technique of “plugging” songs. This involved orchestrating national campaigns to promote awareness and demand for new sheet music by having the songs performed repeatedly all across the country by local and traveling artists.\n\nThis new form of marketing, coupled with the advent of less expensive, mass-produced pianos in the latter half of the 19th century brought sheet music to middle-class Americans and helped push sales to meteoric levels. Sheet music became so popular that it was no longer limited to specialty music stores, book sellers and publisher catalogs. You could buy the latest songs from any reputable general store and newspapers started including free sheet music inserts to boost circulation.\n\nThis period also saw the penning of many new Christmas carols that remain popular today, including:\n\n  Silent Night (1818-63)\n  Joy to the World (1839)\n  Hark! The Herald Angels Sing (1840)\n  It Came Upon a Midnight Clear (1846-50)\n  O Holy Night (1847-55)\n  Good Kind Wenceslas (1853)\n  Angels We Have Heard On High (1855)\n  We Three Kings of Orient Are (1857)\n  What Child is This? (1865-71)\n  O Little Town of Bethlehem (1868)\n  Away in a Manger (1885-87)\n\n\nThe first secular American holiday songs, “Jingle Bells”, “Up on the Housetop” and “Jolly Old Saint Nicholas” were also written during this time.\n\nAdditionally, many older Christmas hymns also received English translations, re-arrangements, or new lyrics during this time, including:\n\n  O Christmas Tree (2nd and 3rd stanzas added in 1824)\n  Adeste Fideles (translated to English in 1841)\n  The First Noel (re-arranged in 1867)\n  God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen (re-arranged in 1867)\n  Here We Come A-wassailing (re-arranged in 1871)\n\n\nA clear example of the incredible growth in popularity of sheet music between the first and second halves of the 19th century can be seen in the sales of American music. Prior to the late 1840s, no American song had sold more than 5,000 copies of sheet music. By the end of the century, multiple songs had sold over one million copies each, a 20,000% increase in less than 50 years.\n\nThis trend continued into the early 20th century with over one hundred songs each selling a million or more copies between 1900 and 1910 alone. But, beneath those unprecedented sales, sheet music was already beginning to falter.\n\n\n  \n  Edison Standard Phonograph (credit: Bubba73)\n\n\nWhat appeared to be an unshakable industry at the onset of the 20th century was just a couple of decades away from becoming a casualty of the same middle-class consumerism that fueled its rise. The same families who were buying pianos and sheet music in the 1880s started buying phonographs and gramophones in the 1910s. This shift, along with other technological advancements, like the introduction of broadcast radio, caused sheet music sales to begin falling in the 1920s.\n\nQuick side note: The first audio broadcast via radio occurred on Christmas eve, 1906. That broadcast included inventor Reginald Fessenden, who was performing the experiment, playing “O Holy Night” on violin.\n\nSales of sheet music continued to decline until music publishers were fully supplanted by recording companies as the music industry’s center of power a short time later. This rapid decline becomes very apparent when you look at lifetime sales numbers.\n\n\n  \n  Holiday Inn\n\n\nWhile many compositions from the 1850s through the early 1900s have amassed sheet music sales in the multi-millions, only a handful of songs from 1930 onward have been able to repeat the same success. Two notable exceptions include Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas” from 1942 and Johnny Marks’ “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” from 1949, which have sold an estimated 5-6 million and 7-8 million copies of sheet music respectively since their releases.\n\nWhile the technological leap from printing to recording sank sheet music, it didn’t stop Christmas from coming, it came. Composers and songwriters were now crafting Christmas tunes with recording in mind.\n\nIrving Berlin and Tim Snyder’s “Christmas Time Seems Years and Years Away”, was not only written in 1910 but had a recording of the song, performed by singer Manuel Romain released the same year.\n\nTraditional songs continued to receive new treatments during this time as well. Frederic Austin’s arrangement of “The Twelve Days of Christmas”, first published in 1909, quickly became the standard melody used by performers and recording artists.\n\nWhile there were no Christmas sound recordings before the 1880s (and none surviving from before the late 1890s), there is one specific series of works from this period that I alluded to at the top, Christmas Carols, New and Old by John Stainer and Henry Ramsden Bramley.\n\n\n  \n  Christmas Carols, New and Old\n\n\nChristmas Carols, New and Old was a series of 3 song books, published between 1867 and 1878. Altogether, the series contained 70 traditional and modern carols, with Bramley providing English translations and adaptations for several and Stainer creating many new arrangements.\n\nThe series marked the reintroduction to the American public of music and words set together for centuries-old carols like “The First Noel”, “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”, and “Here We Come A-wassailing”.\n\nTo me, this series, which covers Christmas songs from the 14th Century German carol, “Good Christian Men Rejoice”, to John Henry Hopkins Jr.’s “We Three Kings”, which was barely a decade old when the first book was published, is a strong contender for Original Christmas Album or, perhaps more accurately, original three album compilation.\n\nAnd with that, we’ll end this first part of our “The History of the Christmas Album” series. In part two, we’ll look at the first format war over recorded music, between Thomas Edison’s phonograph cylinders and Emile Berliner’s gramophone discs. And of course, what Christmas music was being created during that period.\n\nCheers and Merry Christmas!"
        },
        {
          "id": "posts-2025-06-warped-tour-2025-christmas-music",
          "title": "Warped Tour 2025 Christmas Playlist",
          "collection": {
            "label": "posts",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "warped-tour, music, lost-christmas, leon-day",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/posts/2025/06/warped-tour-2025-christmas-music/",
          "content": "Happy Leon Day!\n\nThis year marks the Warped Tour’s 30th Anniversary and the festival’s first return since its farewell tour in 2019.\n\nThis year’s Warped Tour also features one of the largest and most diverse line-ups in the festival’s history. With so many amazing acts, you know there has to be some outstanding Christmas music.\n\n\n  \n  Warped Tour 2025 Christmas Playlist\n\n\nIn this special Leon Day episode Jeff Loftin, host of the Lost Christmas podcast and I do some reminescing about our time attending the Warped Tour in the early ’00s and we each share a dozen or so of our favorite Christmas tracks by the artists and bands performing at this year’s tour stops.\n\nSo lace up your Vans and grab a can of Monster Energy, it’s time to talk Warped Tour!\n\nWarped Tour 2025 Christmas Playlist\n\n  Right Where You Want Me to Be - A Day To Remember\n  Fool’s Holiday - All Time Low\n  Hate the Holidays - Matt Musto (Blackbear) and Tyler Carter\n  Merry Flippin’ Christmas (Happy Freakin’ New Year) - Bowling for Soup\n  Holiday - BOYS LIKE GIRLS\n  The Season’s Upon Us - Dropkick Murphys\n  AMAZING Christmas List Rap - Ekoh\n  December to Forget - Ekoh\n  Christmas Song - Escape the Fate\n  It’s a Wonderful Life (Gonna Have a Good Time) - Fishbone\n  Slick Nick, You Devil You - Fishbone\n  Somewhere In My Memory - Four Year Strong\n  New White Extremity - Glassjaw (by way of Head Automatica’s Daryl Palumbo)\n  Bedford Falls - Knuckle Puck\n  Last Christmas - mgk\n  Lady Rosales - Mariachi El Bronx\n  Holiday in the Sun - Pennywise\n  Christmas Won’t Be The Same Without You - Plain White T’s\n  Making Christmas - Rise Against\n  I Wish It Was Christmas Today - Senses Fail\n  Ordinary Christmas - State Champs\n  I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas Too! - The Aquabats!\n  Yule Be Sorry - The Almost (by way of The Starting Line’s Kenny Vasoli)\n  Christmas at 22 - The Wonder Years\n  Threadbare - The Wonder Years\n  I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas - We The Kings\n  Baby It’s Cold Outside - We The Kings\n  Christmas Lights - Yellowcard\n\n\n\n\nYou can listen to our Warped Tour playlist above on YouTube or HERE on Tidal.\n\n\n  \n  Lost Christmas\n\n\nA big “Thank you” to Jeff for taking time to relive his post-hardcore days and help me put together this playlist!\n\nTo hear more of Jeff, check out the Lost Christmas podcast.\n\nWhen you’re done listening to this episode and Lost Christmas, head over to christmaspodcasts.com, where you can find all of the other shows in the Christmas Podcast Network, many of which have their own special Leon Day episodes.\n\nCheers and Happy Leon Day!"
        },
        {
          "id": "posts-2025-06-disney-holiday-loops-frontierland",
          "title": "Disney Holiday Loops: Frontierland",
          "collection": {
            "label": "posts",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "walt-disney-world, music, jazz, disneyland, disney, country-music",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/posts/2025/06/disney-holiday-loops-frontierland/",
          "content": "Today we’re putting on our finest boots, grabbing our best Stetson hat and taking a stroll down the promenade to the Westward Ho Trading Company to get in a little early holiday shopping.\n\nOn our way, we might just hear some of the local fiddle and banjo players, practicing for the upcoming Christmas concert down at the Golden Horseshoe. This is the latest in our Disney Holiday Loops series. This is Frontierland.\n\n\n  \n  Photo by Loren Javier\n\n\nIf you are not familiar with Disney area loops or their holiday counterparts, you can check out the first entry in the series where we dive into the concept and also take a look at the big band, jazz and swing Christmas tunes of the Buena Vista Steet area in Disney California Adventure.\n\nBut today we’re experiencing the story of our country’s past. The color, romance and drama of frontier America as it developed from wilderness trails to roads, riverboats, railroads and civilization. A tribute to the faith, courage, ingenuity and holiday merriment of our hearty pioneers who blazed the trails and made this progress possible.\n\nThat description of Frontierland and overly-rosy view of America’s push westward came from Walt Disney himself, on July 17th, 1955; Disneyland’s opening day. Well, except the “holiday merriment” part, I added that.\n\nFrontierland, along with Adventureland, Fantasyland, Tomorrowland, and Main Street USA made up the five original, opening day areas of Walt’s original park. And while it depicts a western town, frozen in the mid-19th century, Frontierland has seen its share of changes over the last 70 years. Not just to its attractions, restaurants and shops, but to its geography as well.\n\n\n  \n  Frontierland 1957: Walt Disney Company\n\n\nOn opening day, Frontierland occupied the most real estate inside the berm. That’s the built-up barrier around Disneyland that separates the magic inside from the city outside…or the orange groves as it was in the 1950s. In those early years, Frontierland was all about kinetic energy and movement.\n\nBy the end of the decade, you could not only mosey down the streets of Frontierland, but take a mine train through the rainbow caverns, ride stage coaches, covered wagons and even live pack mules around the Living Desert. During this time, the Rivers of America bustled with keel boats, rafts and canoes, while the Mark Twain riverboat and the Sailing Ship Columbia looped the waters.\n\nFrontierland began to change in the early 1960s. The overly tippy stagecoaches were the first to be retired. Shortly after, the Living Desert area was transformed into Nature’s Wonderland and expanded to include new biomes like Cascade Peak and Beaver Valley. The Rainbow Caverns Mine Train now traveled this entire expanse as the newly christened Mine Train Through Nature’s Wonderland.\n\nAs the ’60s progressed, Frontierland gave up some of its riverfront property, as well as its railroad stop, to the park’s newest land, New Orleans Square. And in the early ’70s the boundaries were again redrawn when the Indian Village area was redeveloped into Bear Country.\n\n\n  \n  Bear Country 1972: Walt Disney Company\n\n\nThe next major change came at the end of ’70s when Nature’s Wonderland ceded its territory, mine train, pack mules and all, to make room for the Frontierland’s first (and still only) thrill ride, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. The leftover dirt not needed for the attraction, became the Big Thunder Ranch a few years later.\n\nAt this point Frontierland went more-or-less unchanged for about 30 years…except for the aforementioned Ranch, which spent most of that time trying to decide if it was open or closed. And there was the couple of years when it was rethemed to host the Hunchback of Notre Dame’s Festival of Fools. But we’re getting sidetracked.\n\nThe next and most recent round of changes came about a decade ago when the Big Thunder Ranch area left Frontierland altogether and Tom Sawyer Island, The Rivers of America and the Disneyland Railroad route were all trimmed down or reshaped to make way for Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.\n\n\n  \n  Photo by Kevin Williams\n\n\nThough the footprint of Frontierland has continued to shift and shrink over the decades, the music heard throughout the area has grown and diversified. In addition to what we would call the “main” loop, the one that plays along the promenade and in front of the shops, several other unique loops can be heard throughout the land.\n\nThe Big Thunder queue, The Mark Twain Riverboat, The Sailing Ship Columbia, The Stockade area (that’s the fort area when you enter from the Hub), the Pioneer Mercantile, the Golden Horseshoe Saloon, Rancho del Zocalo, the Rivers of America and even the area outside Lafitte’s Tavern on Tom Saywer Island, all have unique musical loops. And that doesn’t include retired attractions like the Mike Fink Keel Boats and the Big Thunder Ranch which also sported their own unique soundtracks.\n\nFrontierland doesn’t slouch when it comes to the holiday music either. In addition to the holiday version of the main loop heard throughout the land, there are separate, distinct loops inside the Pioneer Mercantile and along the Rivers of America.\n\nAnd with that, we’ll end our brief history of Frontierland and jump into the music.\n\nFrontierland’s earliest musical loops were comprised of old, country folk songs. They were inexpensive to license, instrumental pieces featuring a lot of banjos, fiddles and saloon pianos. This type of music was used up until the early 90s when the main loop shifted to feature songs from popular western TV shows and movies.\n\n\n  \n  Blazing Saddles Poster: Warner Bros\n\n\nThe theme songs to Wagon Train, Bonanza, High Noon and The Good and The Bad and The Ugly could all be heard in Frontierland from ‘92 to 2011. As could music from less directly Western properties like City Slickers and Back to the Future III. The theme to Blazing Saddles was even part of the loop during this time.\n\nThe current main loop, which has been playing since 2012, is a pivot away from the Hollywood-heavy soundtrack and back to a more classic country sound. It is comprised almost entirely from two album: Memories of the Old West and Legends of the Old West, both by Craig Duncan and the Smoky Mountain Band. The loop includes songs like “Ghost Riders in the Sky”, “The Yellow Rose of Texas” and “Don’t Fence Me In”.\n\nFrontierland Area Loop\n\n  Big Iron - Craig Duncan and the Smoky Mountain Band\n  Git Along, Little Dogies - Jim Hendricks\n  Old Dan Tucker/Skip to My Lou - Jim Hendricks\n  Buffalo Gals/Polly Wolly Doodle - Various Artists\n  Don’t Fence Me In - Various Artists\n  Here Comes The Santa Fe - Craig Duncan and the Smoky Mountain Band\n  The Yellow Rose of Texas - Craig Duncan and the Smoky Mountain Band\n  Little Joe the Wrangler - Jim Hendricks\n  San Antonio Rose - Various Artists\n  El Paso - Craig Duncan and the Smoky Mountain Band\n  The Old Chisholm Trail - Craig Duncan and the Smoky Mountain Band\n  Ghost Riders in the Sky - Craig Duncan and the Smoky Mountain Band\n  Back in the Saddle Again - Craig Duncan and the Smoky Mountain Band\n  Mickey Mouse Club March/The Ballad of Davy Crockett - Various Artists\n  I Ride An Old Paint (I’m Leaving Cheyenne) - Craig Duncan and the Smoky Mountain Band\n  Way Out There - Craig Duncan and the Smoky Mountain Band\n  Echos From The Hills - Craig Duncan and the Smoky Mountain Band\n  Whoppee Ti Yi Yo - Craig Duncan and the Smoky Mountain Band\n  That Silver Haired Daddy of Mine - Craig Duncan and the Smoky Mountain Band\n  You Are My Sunshine - Craig Duncan and the Smoky Mountain Band\n  The Cattle Call - Craig Duncan and the Smoky Mountain Band\n\n\nThe Holiday version of the main loop cuts a similar path. Nearly two-thirds of the tracks on the loop come from a single album, Christmas Remembered by Banjomania.\n\nFrontierland Holiday Area Loop\n\n  Sleigh Ride - Banjomania\n  Silent Night - The Nashville Keyboard Section\n  A Root’n Toot’n Santa Claus - Tennessee Ernie Ford\n  Good King Wenceslas - Banjomania\n  Christmas on the Plains - Roy Rogers and Dale Evans\n  Let It Snow! - Banjomania\n  Silver Bells - Banjomania\n  Here Comes Santa Claus - Gene Autry\n  God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen - Banjomania\n  Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town - Banjomania\n  It Came Upon a Midnight Clear - The Nashville Keyboard Section\n  It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas - Banjomania\n  I Saw Three Ships - Banjomania\n  Christmas Carols by the Old Corral - Tex Ritter\n  Parade of the Wooden Soldiers - Banjomania\n  Listen on YouTube\n  Listen on Tidal\n\n\nThat’s a lot of banjos and that’s not a bad thing.\n\nTim Babb and I talked about this on his recent Merry Mixtapes episode where he had selected Banjomania’s “Sleigh Ride” as one of his favorite Disneyland Christmas songs. Tim noted that there’s something about banjos and Christmas music that just go together so well. And he’s absolutely right, the entire Christmas Remembered album is fantastic.\n\nChristmas Remembered\n\nArtist: Banjomania \nLabel: Self-released (BM202-CD) \nReleased: 1990\n\n\n  Sleigh Ride\n  Medley: Deck The Halls / It Came Upon A Midnight Clear / We Three Kings\n  Good King Wenceslas\n  The Christmas Waltz\n  I Saw Three Ships\n  God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen\n  Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town\n  Carol of the Bells\n  Parade of the Wooden Soldiers\n  Let It Snow!\n  I’ll Be Home for Christmas\n  It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas\n  What Child Is This?\n  Silver Bells\n  We Wish You a Merry Christmas\n  Listen on YouTube\n  Listen on Tidal\n\n\n\n  \n  Banjomania: Christmas Remembered\n\n\nFifteen banjo-filled Christmas tunes and there’s not a bad track in the bunch. It really is the perfect music for Frontierland at Christmastime.\n\nIt’s actually pretty incredible if you think about it. Somehow when you take a bunch of holiday banjo tracks recorded in 1990 and pipe them through a 1950s Hollywood recreation of a mid-1800s frontier town, it evokes a sense of nostalgia…or whatever that sensation is that feels similar to nostalgia, but for a place you’ve never visited, in a time you’ve never lived.\n\nLogically, we know none of these recordings belong in a mid-19th century frontier town. But emotionally, hearing the music as you pass by the shops, all dressed up in their holiday decor, it tugs at all the right strings. I guess that’s why they call it Disney magic.\n\nBefore we move on, I want to take a minute to talk about the Big Thunder Ranch. Before it was annexed by Batuu, the ranch played host to Santa’s Reindeer Roundup, where guests could meet Santa, make Christmas crafts and see live reindeer. And yes, it had its own holiday loop.\n\n\n  \n  Photo by Loren Javier\n\n\nThe Big Thunder Ranch loop has some overlap with the main Frontierland one, but instead of being packed full of Banjomania tracks, it contains a handful of Michael Martin Murphey tunes, all from his Cowboy Christmas album, as well as songs from Riders in the Sky, The Groove Grass Boyz and Oregon’s own The Trail Band.\n\nBig Thunder Ranch: Santa’s Reindeer Roundup Loop\n\n  Waltz Medley: O Christmas Tree (O Tannenbaum)/Put Your Little Foot (The Varsouvianna)/The Westfalia Waltz/Over The Waves (The Skaters’ Waltz)/O Christmas Tree – Michael Martin Murphey\n  Christmas On The Plains – Roy Rogers and Dale Evans\n  Deck The Halls – The Trail Band\n  Auld Lang Syne – The Groove Grass Boyz\n  Here Comes Santa Claus – Gene Autry\n  Sleigh Ride – Banjomania\n  Christmas Cowboy Style – Michael Martin Murphey\n  Polka Medley: Good King Wenceslas/Under The Double Eagle/Redwing/Golden Slippers – Michael Martin Murphey\n  Christmas Carols By The Old Corral – Tex Ritter\n  Jingle Bells – Riders In The Sky\n  A Root’n Toot’n Santa Claus – Tennessee Ernie Ford\n  Two-Step Medley: Cotton-Eyed Joe/Deck The Halls/Buffalo Gals/Soldier’s Joy/The Girl I Left Behind Me/Deck The Halls – Michael Martin Murphey\n  The Santa Claus Schottische: Up on The House Top/The Sweetheart Schottische/Oh Susannah/Up On The House Top – Michael Martin Murphey\n  Listen on YouTube\n  Listen on Tidal\n\n\nThis brings me to my first idea for improving Christmastime in Frontierland. But before we jump into that, I have a quick message for Thomas Mazloum.\n\nTom, I know you just stepped into the role of President of Disneyland Resort. You’ve been entrusted with carrying out the legacy of Walt’s original park and I cannot overstate how big of a job that is. You’re probably incredibly busy taking the reigns from Kenny P and getting up to speed with everything. So, I want to offer you a few quick, easy wins. If you happen to be one of the three people in the world who read this blog, pay close attention. I’m going to give you several ideas for improving Frontierland at Christmastime throughout this post. Feel free to take any or all of these sure-fired ways to up the holiday magic at your resort.\n\nOk, so here’s the first idea.\n\nThe Frontierland holiday loop is fantastic, but it’s on the shorter side of the area loops at only 36 minutes.\n\nIf you take the eight extra Big Thunder Ranch tracks and weave them into the main Frontierland Holiday loop, you add another 17 minutes, punching the soundtrack out to a respectable 53 minutes in total. It also gives the loop a bit more variety, with several of the additional songs having more of a cowboys-around-the-campfire aesthetic.\n\nAnd Tom, if you’re wondering what that might sound like once it’s all stitched together, don’t worry. I went ahead and created my own Frontierland Holiday “Ranch Remix” Loop where I did just that.\n\n\n\nFor the next Frontierland holiday loop, we’re going to take a look at the video loop that plays inside the Pioneer Mercantile at Christmastime.\n\n\n  \n  Photo by Loren Javier\n\n\nIn the back of the shop, suspended from the ceiling is a large drum which houses a video projector. During the first half of the year, it plays a loop of musical segments from Disney films and television series, which are projected on a faux stretched hide that acts as a video screen.\n\nThe current non-holiday version includes musical clips like, “Un Poco Loco” from Coco, the theme from Zoro and even Kermit performing “Rainbow Connection” from The Muppet Movie. That’s right, there’s still a teensy, tiny bit of Muppets in Disneyland and fittingly for Frontierland, it includes a banjo.\n\nThere are also two unique Holiday versions of the loop that play during the second half of the year, one for Halloween and one for Christmas.\n\nPioneer Mercantile Holiday Video Loop\n\n  Just a Toy - Babes in Toyland\n  Snow Snows - Winnie the Pooh: A Very Merry Pooh Year\n  Sleigh Ride (Larry Groce) - Disney Family Christmas Collection\n  That Christmas Feeling - Phineas and Ferb Christmas Vacation!\n  We Wish You a Merry Christmas - Mickey Mouse Clubhouse\n  Ring in the Season - Olaf’s Frozen Adventure\n  Here Comes Santa Claus (Larry Groce) - Disney Family Christmas Collection\n  As Long As There’s Christmas - Belle’s Enchanted Christmas\n  The Best Christmas Of All - Disney Very Merry Christmas Songs\n  Jingle Bells - Winnie the Pooh: A Very Merry Pooh Year\n  It Feels Like Christmas - The Muppet Christmas Carol\n  The Twelve Days of Christmas - Disney Sing Along Songs: The Twelve Days of Christmas\n  When We’re Together - Olaf’s Frozen Adventure\n  Make Me Look Good - Mickey’s Twice Upon A Christmas\n  The Way We Do Navidad - Elena of Avalor\n  Deck the Halls - Disney Sing Along Songs: The Twelve Days of Christmas\n  What’s This? - The Nightmare Before Christmas\n  Listen on YouTube\n\n\nWhile it has some fun tracks and it’s definitely Christmas-y, it doesn’t feel exactly on-brand for Frontierland.\n\nNow, you can make the argument that it doesn’t really matter. It’s just something to occupy the smallest of guests while their larger companions separate themselves from more of their hard-earned money. But, Disney, I think you’re missing another opportunity here. Tom, here comes your next slam-dunk idea.\n\n\n  \n  Photo by Disney Parks Blog\n\n\nIf I could wave my magic Christmas wand, instead of musical shorts, the Pioneer Mercantile screen would show The Country Bear Christmas Special, in its entirety, all season long. For those unfamiliar, the Christmas Special was the Country Bears holiday overlay, last seen in Disneyland back in 2000, during the final holiday season before the attraction was reimagined into The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.\n\nWhile the Country Bears received an all new show last year in Florida where the attraction is still going strong, their Christmas version has also been MIA since the mid-2000s. In fact, if you want to see a Country Bears Christmas show, you’ll have to go all the way to Tokyo Disneyland where the Country Bear Jingle Jamboree was just reinstated last year, after a four-year hiatus.\n\nNot only would this be a cool homage to the attraction, but it would be way more on-point for Frontierland. See, in the later days of the Big Thunder Ranch, Big Al, Liver Lips and the rest of the Country Bears would join musical act Billy Hill and the Hillbillies onstage to sing Christmas songs during the holidays.\n\nGranted, watching the Country Bear Christmas Special on a low-res projector screen isn’t the same as actually experiencing the show in all its animatronic glory. But, I bet you would get a decent amount of people hanging out in the Mercantile just to watch the loop. You could add a couple of benches and use it as a vehicle to push more Country Bear merch inside the west coast park. Tom, I’m hoping that last bit got your attention.\n\nFor our final Frontierland holiday loop, we’re visiting The Rivers of America and checking out the Christmas music that plays along the waterfront area that transitions you from Frontierland to New Orleans Square. And though the music is decidedly more at home in New Orleans, The Rivers of America is still considered a Frontierland attraction…so we’re counting it!\n\n\n  \n  Photo by Jeremy Thompson\n\n\nThe regular Rivers of America loop is comprised of 17 Ragtime and Dixieland Jazz tunes, including five Banjomania tracks of its own, all plucked (pun intended) from their incredibly hard to find, self-titled album.\n\nThe holiday version is undeniably a New Orleans Jazz loop. And yes, even though we’ve established that The Rivers of America is not part of New Orleans Square, this loop actually started as the Holiday music played inside the Blue Bayou restaurant before making its way out to the waterfront in 2015. Incidentally, as of last year (last year being 2024 for future readers), this loop no longer plays inside the Blue Bayou during Christmastime, making it exclusive to the Rivers of America. Well, at least in the US parks. The same holiday loop is used in Tokyo Disneyland’s Royal Street area, which is the New Orleans inspired area within Tokyo’s Adventureland.\n\nThe Rivers of America Holiday Loop contains:\n\nRivers of America Holiday Area Loop\n\n  Jingle Bells - New Birth Brass Band\n  Let It Snow - Magnolia Jazzband\n  Silent Night - Allen Toussaint\n  Santa Second Line - New Birth Brass Band\n  Please Come Home For Christmas - Aaron Neville\n  Here Comes Santa Claus - Lars Edegran & His Santa Claus Revelers\n  God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen - Lars Edegran & His Santa Claus Revelers\n  Silver Bells - Magnolia Jazzband\n  Jingle Bells - Travelin’ Light (2)\n  I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus - Magnolia Jazzband\n  Christmas in New Orleans - James Andrew\n  Silent Night - The Dixieland Ramblers & Michael Bennett (2)\n  Louisiana Christmas Day - Aaron Neville\n  Winter Wonderland - Allen Toussaint\n  Listen on YouTube\n\n\nFive of the fourteen tracks in this loop come from the 1997 album Allen Toussaint and Friends, A New Orleans Christmas which, like Banjomania’s Christmas Remembered, is a fantastic album in its own right.\n\n\n  \n  Allen Toussaint & Friends - A New Orleans Christmas\n\n\nThey, along with the rest of the tracks create a perfect New Orleans Christmas vibe. Especially in the evening, as things are starting to slow down, sitting outside the River Belle Terrance, watching the Mark Twain slowly steam by. Unless it’s Fantasmic time, then it’s complete chaos.\n\nOr at least that’s how I imagine Christmastime in New Orleans. I haven’t been fortunate enough to find my way to Louisiana for Christmas, so Disneyland is my west-coast substitute, which incidentally was the original concept of New Orleans Square. Walt wanted to bring the music and excitement of the French Quarter to a West Coast audience, but I’m getting sidetracked again.\n\nThis does bring me to my next idea for improving Frontierland at Christmastime. The Mark Twain.\n\nI mentioned this briefly on the Merry Mixtape episode with Mr. Babb. I think Disney’s missing an opportunity to level up the Christmas magic when it comes to the riverboat. I would love to see the Mark Twain fully decked out for the holidays. Festooned with garlands, wreathes, ornaments and Christmas trees. You could even do unique theming on each of the different decks.\n\n\n  \n  Photo by Loren Javier\n\n\nThen, in the evenings, get the Jambalaya Jazz Band off their tiny little raft and onto the Saloon Deck Bandstand to play live Christmas music for the passengers. Yes, this last part is not an original idea and Disneyland has had live jazz bands perform Christmas music on the Mark Twain, but it’s usually reserved for special, ticketed events, like the Merriest Nites parties a few years back. I’m talking live Christmas music every night of the holiday season. It would be next level. And, I bet it would keep the Mark Twain packed long in the evening, which means you absorb some of the crowd from other areas, making them less congested and reducing the ride times a bit.\n\nOr, if a live band is not in the budget, how about just turning off the normal narration and piping in the Rivers of America holiday loop while the Mark Twain makes its 14-minutes trip. What do you say Tom?\n\nAnd since I’m already long in my list of Christmastime requests, I’m going to end this post with one more.\n\nThe Rancho del Zocalo music loop was recently brought back. It’s a collection of instrumental, Spanish guitar pieces, all taken from the album Day’s End: The Soft Sounds of Spanish Guitar. In fact, the loop is just the album played start to finish, with some very minor edits and speed shifts to the tracks.\n\n\n  \n  Photo by Loren Javier\n\n\nMuch like the banjos we talked about earlier, for me, there is just something about Spanish guitar and Christmas music that go perfectly together. I would love it Tom, if you pulled the trigger on a new holiday loop for the Rancho area, full of instrumental Spanish guitar Christmas tunes.\n\nBefore you launch into how costly it will be to get a sound engineer to source and sequence all those tracks, don’t worry, I took care of it for you too buddy. I went ahead a made my own Unofficial Rancho del Zocalo Holiday Loop.\n\n\n\nAnd with that, we’ll end our look at the holiday music of Frontierland. I hope you’re enjoying this series exploring the Christmastime music of Disneyland. We have a couple more loops coming up later year including, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, one of the holiday loops of that East-coast imitation, Walt Disney World.\n\nCheers and Merry Christmas!"
        },
        {
          "id": "posts-2025-04-easter-special-here-comes-peter-cottontail-and-golden-records",
          "title": "Easter Special: Here Comes Peter Cottontail & Golden Records",
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          "categories": "walmart, target, music, golden-records, easter",
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          "url": "/posts/2025/04/easter-special-here-comes-peter-cottontail-and-golden-records/",
          "content": "Since today is Easter, we’re going to pivot away from Christmas and talk about something completely different and much more spring Holiday-appropriate. That’s right, Easter Music.\n\nOK, so maybe it wasn’t as hard a pivot as I let on.\n\n\n  \n  Golden Records: Peter Cottontail\n\n\nToday, we’re following the journey of one particular Easter song, “Here Comes Peter Cottontail” and along the way, we’ll take a quick stop to check out the history of Golden Records.\n\nNow, before we get started, I have a confession to make. This was not the original topic I had in mind when I started writing this post. I was planning to talk about non-Easter songs used in Easter commercials. A springtime companion to my Stealth Christmas playlist if you will.\n\nThat turned out to be much harder than I anticipated for a few reasons:\n\n  There are way less Easter commercials to draw from.\n  The bulk of Easter commercials are for chocolate or candy brands (which in hindsight seems very obvious) and they tend to recycle the same commercials year after year. I’m looking at you Cadbury Crème Eggs.\n  Of the ones that do exist, most utilize stock instrumental tracks, branded jingles, or, just omit the music all together. I’m looking at you again Cadbury Crème Eggs with your recent, music-less commercials. Who stole your whimsy?\n\n\nThat said, I did find a few adverts that included great music.\n\nThis year, Target’s Easter campaign, featuring John Paul Young’s disco hit “Love Is In The Air” is a fine example.\n\nAnd then there’s Walmart’s “FlexinWithGram” advert from 2023. The 15 second spot features Grandma, rolling up to an Easter party in a pink ‘64 impala and matching pink pant suit, grandkids in tow. The commercial is set to song I haven’t heard in probably twenty years, “Tops Drop” by Fat Pat.\n\n\n  \n  Walmart: FlexinWithGram\n\n\nBut, the one song that kept springing up (pun completely intended) and was used to sell everything from toys to chocolates to housewares was “Here Comes Peter Cottontail.”\n\nIf you’re familiar with the song, it’s most likely either Gene Autry’s version or the version from the Rankin/Bass Special of the same name, sung by Danny Kaye. But the story of “Here Comes Peter Cottontail” predates both.\n\nIt starts all the way back in 1902 when Beatrix Potter wrote “The Tale of Peter Rabbit.” And yes, I said Peter Rabbit, not Peter Cottontail, but stay with me for a minute. Peter Rabbit was a success and Potter wrote five more books starring the character from 1904 to 1912.\n\nWhile Potter was actively writing her subsequent Peter Rabbit books, another author, Thornton Burgess was creating bedtime stories for his son. His son, having already been heard the Beatrix Potter stories, would not accept any name for this father’s own rabbit character besides Peter. So, when Thornton published his first book, Old Mother West Wind, he too included a character named Peter Rabbit.\n\n\n  \n  The Adventures of Peter Cottontail\n\n\nSo far we’re still taking Peter Rabbit. It wasn’t until four years and 10 books later that the name Peter Cottontail shows up in Thornton’s 1914 story, “The Adventures of Peter Cottontail.”\n\nNo, Burgess wasn’t sued by Potter or anything like that. This was pre-Mickey Mouse, so copyright and intellectual property laws weren’t nearly as strict, nor as fiercely litigated.\n\nIt was simply an in-story plot point. In the book, Peter Rabbit is down on his name, finding it too common. So, he changes it to the much more important sounding Peter Cottontail. By the end of chapter 3, he’s learned his lesson on being himself and switched back to Peter Rabbit again.\n\nBurgess’s character would stay Peter Rabbit, going on to be featured in several more book and many of the 15,000 daily syndicated newspaper stories Burgess wrote until he retired in the early 1960s.\n\nSo, that was the story of Peter Cottontail, an alias used in two chapters and the title of a single book. That is until 1949 when Steve Nelson and Jack Rollins wrote the song “Here Comes Peter Cottontail.” This is the same pair that would pen another and arguably more well-loved holiday classic the following year, “Frosty The Snowman.”\n\nFor Peter Cottontail, Nelson and Rollins borrow the name from Burgess’s story, but imagine the character as the Easter Bunny, coming to deliver eggs and presents to children.\n\nThe song was first recorded by honky-tonk singer Mervin Shiner and released in 1950. And it was an instant hit. No, seriously. It climbed the  Billboard Hot 100 chart, peaking at #8 and selling over 3 million copies!\n\nAnd because if a little is good, then more must be better, that same year it was also recorded by Jimmy Wakely, Johnnie Lee Willis and yes, this is when we get Gene Autry’s version.\n\nJimmy’s, Johnnie’s and Gene’s recordings all stormed the Billboard charts as well, with Autry’s version performing the best of the bunch. It hit #3 on the Hot Country Singles and #5 on the Hot 100.\n\n\n  \n  Gene Autry: Peter Cottontail\n\n\nLet’s pause and think about that for a minute. In a single year, 4 different artists all charted with a song about the Easter Bunny.\n\nIn 1963 Nelson and Rollins wrote an alternate, non-Easter version of the song for Walt Disney’s album “Peter Cottontail Plus Other Funny Bunnies and Friends.” And like Frosty a couple of years before it, “Here Comes Peter Cottontail” received its own Rankin/Bass treatment with 1971’s stop-animated special of the same name, one of three Rankin/Bass Easter specials.\n\nThis is where we get the other familiar version of the song, the one sung by Danny Kaye as his character, Seymour Sassafras.\n\n\n  \n  Rankin/Bass Here Comes Peter Cottontail\n\n\nI won’t spend any more time talking about the special because there is already a fantastic episode of the Totally Rad Christmas Podcast where Gerry D and Avent Calendar House’s Mike Westfall do a deep dive. So, if you want to hear more about Peter Cottontail, a time machine piloted by a french caterpillar and an egg delivering contest to crown the next Chief Easter Bunny, check out Gerry’s episode.\n\nAs I mentioned at the top, the song also shows up regularly in easter commercials.\n\nWalmart used an indie version in their 2009 Easter advert, performed by an uncredited (at least as far as I could find) artist. And it worked so well that they went back to the same formula for their 2015 “Easter Joy” campaign, which featured a version of the song from the 1951 Golden Records release, Peter Cottontail and Other Easter and Springtime Favorites Whew. That mouthful brings us to our second topic of this episode.\n\nIf you have kids or where a kid yourself, which covers most humans, you’ve probably come into contact with Golden Books at some point. Those thin little cardboard-covered children’s story books with the gold spines.\n\nI had a million of them when I was little, some were even left for me by the Easter Bunny. My personal favorite was, “The Monster at the End of This Book,” featuring Sesame Street’s own lovable, furry old Grover and that amazing Michael Smollin artwork. But I’m getting sidetracked.\n\n\n  \n  The Monster at the End of this Book\n\n\nGolden books was launched by Simon and Schuster in 1942. Six years later, they helped start Golden Records.\n\nIf Golden Books were a child’s introduction to reading, then Golden Records should be their introduction to music.\n\nThe label was founded by Arthur Shimkin and released mainly 78rpm singles, which were pressed in bright yellow vinyl, came in sleeves featuring artwork that matched their golden book and sold for $.25.\n\nScruffy the Tugboat, Tootle the Train and The Saggy, Baggy Elephant all had Golden Records. You can almost smell the early synergy cooking.\n\n“Here Comes Peter Cottontail” was released as both a single and on the aforementioned full album, Peter Cottontail and Other Easter and Springtime Favorites.\n\nAs the name implies, the record contained several Easter and Springtime bangers like, “Bunny, Bunny, Bunny,” “Which Came First, The Chicken or the Egg?” and “Easter Parade.”\n\nPeter Cottontail and Other Easter and Springtime Favorites\n\nLabel: Golden Records \nReleased: 1951\n\nTracklist\n\n  A1. Peter Cottontail\n  A2. Oh, What A Beautiful Morning\n  A3. Funny Little Bunnies\n  A4. The White Bunny And His Magic Nose\n  A5. Which Came First, The Chicken Or The Egg?\n  A6. Easter Is Loving Time\n  A7. Let There Be Peace On Earth\n  B1. Open Up Your Heart (And Let The Sunshine In)\n  B2. Easter Parade\n  B3. Bunny, Bunny, Bunny\n  B4. Eustache, The Useless Rabbit\n  B5. The Barnyard Song\n  B6. Flippity, Flappity, Bunny\n  B7. The Lively Little Rabbit\n  B8. Pee Wee The Bunny\n  B9. Easter Mornin’\n\n\nFull disclosure - I have never heard of any of these other songs, nor have I listened to any of them, so you term “banger” is being used in a completely ironically and should in no way be construed as an endorsement of the dance-floor worthiness of the album.\n\nGolden Records utilized a set of regular performers including The Singing Ladies, The Sandpipers, Gilbert Mack, Anne Lloyd and The Mitch Miller Orchestra.\n\nThey also featured mainstream artists of the day. White Christmas alums Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye and Rosemary Clooney all appeared on Golden Records releases. As did Johnny Cash, Tommy Dorsey, and Alfred Hitchcock.\n\nFor the Golden Records album, it was Roy Rogers and Dale Evans joining The Sandpipers and the Mitch Miller Orchestra to record the songs.\n\n\n  \n  Golden Records: Astro Boy Theme\n\n\nFrom the information I could find, the final Golden Records releases came from 1964 and included:\n\n  A Winnie-the-Pooh record\n  Captain Kangaroo performing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”\n  A Golden Record I never knew I needed but definitely do now: “The Astro Boy Theme” by the Cosmic Rangers\n\n\nAfter Golden Records, Shimkin went on to start Sesame Street Records in 1970. And there was also Bell Records which he ran during the ’50s, while also at the helm of Golden.\n\nAll said, Arthur had an incredibly prolific career as a producer and label boss. He is credited on over 3,000 recordings and has racked up 14 Grammy nominations, with a majority for his work in the children’s music genre.\n\nPeter Cottontail followed a different trajectory. After the song’s boomtime in the ’50s and its brief rekindling by the Rankin/Bass special in ‘71, it started to fade into obscurity. Which, if we’re being honest, is probably where a an Easter-themed novelty song should be.\n\nThat is, until all those kid’s sing-along-groups, the ones that bill themselves as educational and pump out YouTube videos with cheap animation, found it about a decade ago. Now, if you search YouTube for “Here Comes Peter Cottontail,” you’ll be greeted by soul leeching renditions by groups like The Countdown Kids, the Kiboomers and a hundred other bands that attempt to shoe-horn the word ‘kid’ into their name.\n\n\n  \n  Lisa Loeb: Peter Cottontail\n\n\nThere have been a couple of stand-out exceptions though. Heinsight Media, has a fantastic metal version.\n\nAnd hot off the digital presses, we have a brand new version of “Peter Cottontail,” released by Lisa Loeb and The Hollow Trees, just over a week ago.\n\nI had planned on making several egg-related puns here, but instead, I’m going to spare everyone that pain and just say, Cheers and Happy Easter!"
        },
        {
          "id": "posts-2025-03-merry-mixtapes-tim-babb-cant-wait-for-christmas",
          "title": "Merry Mixtapes: Tim Babb - Can't Wait For Christmas",
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          "categories": "tim-babb, music, merry-mixtapes, disneyland, cant-wait-for-christmas",
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          "url": "/posts/2025/03/merry-mixtapes-tim-babb-cant-wait-for-christmas/",
          "content": "I’m excited to announce a podcast episode that has been a long time in the making.\n\nToday we have the next episode of our Merry Mixtapes series - a conversation with comedian, Disney enthusiast, lover of all things Christmas and host of Can’t Wait for Christmas podcast, Tim Babb!\n\nTim graciously shared his playlist of Disneyland Christmas music waaaaay back at the end of last November. But, there were some technical difficulties with the audio, all on my side of course (the digital Gods both fear and respect Mr. Babb).\n\n\n  \n  Can't Wait For Christmas\n\n\nAfter recording, Tim and I both realized that our conversation was pretty heavy on the visuals and might leave folks who have never experienced the parks a bit stranded. So, during the three months it took me to stitch back together all the disparate bits of local and cloud audio, I also took some time to create a visual version of the episode specifically for YouTube.\n\nIf you’ve been to the Disneyland resort, especially at Christmastime, you’ll be fine with the normal, audio-only episode. But, if you want to see all the bands, parades, attractions and shows as Tim and I discuss them, you might prefer to follow along with the visually-enhanced version.\n\nFor information on the Merry Mixtapes series and how it got started, you can check out the last post, or Episode 10 of the ‘Tis the Soundtrack podcast.\n\nAnd a big “Thank you” to Tim for sharing his mixtape and his love of Christmas and Disneyland.\n\nTo hear more of Tim, check out the Can’t Wait For Christmas podcast.\n\nTim Babb - Can’t Wait For Christmas\n\nChristmas Music of Disneyland\n\n  it’s a small world HOLIDAY (soundtrack)\n  Believe… In Holiday Magic (fireworks show)\n  A Christmas Fantasy Parade (soundtrack)\n  Sleigh Ride - Banjomania\n  Medley: Hark! The Herald Angles Sing/God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen/Joy To The World - Disneyland’s Christmas Brass (now the Dickens * Yuletide Brass Band)\n  Jingle Bell Rock - Hollyridge Strings\n  The Country Bear Christmas Special (soundtrack)\n\n\nYou can listen to Tim’s mixtape below on YouTube.\n\n\n\nPlease note: the version of the Disneyland’s Christmas Brass medley discussed in the episode is not available online. Instead, I included a a video of the Disneyland’s current Dickens Yuletide Brass performing a selection of Christmas songs.\n\nThank you again Tim for taking the time to share your mixtape (and apologies on the long delay between recording and releasing the episode).\n\nCheers and Merry Christmas!"
        },
        {
          "id": "posts-2025-01-happy-new-year-2025",
          "title": "Happy New Year (2025 edition)!",
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          "categories": "totally-rad-christmas, the-sounds-of-christmas, thank-you, music, lost-christmas-podcast, cant-wait-for-christmas",
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          "url": "/posts/2025/01/happy-new-year-2025/",
          "content": "It’s crazy to think that it was less than a year ago when I was kicking around the idea of starting a YouTube channel to talk about Christmas music. I wasn’t exactly sure what I was making, only that I love Christmas music and I find it deeply interesting the emotional response, the nostalgia it evokes. And then how ad wizards and marketing sages attempt to capitalize on it to sell you things like cars, jewelry and soup during the holidays.\n\n\n  \n  Campbell's Soup Melting Snowman\n\n\nI released my first video on March 1st 2024, a look at the first Christmas album that I remember from my childhood - Disney’s Christmas Favorites. That same day, I received a message from Gerry D, host of the Totally Rad Christmas Podcast asking if this was a new Christmas podcast. And before I even had time to decide if this could be a podcast, he had invited me into the Christmas Podcast community with wide open arms.\n\nSo my first thank-you goes out to Gerry. Totally Rad Christmas was inspiration for me to cut my first video and you were the catalyst that pushed me to turn it into a full-fledged podcast. Thanks buddy.\n\n\n  \n  Totally Rad Christmas\n\n\nOver the following 10 months, I released 14 episodes. Most of which were just me prattling on about something Christmas and either Disneyland or advertising-related, while trying to figure out how to properly use a microphone. But, I did get to launch the Merry Mixtapes series where guests created their own mixtapes of holiday tunes and them came on to discuss them.\n\nI want to thank everyone who has participated so far. This includes Gerry again, Ken Kessler of The Sounds of Christmas, Jeff Loftin of The Lost Christmas Podcast and a soon to be released episode with Can’t Wait For Christmas’s own Tim Babb!\n\nI had a great time recording these episode and truly appreciate everyone taking the time to come on and share their Christmas music picks with me. Each guest turned me on to some new-to-me tracks that have quickly become favorites.\n\nThis includes:\n\n  George Bailey by Carolyn Sills, shared by Ken\n  Jack Frost and the Hooded Crow by Jethro Tull, shared by Gerry D\n  O Come, O Come Emmanuel by for King & Country with NEEDTOBREATHE, shared by Jeff\n\n\nAnd well…I can’t say that I really picked up any new songs talking to Tim since his mixtape was all about one of our shared, favorite topics. That’s right, we discussed the music of Charlemagne’s Christmas-day coronation as, “emperor of the Romans” by Pope Leo III.\n\nJust kidding, we talked about the holiday music of Disneyland of course.\n\n\n  \n  A Christmas Fantasy Parade\n\n\nAnd though I didn’t come away with any new songs, our conversation did remind me how much I love the holiday music of Frontierland, much of which comes from the 1990 album, “Christmas Remembered” by Banjomania. By the way Tim, I was able to track down a copy of the album on CD and it will be headed your way shorted. Happy late Christmas!\n\nThere were several other podcast hosts who offered to participate in Merry Mixtapes, but unfortunately the holidays got away from me and I wasn’t able to carve out time to record before the end of the year. But the response to the episodes that were released has been so overwhelmingly positive that I will be turning the series into a year-round fixture for 2025 (and reaching back out to folks to schedule recording time if they’re still interested).\n\nIf you want to listen to the Merry Mixtapes episodes that have already been released, you can find them here:\n\n  Merry Mixtapes: Ken Kessler - The Sounds of Christmas\n  Merry Mixtapes: Gerry D - Totall Rad Christmas\n  Merry Mixtapes: Jeff - Lost Christmas\n\n\nAnd speaking of things getting away from me, something I didn’t realize about podcast is how important it is to have a schedule…and to stick to it.\n\nI didn’t have one, which contributed to me not releasing a single episode in December. You know, December…the month where a Christmas-focused podcast sees its highest amount of traffic for the year. Smart, Kevin. Really smart…\n\nThat is definitely on the top of my list of things to do better this year. It could have been to eat healthier, or to exercise more, or even to get more sleep. But no, my top resolution for 2025 is to create a production calendar for the year.\n\nWhich segues nicely to my next thank you. Thank you to my always loving, always understand partner who has supported me in this hobby despite not being a fan of Christmas music…or podcasts.\n\nAnd a final thank you to the lovely folks at Hafod Hardware in Rhayader, Wales. Our sixth episode back in June covered the series of holiday adverts Hafod put out between 2017 and 2020, all of which featured music by the incredibly talented Andrea von Kampen and all of which melted hearts the world over.\n\n\n  \n  Hafod Hardware\n\n\nAround the beginning of November, Hafod Hardware posted a link on their Facebook page to the Youtube video of the episode. How they found my podcast I have no idea, but that episode when from 40-ish views over the first five months on Youtube to over 800 in the last few weeks.\n\nThose might seem like small numbers in the grander scheme of things, but it was huge for this little podcast which was getting a handful of views on Youtube each week (if we were lucky) and got us in front of hundreds of new listeners.\n\nSpeaking of YouTube…this is one I’m still trying to figure out. Like I mentioned, I had originally intended ‘Tis the Soundtrack to be a YouTube channel and for the first few episodes I published both an audio-only podcast version and a video version specifically for YouTube. But midway through last year, Google shut down their podcast service and moved it all to YouTube. This meant that the audio-only episodes started showing up on YouTube along with the video versions.\n\nI stopped creating video episodes shortly after that to see if I could come up with a better plan…or more realistically to wait until someone else came up with a better plan that I could copy.\n\nI think I have a solution now, which you’ll see on the upcoming Merry Mixtapes episode with Tim Babb. After recording the episode Tim and I both had the same realization that a lot of our discussion makes complete sense to someone who treats Disneyland like their second livingroom, but could be a little hard to follow for someone who has never been to the parks, or never visited at Christmas time.\n\n\n  \n  A \"Christmas Fantasy\" Parade by Carlos\n\n\nSo, that episode will have a dedicated video version to provide visual aids for the conversation. And both the audio-only and video versions will mention each other at the top so folks can experience it in their preferred way. If future Kevin is more ontop of his editing that present Kevin is and past Kevin has been, then my conversation with Tim should be the very next episode dropping after this on.\n\nOn the heels of that, I have Disney holiday loop episodes for Frontierland and the Disney Springs shopping district at Walt Disney World locked and loaded, as well as my own “Wrapped episode for 2024.\n\nIn the spirit of Spotify and Tidal, I’ve put together my own Merry Mixtape of Christmas and Christmas-adjacent songs that I’ve enjoyed in 2024. It features the three tracks I mentioned that were shared by Ken, Jeff and Gerry, along with many other songs covered in the previous episodes or on heavy rotation in the Williams’ household this last year.\n\nAfter that, it all depends on how successful future Kevin was at putting together his schedule.\n\nCheers and Happy New Year!"
        },
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          "id": "posts-2024-11-merry-mixtapes-jeff-lost-christmas",
          "title": "Merry Mixtapes: Jeff - Lost Christmas Podcast",
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          "tags": "",
          "url": "/posts/2024/11/merry-mixtapes-jeff-lost-christmas/",
          "content": "Today we are celebrating Thanksgiving here in the States. For me that means a healthy portion of turkey, along with a healthy side of nostalgia.\n\nAnd while I’m fumbling around the kitchen, pre-dawn to begin prepping this year’s meal, I’m thinking about my holidays past. Friends, family, the smells of the kitchen, the sounds of relatives catching up, watching the parade with my brothers and being more excited for the toy commercials than the floats and performers.\n\nSticking with that theme, I’m excited to introduce our Thanksgiving Day episode and the next in our Merry Mixtapes series - a conversation with Jeff Loftin, host of the Lost Christmas podcast.\n\n\n  \n  Lost Christmas\n\n\nJeff brings us a mixtape full of personally nostalgic Christmas favorites. And in our conversation, we run the gammut from Christmas classics of childhood, to country music stars to post-hardcore bands and the Warped Tour.\n\nIf you are new here, you can check out the Episode 10 of the ‘Tis the Soundtrack podcast\nor the Merry Mixtapes Introduction post.\n\nAnd a big “Thank you” to Jeff for sharing his mixtape full of nostalgia.\n\nTo hear more of Jeff, check out the Lost Christmas podcast.\n\nJeff - Lost Christmas\n\nNostalgic Christmas Mixtape\n\n  Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree - Brenda Lee\n  Jingle Bell Rock - Bobby Helms\n  Silent Night - Bing Crosby\n  Christmas Cookies - George Strait\n  Mary Did You Know - Kenny Rogers & Wynonna Judd\n  With Bells On - Dolly Parton & Kenny Rogers\n  Last Christmas - Wham!\n  Fairytale of New York - The Pogues\n  Let It Snow - Boyz II Men\n  Mis Deseos/Feliz Navidad - Michael Buble & Thalia\n  Last Christmas - Ariana Grande\n  Cold December Night - Michael Buble\n  Take Me Home for Christmas - Dan + Shay\n  Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (Te Deseo Muy Felices Fiestas) - Jesse & Joy\n  O Come, O Come Emmanuel - 4 King & Country ft NEEDTOBREATHE\n  Winterlove - Parachute\n  Mookie’s Last Christmas (Acoustic Version) - Saosin\n  Merry Christmas, Mappy Holidays - Issues\n  I Won’t Be Home for Christmas - Blink-182\n\n\nYou can listen to Jeff’s mixtape below on YouTube.\n\n\n\nThank you again Jeff for taking the time to share your mixtape!\n\nCheers and Merry Christmas!"
        },
        {
          "id": "posts-2024-11-christmas-podcast-day",
          "title": "2024 Christmas Podcast Day: Unreleased Songs From Holiday Adverts",
          "collection": {
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          "categories": "target, sophia-reyes, music, jim-noir, j-c-penney, fatboy-slim, christmas-podcast-day, black-pumas, bing-crosby",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/posts/2024/11/christmas-podcast-day/",
          "content": "Today we have a very special post, to celebrate a very special November 1st holiday.\n\n\n  \n  Christmas Podcast Day\n\n\nNo, I’m not talking about Prime Meridian Day, or National Deep Fried Clams Day or even World Vegan Day. While those are all wonderful holidays in their own right, I’m talking about Christmas Podcast Day!\n\nChristmas Podcast Day, celebrated each November 1st is a day when members of the Christmas podcast community get together to release somewhat synchronized episodes of their shows. Some years there is a shared theme, like last year when it was the Charles Dickens’ classic, “A Christmas Carol.” Other years, like this year, it’s a do-your-own-thing affair.\n\n‘Tis the Soundtrack started back in February of this year, so this is my first Christmas Podcast Day. And since I was left to my own devices, naturally I waited until the absolute last minute to throw this post together.\n\nI wrote this late in the evening, October 30th. I’ll be recording the podcast episode Halloween morning before work and I’ll be editing it while handing out candy to trick-or-treaters…because we celebrate on Oct 31st…even when it falls on a Thursday.\n\nBut communities moving Halloween to more convenient weekend dates is an irksome topic for another podcast. So let’s stop yelling at kids on our lawns and get back to Christmas Podcast Day!\n\nChristmas Podcast Day is kind of like a Whitman’s Holiday Sampler. You can listen to a whole mess of hosts cover an equally extensive list of topics, all in the Christmas orbit. Then, just when you think you’re done, you realize that underneath that crinkly plastic tray is a second entire level with just as many podcasts as the first.\n\nAnd since I’ve kind of boxed myself (pun completely intended) into a corner with this metaphor, let me wrap it up by saying that you can head over to https://christmaspodcasts.com and sample what everyone has contributed to our somewhat-official holiday.\n\nAnd may everything you hear be just as sweet as biting into one of those mystery chocolates and realizing you hit the jackpot - Dark Chocolate Butter Cream. Unless you’re one of those sadists whose love of Orange Cream is only rivaled by your love of watching the looks of revulsion on everyone else’s faces when they accidentally sink their teeth into one. I’m guessing you’re the same person that roots for the mines in minesweeper.\n\nFor our first Christmas Podcast Day post, we’re talking about one of my favorite topics, the music of holiday advertisements. And since we wanted to do something extra special for today’s episode, we’re going to look at a trio of songs from Christmas advertisements that only exist in those advertisements.\n\nIn some cases, an entire song was never produced, just enough to fill the background of a 30-second TV spot while a voiceover extolls the virtues of holiday shopping. This means if you want to listen to any of these songs, you’ll have to fire up YouTube and watch the actual adverts, voiceovers and all. Well, except for one…kind of, but we’ll get to that later.\n\nThe first song we’re looking at today is an alternate version of “My Patch” by English artist Jim Noir that was created for Target’s 2007 holiday ad campaign “Christmas Countdown Calendar.”\n\n\n\nThe campaign featured multiple TV commercials, each panning over an Advent Calendar, while the doors open to reveal scenes like people partaking in holiday activities or kids playing with the hottest toys of the year, before ending with a simple, “Merry Christmas” message.\n\nThe song “My Patch”, which was released two years earlier, first on an EP of the same name, then as the lead track on the debut Jim Noir album, Tower of Love has nothing to do with Christmas or the holidays.\n\n\n  \n  Jim Noir: Tower of Love\n\n\nFor the Target campaign, a new version of the song was recorded with the chorus changed from “If you ever step on my patch / I’ll bring you down, I’ll bring you down” to “Holidays are times of magic / We’re counting down, we’re counting down”.\n\nSo who sang this new version?\n\nAccording to the Jim Noir Wikipedia page, this holiday version was performed by an unknown artist. And the Jim Noir bio on Universal Music adds even less clarity, just stating that “My Patch” was used in the campaign.\n\nI did find a forum discussion from back in November 2007 that attributed the vocals to a Chris Barron. Who could possibly be Chris Barron of the Spin Doctors…or another musician with the same name…or just completely bad information as I haven’t been able to confirm it anywhere else.\n\nWhat I can say is that this version of the song has never appeared outside of the holiday adverts and that it’s highly unlikely a full version was ever recorded. Which is too bad, it’s a bouncy, catchy little electronic indie tune.\n\n\n  \n  Fatboy Slim: Palookaville\n\n\nFor the next song we’re exploring, we’re going to turn the dial back one more year to 2006 and take a look at the commercials created for that year’s perennial JCPenney “Unwrap the Magic” campaign.\n\nUnlike the year prior, where the JCP TV spots featured ELO’s “Livin’ Thing,” which you can read about here, or listen to on episode 9 of the podcast, for 2006 JCPenney went an entirely different direction. They smashed together Bing Crosby’s iconic version of “Here Comes Santa Claus” featuring the Andrews Sisters with the Fat Boy Slim track, “It’s A Wonderful Night” from his 2004 album Palookaville.\n\n\n\nAnd the results were good…really good. And people thought so back when the commercial originally dropped 18 years ago too.\n\nWhile the original YouTube video from 2006 was purged some time ago, the comments were full of folks asking if the song was going to be released. There was even a reply by one of the individuals who worked on the advert music. Their response, which has been preserved in an Adtunes forum post about the commercial stated that they worked for I Dig Music, the Chicago company tapped to produce the track. They created a minute plus of audio, from which 30 seconds were cut for the advert.\n\nThey also shared that Fatboy Slim’s US representation reached back out to I Dig Music afterward to, in their words, “blow the whole thing out to a full remix.” The poster was encouraging folks who liked the song to email Norman Cook’s label and management asking for it.\n\nUnfortunately, a full remix was never produced…and it appears that I Dig Music is no longer in business.\n\nBut, unlike the Target version of “My Patch,” this song’s story didn’t quite end with the commercial…sort of. While I Dig Music never produced a full remix, about 10 years ago, a Christmas saint by the name of Randall Bruder accepted the mission. Using the 30-second commercial spot as a blueprint, he punched out the mashup to a full two-minute remix.\n\n\n  \n  Randall Bruder: Here Comes a Wonderful Night\n\n\nHis track, titled “Here Comes A Wonderful Night” is availabe on both Soundcloud and Bandcamp.\n\nAnd for our final song of the show, we’re turning back to Target, but this time skipping ahead to 2021. That year Target was running a year-long advertising campaign titled, “What We Value Most Shouldn’t Cost More.” During the summer, the campaign adverts featured the Black Pumas song “Colors,” from the band’s 2019 self-titled and debut studio album.\n\nFor the campaign’s holiday adverts, Target once again tapped Black Pumas who partnered with Mexican artist Sofia Reyes to record a cover of the Emotions’ “Best of My Love.”\n\n\n\nAnd this version (or at least the bit of it you can hear behind the voice-over in the commercials) is fantasic!\n\nLike the other two songs we discussed tonight, this one has never been made available outside of the commercials. I even attempted to leverage AI to find this song for me. After a few failed attempts at crafting my prompt with Copilot, which thought I was trying to get it to download copyrighted material, I successfully asked if there was anywhere I could legally stream the song.\n\nAnd then I recieved a complete hallucination of a response, with the Go-bot overlord telling me emphatically that the song was available on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, YouTube Music and Deezer. Only to then backtrack when I challenged it to produce a direct URL to any of the named sources and instead suggest that these are the types of services that would potentially have the track at some point and that I should check them regularly. Thanks robot.\n\nBut, from the information in the Target press release announcing the adverts back in 2021, I do believe a full version of this song was recorded and, with the recentness of the adverts, there is a much better chance this one gets a full release down the road. And while we wait to see if that is a present Santa delivers us this year, we do have another holiday track by Black Pumas. It’s their 2020 cover of Lou Rawls’ “Christmas Will Really Be Christmas.”\n\n\n\nAs always, I want to thank you for checking out ‘Tis the Soundtrack. If you’re a regular here, it’s likely you’re already familiar with the many other wonderful shows and hosts that make up the Christmas Podcast Network. But I still encourage you to check out all the Christmas Podcast Day episodes available at https://christmaspodcasts.com. A few new faces…or voices I suppose, like my own, have joined the Christmas podcast space this year and it’s a great way to find something new to help you keep that Christmas spirit going all year long.\n\nAnd if you’re a new friend and possibly found your way here via Christmas Podcast Day, welcome! I hope you enjoyed this post and our look at some obscure songs from holiday adverts. As I said at the top, this is one of my favorite topics to cover and this post (and the accompanying podcast episode) are good examples of the content and tone of ‘Tis the Soundtrack.\n\nSo, to my friends both new and old, cheers and Mery Christmas Podcast Day!"
        },
        {
          "id": "posts-2024-10-merry-mixtapes-gerry-d-totally-rad-christmas",
          "title": "Merry Mixtapes: Gerry D - Totally Rad Christmas",
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            "name": "Posts"
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          "categories": "totally-rad-christmas, music, merry-mixtapes, gerry-d",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/posts/2024/10/merry-mixtapes-gerry-d-totally-rad-christmas/",
          "content": "Today we have the second episode in our Merry Mixtapes series - a conversation with Gerry D, the totally awesome host of the Totally Rad Christmas podcast.\n\n\n  \n  Totally Rad Christmas\n\n\nIf you’re excited by the idea of listening to a couple hours of lesser-known, synth-soaked tunes from the generation that brought you Sectaurs, Starriors and Square Pegs…or maybe you’re just a little ’80s-curious, this is the episode for you!\n\nFor information on the Merry Mixtapes series and how it got started, please check out the last post, or Episode 10 of the ‘Tis the Soundtrack podcast.\n\nAnd a big “Thank you” to Gerry for sharing his mixtape and his love of all things ’80s.\n\nTo hear more of Gerry, check out the Totally Rad Christmas podcast.\n\nGerry D - Totally Rad Christmas\n\nObscure ’80s Christmas Tracks\n\n  God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen - The Steve Miller Band\n  Christmas Must Be Tonight - Robbie Robertson\n  Run with the Fox - Alan White and Chris Squire\n  Dead By X-mas - Hanoi Rocks\n  Thanks for Christmas - XTC\n  3 Ships - Jon Anderson\n  Merry Christmas Everyone - Shakin’ Stevens\n  Christmas Time - Chris Stamey and the dB’s\n  What I Want for X’mas - The New Monkees\n  Merry Christmas - Bonnie Tyler\n  Jack Frost and the Hooded Crow - Jethro Tull\n  Christmas in Love - Firefall\n  Reason for the Season - Stryper\n  Reggae Christmas - Brian Adams\n  Cashing in on Christmas - Bad News\n  2000 Years of Love - 54-40\n  All I Want for Christmas (Is World Peace) - Timbuk 3\n  Il Est Ne Le Divin Enfant - Siouxsie and The Banshees\n  Silent Night - The Hooters\n  Wrappen Up In You - Dolly Parton\n  Under the Christmas Tree - Albert Hammond\n  We Three Kings - Book of Love\n  One Christmas Catalogue - Captain Sensible\n  Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer - Corey Hart\n  She Won’t Be Home - Erasure\n  Little Drummer Boy - Joan Jett & the Blackhearts\n  Transylvanian Xmas - Mojo Nixon\n  Silent Night, Deadly Night - Morgan Ames\n  Snowman - Rainbow\n  Christmas Fever - CharlElie Couture\n  Jólakötturinn - Björk\n  Jólahjól - Sniglabandið\n\n\nYou can listen to Gerry’s mixtape below on YouTube.\n\n\n\nThank you again Gerry for taking the time to share your mixtape!\n\nCheers and Merry Christmas!"
        },
        {
          "id": "posts-2024-10-merry-mixtapes-ken-kessler-the-sounds-of-christmas",
          "title": "Merry Mixtapes: Ken Kessler - The Sounds of Christmas",
          "collection": {
            "label": "posts",
            "name": "Posts"
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          "categories": "the-sounds-of-christmas, music, merry-mixtapes, ken-kessler",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/posts/2024/10/merry-mixtapes-ken-kessler-the-sounds-of-christmas/",
          "content": "I am extremely excited to present the first in our Merry Mixtapes series - a conversation with Ken Kessler, host of The Sounds of Christmas podcast and radio station.\n\n\n  \n  The Sounds of Christmas\n\n\nFor information on what the Merry Mixtapes series is and how it got started, please check out the last post, or Episode 10 of the ‘Tis the Soundtrack podcast.\n\nAnd a big “Thank you” to Ken for not only sharing his mixtape, but coming on the ‘Tis the Soundtrack podcast and spending over two hours with me, talking about his mixtape and the tracks he selected.\n\nTo hear more of Ken, check out The Sounds of Christmas podcast and radio station.\n\nKen Kessler - The Sounds of Christmas\n\nGreat Christmas music you may never have heard before\n\n  Christmas is Coming - Payola$\n  George Bailey - Carolyn Sills\n  Red Lights (Merry Christmas) - Dreams So Real\n  Easier Said Than Done - Jon Anderson\n  Christmas Spirit - Richard Marx\n  Always in the Season - Pomplamoose\n  It’s Christmas All Over the World - Sheena Easton\n  Christmas Time (Is Here Again) - The Beatles\n  Thanks for Christmas - XTC\n  Zuzu’s Petals - Lunch at Allen’s\n  Christmas on My Radio - Olivia Newton-John\n  The Christmas Song - Sheryl Crow\n  The Man With the Bag - Vonda Shepard\n  Christmas Time - dB’s\n  Just Another Christmas Song - Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings\n  Silver Bells - Wilson Pickett\n  Christmas Rhapsody - Pledge Drive\n  My Favorite Time of Year - Florin Street Band\n  Ode to Joy/O Come All Ye Faithful - Gold Coral\n  Very Merry Christmas - Zoe Bentley and Canadian Brass\n  Blame It on Christmas - Bebe Rexha and Shea Diamond\n  Decorations - Bob Rivers\n  Toy Sack - Bob Rivers\n  What I Really Want for Christmas - Brian Wilson\n  Blue Christmas - Bruce Springsteen\n  I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day - Casting Crowns\n  Christmas - Dillon Fence\n  Everybody Loves Christmas - Eddie Money and Ronnie Spector\n  Everybody Loves Christmas - Eddie Money, Jesse Money and Dez Money\n  Little Drummer Boy - Joan Jett\n  The Spirit of Christmas - Kurt Russell and Darlene Love\n  Happy Christmas - Pretenders\n  You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch - Sixpence None the Richer\n  Do They Know It’s Christmas (12” Mix) - Band Aid\n  Driving Home for Christmas - Chris Rea\n  Winter Wonderland - Garrett Morris\n  My Dearest Mr. Santa Claus - Heywood Banks\n  The Sounds of Christmas - Johnny Mathis\n  The Sound of Christmas - The Ramsey Lewis Trio\n  The Sound of Christmas -Julie Andrews\n\n\nYou can listen to Ken’s mixtape below on YouTube. It is missing track 19, “Ode to Joy/O Come All Ye Faithful” by Gold Corl, which is currently only available here, on the artist’s bandcamp page.\n\n\n\nThank you again Ken for taking the time to share your mixtape!\n\nCheers and Merry Christmas!"
        },
        {
          "id": "posts-2024-10-merry-mixtapes-introduction",
          "title": "Merry Mixtapes: Introduction",
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          "categories": "music, merry-mixtapes",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/posts/2024/10/merry-mixtapes-introduction/",
          "content": "Merry Mixtapes was the original name I had planned on using for the YouTube channel that eventually morphed into this podcast. The initial idea was to create YouTube playlists around a central theme: Hipster Holiday Party, Christmas at the Beach, Adopted Songs, stuff like that, then cut a video talking about the playlist and why each song made the cut.\n\nBut, before I finished my first video, I realized the scope was too narrow and there was much more I wanted to explore in the realm of Christmas music. So, the name changed to ‘Tis the Soundtrack…which in hindsight was probably too close to ‘Tis the Podcast and there was definitely a time or two early on where I caught myself in editing saying ‘Podcast’ instead of ‘Soundtrack’. Sorry Anthony, Julia and Thom.\n\n\n  \n  Original Merry Mixtapes Logo\n\n\nThe Merry Mixtape idea sat on the shelf…or more accurately sat in my OneNote episode planning sheet until a month or so ago when I decided to check out this hot new trend that’s been taking corporate America by storm…outsourcing.\n\nI hit up the Christmas Podcast community and asked if there was any interest in creating a Mixtape of Christmas tunes around a central theme and then coming on to discuss. And I cannot overstate how completely blown away I was by the response - a big thank you to everyone who has been so supportive of this project.\n\nThe Merry Mixtape rules were simple:\n\n  Guests create a holiday mixtape around a central theme of their choosing.\n  There is no song limit, but the total runtime needed to stay under 74 minutes…that number representing the original recording limit of CD-R’s when they first became available.\n  And that’s it!\n\n\nThen we sit down (in our respective recording spaces) and talk about the tape. We cover the theme, who would enjoy listening and take a deep dive into each track and why it was selected.\n\nThe plan was to also compile the mixtapes on the popular music streaming platforms, so folks could listen along with us or play the tapes after finishing the episodes. But, as I learned while recording the first two episodes, many of these songs are not widely available on streaming.\n\nI’ve had pretty good luck with YouTube…which kind of brings us full circle, back to the origin of this Podcast. So, when each episode drops, you’ll be able to get the mixtape track list from either the show notes or the ‘Tis the Soundtrack website and both locations will also include a link to a YouTube playlist, containing all the songs in the order they appear on the tape.\n\n\n  \n  The Sounds of Christmas\n\n\nKen Kessler from The Sounds of Christmas and Gerry D from Totally Rad Christmas were the first brave pioneers to participate and I want to give a special thanks to both of them for taking the time out of their busy lives to talk Christmas music for hours.\n\nThat’s right folks, hours..plural.\n\nInstead of the normal 10-15 minute ‘Tis the Soundtrack episodes, with the Merry Mixtapes series, you’ll be hearing much long, in-depth conversations.\n\nFor example, I’m just about done editing my conversation with Ken and it looks like it’s going to end up north of 2 hours.\n\nPart of the reason for this is that we completely obliterated that rule I mentioned about the 74 minute time limit. Ken came locked and loaded with 40 tracks clocking in at 148 minutes on the nose or exactly two CDs! A double-album completely stuffed full of great Christmas music, much of which you may never have heard before.\n\n\n  \n  Totally Rad Christmas\n\n\nAnd Gerry, keeping his theme on-point, ignored the CD part completely and instead picked up a trusty Maxell UR120, maxxing out both 60-minute sides of the cassette with 32 tracks from the greatest decade…that is assuming you define the greatest decade in terms of saturation of neon or proliferation of synthesizers or maybe quantity of electronic story-telling bears or density of transforming robots…all completely valid units of decadel measurement mind you.\n\nThe other reason these episodes are so long is that it’s just such a fun topic. Getting to nerd out about obscure, personally meaningful or just plain weird holiday tunes with fellow Christmas-obsesses (yet extremely-well-adjusted) individuals is surely going to be at the top of my list of things I am thankful for this year.\n\nAnd that’s it for today. The first two episodes of the Merry Mixtapes series, featuring Ken and Gerry will be dropping over the next week. And in-between building Halloween deocrations, I’ll be busy recording new episodes with some other fantastic Christmas Podcast hosts so we’ll have a steady steam of mixtapes through the end of the year.\n\nCheers and Merry Christmas!"
        },
        {
          "id": "posts-2024-08-jeff-lynne-and-the-electric-light-orchestra",
          "title": "Jeff Lynne and the Electric Light Orchestra",
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          "categories": "wizzard, walmart, tom-petty, target, roy-orbison, music, jeff-lynne, j-c-penney, grandaddy, electric-light-orchestra",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/posts/2024/08/jeff-lynne-and-the-electric-light-orchestra/",
          "content": "As August comes to a close we’re rapidly approaching that special night where a magical being descends from the sky to share the gifts of joy and merriment. That’s right, in just a few short days, Jeff Lynne will arrive in Portland, Oregon for ELO’s Over and Out final tour.\n\nTo celebrate this sacred night, we’re taking a look today at the Christmas music contributions of Jeff Lynne and his Electric Light Orchestra.\n\n\n  \n  ELO's Over and Out Tour\n\n\nJeff Lynne is sadly not the household name he should. In interviews, Lynne has stated he much prefers putting in long days at the mixing desk to living the rockstar life. An ethos that has likely contributed to his ability to build a staggering resume over the last 50 year while remaining fairly under the pop culture radar.\n\nELO started as a side project of the English band The Move, an outlet for them to explore the fusion of early ’70s rock and classical music. Roy Wood, the other creative force in ELO left shortly after the release of their first, self-titled first album in 1971, leaving Jeff to chart the course through another 14 albums over 51 years; from 1973’s ELO 2 to 2019’s From Out of Nowhere.\n\nBut ELO’s heyday was squarely the latter half of the ’70s, where Lynne produced a series of albums, from Face the Music in ‘75 on through to the Xanadu Soundtrack in 1980, all cracking the top 10 of the US Billboard 200 chart. This run is responsible for hits including “Evil Woman”, “Strange Magic”, “Telephone Line”, “Livin’ Thing”, “Sweet Talkin’ Woman”, “Don’t Bring Me Down” and the title track “Xanadu” featuring Olivia Newton John.\n\n\n  \n  ELO Out of theBlue album\n\n\nThis period also produced an ELO song that, while not initially a chart-topper has gone on to become their most recognizable tune: “Mr. Blue Sky” from the 1977 album Out of the Blue. This song has been everywhere recently: From the opening credits of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 to closing out The Super Mario Bros. movie. Not to mention being featured in both the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London and, my personal favorite appearance of the song: a cover version by the Muppets band Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem for Google’s Dear Earth special in 2021.\n\nQuick tangent: “Mr. Blue Sky” was almost used as the theme song to American version of The Office. When Greg Daniels was first adapting The Office, he originally intended to use an existing song for the show’s theme. As Jenna Fischer shared on her podcast, Daniels had narrowed it down to three choices: “Better Things” by the Kinks, “Float On” by Modest Mouse and “Mr. Blue Sky”.\n\nDaniels cut opening sequences using each song and sent them out to the cast to vote on. “Mr. Blue Sky” was the overwhelming winner. It went so far that the DVD pilot distributed to the cast included the ELO song.\n\nBut…before the first episode of The Office aired, another NBC show, LAX, which starred Heather Locklear debuted and also used “Mr. Blue Sky” for its opening theme. So Daniels turned to James Ferguson to record the original, now iconic Office theme. And that’s history.\n\nAnd since we’re already on a tangent, I’ll also take a moment for a small shout-out to another of my favorite ELO songs, “Do Ya” from the 1976 album, A New World Record. This song has received a massive amount of attention recently, being featured in all the trailers for the new Borderlands movie. And while I have not seen the movie yet, I’ll go out on a limb and predict that the trailer featuring a 30-second action montage set to “Do Ya” is way better than watching the actual movie. Just a guess.\n\n\n  \n  Borderlands Movie\n\n\nOK, back on topic. Outside of his work steering the good ship ELO, Lynne has also notched a pair of solo albums and continues to add his list of writing and producing credits, including his work with Bryan Adams, Tom Petty, Roy Orbison, George Harrison, Ringo Star, Paul McCartney, Brian Wilson and Joe Walsh.\n\nLynne was also a member of the Traveling Wilburys, a musical supergroup that included Bob Dylan and the aforementioned Tom Petty, Roy Orbison and George Harrison. Jeff was the man entrusted to produce two new Beatles tracks, “Free as a Bird” and “Real Love” for the Anthologies series, both based on demo tapes recorded by a post-Beatles John Lennon.\n\nSo, now that we’ve spent a few minutes catching up on Lynne’s musical credentials, we can turn to look at his contributions to the Christmas Music tapestry, which includes exactly…zero songs!\n\nThat’s right over 50 years of writing, producing and recording and there isn’t a single Jeff Lynne or ELO Christmas track. Nothing, nada, zilch!\n\nSo, you might be asking why we are here today. Well, first, this post gave me a reason to talk about Jeff Lynne and that’s an opportunity I wasn’t going to miss. And second, while not directly responsible for creating any Christmas tunes, Lynne has indirectly left his mark on the holidays in several ways over the year, which is exactly what we’ll be digging into now.\n\nTo start, we’re going to look at a pair of Christmas adverts that prominently feature ELO music.\n\nThe first is a JCPenney commercial that I’ve mentioned in a previous episode. It was from their 2005 “Unwrap the Magic” campaign and features the ELO song “Livin’ Thing”, also from the album A New World Record. The premise of the advert is that holiday shopping online (something that was still fairly novel in 2005) is “like Magic.” It depicted a giant mouse cursor dragging gift boxes to family members in a living room and clicking to transform them into their unwrapped presents.\n\n\n\nThe advert uses the first verse of the song, emphasizing the “it’s like magic” lyrics before a voiceover starts stomps on top of it. It ends by cropping out the third line of the chorus, “It’s a given thing”, which I’m guessing was used to punctuate the commercial since given sounds very close to giving.\n\n\n  \n  JCPenney - Unwrap the Magic\n\n\nThe commercial also brings up an interesting (well interesting to me at least) question: looking at the gifts in the commercial, who was buying their expensive telescopes and guitars from JCPenney in 2005? From the assortment of gifts shown in the ad, I think the most plausible gifts were the Jeff Gordon NASCAR jacket and BMX bike with fake dirt bike facade.\n\nThe second and in my opinion much better use of ELO music is the 2014 Kohl’s “Yes to Holiday Magic” advert, a much more sentimental affair, featuring “Strange Magic” from the Face the Music album. The setup for this one is a dad and his pre-teen son driving down a road into a snowy, wooded area. The dad starts to explain that the son’s mom and he thought the son might like “this” and how his dad had brought him out here, but he stops when he realizes the kid has earbuds in and isn’t listening.\n\nThey park at the edge of the woods and walk in as an arrangement of “Strange Magic” starts playing. They come to a clearing and see a Santa-eque fellow in front of a cabin, feeding a herd of reindeer. One of the reindeer approaches the son, then, after a brief staring contest, it runs off into the fog and you see it start to take flight just as it disappears. The kid runs off after his dad asking him if he just saw that while the dad continues to walk away smiling.\n\n\n\nThe lyrics come in during this last part. They are a mash-up of four separate lines plucked from the end of the first verse and various points in the chorus. But…it works…really well…the whole thing…the commercial and the music. I did a bit of searching (though full disclosure, not too much) to see if the commercial version of the song exists anywhere, but it looks like it was created by the Peterson Milla Hooks agency specifically for this advert.\n\nOne more quick tangent. The son in the commercial is Anton Starkman, who a year or so later played Max Ellison in a handful of episodes of American Horror Story, season 5. He also recently played Milo, a comic book shop manager and lead character in the Nickelodeon series Warped!. So, good for him. Christmas magic and a respectable acting career.\n\nWhile I was only able to find two holiday commercials featuring ELO, there are still a couple more Jeff Lynne Christmas connections. I mentioned at the beginning of the post that ELO was initially a side project of the band The Move and that shortly after their first album, creative differences caused Roy Wood to leave the group. He left to work on another project, a new band with the intent to stitch together early ’60s rock with the “Wall of Sound” style of Phil Spector’s productions. That band was Wizzard…the same Wizzard that released “I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday” about a year later in 1973. A song which was voted the UK’s second various Christmas song on the “The Nation’s Favorite…” documentary series, just behind the Pogues’ “Fairytale of New York”.\n\n\n\nSo…in a way if it wasn’t for Jeff Lyne joining The Move and Roy Wood going a different direction, we might not have one of the greatest Christmas songs of the 1970s. Or…I suppose in another timeline, Wood may have stayed, and we’d have an ELO version of the song…but let’s not dwell on that.\n\nJeff also notches another Christmas connection through his production of Tom Petty’s holiday tune, “Christmas All Over Again”, which appeared on Home Alone 2 and A Very Special Christmas 2, the second album in the compilation series benefitting the Special Olympics.\n\n\n\nThe final and most recent Jeff Lynne connection is the 2022 holiday track, “It Was A Silent Night At Least Until Jeff Lynne Arrived,” by the band Grandaddy. The song is about an unexpected holiday visit from Jeff Lynne, set to “Silent Night”. On Bandcamp, frontman Jason Lyte shared that, “Santa Claus gave me some pretty cool gifts as a kid. But I have to say Jeff Lynne has given me about a million or so more. Here is my little light-hearted holiday combo-homage to the two of them.”\n\n\n\nAnd with that we have reached the end of our dive into Jeff Lynne’s and ELO’s Christmas music exploration. Before we depart, since we have talked about a few non-Christmas songs, I want to run them through the Chrismometer, our highly tuned 5-point Christmas music scale that rates holidayness of a song from Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” at the top all the way down to the Edgar Winter Group’s “Frankenstein” at the bottom. For the songs discussed today, we have:\n\n\n  Livin’ Thing at 1.25 - A great song, but you aren’t going to squeeze much more Christmasness out of this one than you are from Edgar Winter.\n  Strange Magic at 2.75 - Another great song and if we assume the magic is Christmas-rated, we’re squarely in Fleet Foxes’ “White Winter Hymnal” territory.\n  I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday at a solid 3.9 - Just a hair under Dean Martin singing “Winter Wonderland”.\n  Christmas All Over Again at - 3.75, A solid Christmas song.\n  It Was a Silent Night At Least Until Jeff Lynne Arrived - The Chirsmometer did know what to do with this one. And, from the pile of wreckage on the floor that was once our precision instrument, I’ll calling it either a 6 or a negative 1. I’ll leave that one for you to decide.\n\n\nCheers and Merry Christmas!"
        },
        {
          "id": "posts-2024-07-disney-holiday-loops-trader-sams-enchanted-tiki-bar",
          "title": "Disney Holiday Loops: Trader Sam's Enchanted Tiki Bar",
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          "categories": "walt-disney-world, tiki, surf-rock, music, exotica, disneyland, disney",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/posts/2024/07/disney-holiday-loops-trader-sams-enchanted-tiki-bar/",
          "content": "We’re celebrating the end of Christmas in July by taking a look at another Disney Holiday Loop. This is one of my favorite area loops and a perfect soundtrack if you’re looking for a Summertime Christmas fix. This is the Trader Sam’s Enchanted Tiki Bar Holiday Loop.\n\nIf you are not familiar with Disney area loops or their holiday counterparts, you can check out the first entry in the series where we dive into the concept and also take a look at the Christmas tunes of the Buena Vista Steet area in Disney California Adventure.\n\nBut today is not about the big band, jazz and swing tunes of Buena Vista Steet, it’s all about the island vibes of Trader Sam’s.\n\n\n  \n  Trader Sam's photo by Steven Miller\n\n\nTrader Sam’s Enchanted Tiki Bar is located just outside the Disneyland Hotel, which is itself located just outside the Disneyland gates in Anaheim, California. It shares a building (and a chunk of the menu) with the Tangaroa Terrace Tropical Bar & Grill, both located in the hotel’s pool area.\n\nAs you may have deduced from the name, Trader Sam’s is a Tiki-themed bar. It opened in 2011 as part of the multi-year renovation of the Disneyland hotel that was themed around nostalgia and paying tribute to the early days of the park. The Tangaroa Terrace and conjoined tiki bar are the spiritual successor to the Tahitian Terrace, an Adventureland restaurant that operated from the early ’60s to early ’90s and featured a dinner show with firewalking and hula dancing.\n\n\n  \n  Tahitian Terrace photo by Gene Spesard\n\n\nBut that’s not the only Adventureland connection. The name Enchanted Tiki Bar is itself an homage to Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room and the bar’s fictitious proprietor, Trader Sam, was initially introduced through the Jungle Cruise attraction where Sam was the “head salesman” of the equally fictitious Jungle Navigation Company.\n\nThis takes us to the uncomfortable portion of this episode. Tiki bars and Tiki culture in general can be a form of cultural appropriation. It often steals elements of Polynesian, Hawaiian, Caribbean and other cultures, including music, art, customs and traditions, then blends it all together into a homogenized, romanticized product called Tiki, which replaces the history of violent colonization throughout these areas with a menu of tasty rum-based drinks.\n\nThere is also the problem of Trader Sam himself. A character developed for the Jungle Cruise attraction, Sam was depicted as a racist stereotype of South American Indigenous Peoples, a practicer of cannibalism and a purveyor of shrunken heads. An audio-animatronic character of Sam previously appeared near the end of the ride where he offered to trade you “two of his heads for one of yours.”\n\n\n  \n  Trader Sam photo by Steven Miller\n\n\nI say previous appeared because Disney, who had already been slowly removing racist elements from the Jungle Cruise (as well as other attractions), took advantage of the extended COVID closure of the California parks to do some serious deep cleaning. All mentions of cannibalism, shrunken heads and the Trader Sam animatronic itself were scrubbed away.\n\nAnd though Sam is no longer physically present in the park, his backstory continues to grow and develop. The current version of Trader Sam is a world traveler who has rubbed shoulders with pirate royalty from Blackbeard to Jack Sparrow, accompanied Teddy Roosevelt on his expedition to the rainforests of Brazil and frequently assisted Dr. Indiana Jones on his archeological adventures, including a trip to the Lost River Delta of Cusco, Peru to excavate the Temple of the Crystal Skull.\n\nThis lore also includes Sam dropping anchor in the Polynesian Isles something in the 1930s to open his bar, the Enchanted Tiki Bar. I’m not sure if implying that the real Enchanted Tiki Bar is less a result of cultural appropriation and more the result of a fictitious character’s 200+ years of collected travels, trinkets and ephemera really moves the needle for folks who are put off by tiki culture. And that’s OK.\n\nPersonally, I gravitate toward the Polynesian Pop aesthetics, the tropical music and the tasty, rum-based drinks of Tiki while attempting to be mindful and not trivialize or marginalize the real cultures, customs and religious symbols it was based on. I’m not sure if that is the right place to be, but it is the space I’m currently occupying.\n\nThe Disneyland Hotel version of Trader Sam’s seems to be in the same orbit. The bar’s interior was crafted by Imagineers with the same attention to detail they put into the theming of an E-ticket ride. The place is packed to the ceiling with easter eggs and references to Sam, his famous friends and their globe-trotting adventures. It also contains several animatronics, lighting and sound effects that are triggered by thirsty partons when they order specific tasty rum-based drinks.\n\n\n  \n  Trader Sam's photo by Chris Jepsen\n\n\nThis immersive theming carries over to the music too. There is a standard music loop that plays inside and around Trader Sam’s and features a playlist of tracks by early exotica artists like Martin Denny and Arthur Lyman up through to modern Tiki acts like The Waitiki 7 and The Tikiyaki Orchestra.\n\nTrader Sam’s Enchanted Tiki Bar Area Loop\n\n  Sunset On the Kona Kai - The Tikiyaki Orchestra\n  Martinique - Martin Denny\n  Return to Moorea - Martini Kings\n  Tiki Diva - Kenny Sasaki & The Tiki Boys\n  Bustin’ Surfboards - The Tornadoes\n  Makaha - The Tikiyaki Orchestra\n  Ali’i Fire Dance - The Tikiyaki Orchestra\n  Peaceful Easy Feeling - Jim “Kimo” West\n  Theme From Hawaii Five-O - Morton Stevens\n  Stranded In Paradise - The Tikiyaki Orchestra\n  The Perfect Wave - The Mel-Tones\n  Blue Hawaii - All Star Hawaiian Band\n  Caravan - 80 Drums Around The World\n  Pearly Shells (Popo O Ewa) - New Hawaiian Band\n  Hypnotique - Martin Denny\n  Pipeline - The Chantays\n  Tiny Bubbles - New Hawaiian Band\n  Last Sampan to Kowloon - The Tikiyaki Orchestra\n  Mele Ka’Aero - Jim “Kimo” West\n  Tiki Cabana - The Mel-Tones\n  Moonlight Time in Old Hawaii - Ford’s Magic Skyway\n  Exotica ‘97 - Don Tiki & Martin Denny\n  Tequila Sunrise - Jim “Kimo” West\n  Adventures in Paradise - The Waitiki 7\n  Erotica Exotica - Kenny Sasaki & The Tiki Boys\n  Song of the Islands (Na Lei O Hawaii) - Arthur Lyman\n  Chant of the Moon - Robert Drasnin\n  Black Sand, Blue Sea - The Tikiyaki Orchestra\n  Tradewind - Eden Ahbez\n  Yellow Bird - Arthur Lyman\n  Sleepwalk - Santo & Johnny\n  At the Tiki Bar - Kenny Sasaki & The Tiki Boys\n  Dan-o’s Day Off - The Tikiyaki Orchestra\n  Tiki Hut - Miles Corbin\n  Misirlou - Martin Denny\n  Tune from Rangoon - Martin Denny\n  Enchantment - Robert Drasnin\n  Ruby - The Waitiki 7\n  Fly Me To The Island - Kenny Sasaki & The Tiki Boys\n  Hawaiian War Chant - Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room\n  Pineapple Princess - Santo & Johnny\n  Taboo Tu - Arthur Lyman\n\n\nAs with most of the other Disney area loops, Trader Sam’s switches to a unique holiday playlist for the Christmas season: a mix of classic holiday tunes performed by Hawaiian and Surf Rock artists, with a smattering of non-Christmas exotica and modern Tiki tunes tossed in.\n\nTrader Sam’s Enchanted Tiki Bar Holiday Area Loop\n\n  Polynesian Village Love Theme - The Tikiyaki Orchestra\n  Blue Christmas - Jerry Byrd\n  Black Sand, Blue Sea - The Tikiyaki Orchestra\n  Jungle Bells - The Blue Hawaiians\n  Mele Kalikimaka - Jerry Byrd\n  When First I Love - Martin Denny\n  Silent Night - Genoa Keawe\n  We Wish You A Merry Christmas - The Ventures\n  Love Dance - Martin Denny\n  What Child Is This? - Jerry Byrd\n  Have Yourself A Quiet Little Christmas - The Blue Hawaiians\n  Winter Wonderland - Jerry Byrd\n  La Hula Phumba - The Tikiyaki Orchestra\n  Frosty the Snowman - The Ventures\n  Martinique - Martin Denny\n  Away in a Manger - Jerry Byrd\n  The Christmas Song - Los Straightjackets\n  Jingle Bell Rock - Ozzie Kotani\n  Mele Kalikimaka - Arthur Godfrey & All The Little Godfreys\n  Christmas Time is Here - The Blue Hawaiians\n  Oasis of Dakhla - Les Baxter\n  Christmas Island - Jerry Byrd\n  Hawai’i Nocturne - The Tikiyaki Orchestra\n  White Christmas - The Blue Hawaiians\n  Christmas in Hawaii - Jerry Byrd\n  In Search of Mei Ting - The Tikiyaki Orchestra\n  Sleigh Ride - The Ventures\n  Pool of Love - Les Baxter\n  Silent Night - Jerry Byrd\n  Jungle Flower - Martin Denny\n  Blue Christmas - The Blue Hawaiians\n  Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer - Arthur Lyman\n  Exotic Night - Martin Denny\n  Jingle Bells - Genoa Keawe\n  Lahaina Morning Rain - The Tikiyaki Orchestra\n  Silver Bells - Jerry Byrd\n  Enchanted Xmas - The Blue Hawaiians\n  Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town - The Ventures\n  White Christmas - Jerry Byrd\n  Tiki Diva - Kenny Sasaki & The Tiki Boys\n  Christmas Island - The Dinning Sisters & Bob Atcher\n  We Four Kings (Little Drummer Boy) - The Blue Hawaiians\n  Auld Lang Syne - Cyril Pahinui & Bob Brozman\n\n\nBefore we get into the music, I want to point out a few unique things about the Trader Sam’s holiday loop.\n\nFirst, it’s long. For those of you counting along, that’s 43 tracks, by 17 different. And, while most Disney holiday loops are between forty-five minutes and an hour, the Trader Sam’s soundtrack completely eclipses the average with a run time just shy of two hours.\n\nSecond, it’s one of the only Disney holiday loops to include non-Christmas songs in its playlist. Now, it’s not totally exclusive category…there are a few others, like the Art of Animation Hotel Lobby loop at Walt Disney World, which we’ll be covering in a future episode and which coincidentally also features a surf-heavy Christmas soundtrack. But, unlike Art of Animation which shoehorns in a handful of non-Christmas pop songs and covers from various Disney and Pixar films, Trader Sam’s is a more organic blend, using instrumental pieces to transition between the holiday tracks.\n\n\n  \n  Trader Sam's Grog Grotto photo by Steven Miller\n\n\nLastly, it’s one of the only Disney holiday loops outside of the Main Street U.S.A. loop to appear at multiple parks. The Trader Sam’s holiday loop can be heard at both the Enchanted Tiki Bar at the Disneyland Hotel and Trader Sam’s Grog Grotto at the Polynesian Resort in Walt Disney World.\n\nOk, onto the music. This playlist is chock-full of great holiday music.\n\nWe’re going to start off with a controversial statement. This loop includes my favorite version of “Mele Kalikimaka,” an instrumental rendition by Jerry Byrd, featuring his signature lap steel guitar. Sorry Bing.\n\nJerry has a fascinating musical career that included joining the Grand Old Opry while in his twenties, being one of the first to sign an up-and-coming Country music star by the name of Dolly Parton and giving steel guitar lessons to many musicians including another famous Jerry, the Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia.\n\n\n  \n  Totally Rad Christmas Podcast\n\n\nAnd while we’re talking about famous Jerry’s, I’d like to take a moment to mention one more famous Gerry: Gerry D, the totally awesome host of the Totally Rad Christmas Podcast. Gerry recently invited me back on his show to talk about the obscure ’80s holiday special Lollipop Dragon: The Great Christmas Race.\n\nI had a great time talking with Gerry and dredging up my long-suppressed Lollipop Dragon memories…including a reoccurring dream I had as a five-year-old, where I was chased by Baron Bad Blood through the Forest of Mirrors. And if that last sentence didn’t make a lick of sense to you, just wait until the episode drops later this fall. Thanks Gerry.\n\nOk, now, back to Byrd. This Jerry moved to Hawaii in the ’70s to work on reviving the steel guitar music on the islands, continue teaching and ensure the lap steel remained an important instrument in Hawaiian music.\n\n\n  \n  Christmas in Hawaii album\n\n\nHe recorded Christmas songs at various points throughout his career, but the first and only collection was Christmas in Hawaii, released in 1897 and containing ten classic Christmas tunes, all in his signature lap steel style and including this version of “Mele Kalikimaka.”\n\nAnother highlight of the holiday loop for me is the inclusion of the four Ventures tracks. Something I’ve recently discovered as a man in his 40s is that I enjoy surf rock and, by extension surf rock Christmas songs.\n\nThe Ventures have released two Christmas albums. The first, titled The Ventures’ Christmas Album and released in 1965 contains surf rock renditions of a dozen classic Christmas tunes, including all four used in the Trader Sam’s holiday loop: “We Wish You A Merry Christmas,” “Frosty the Snowman,” “Sleigh Ride” and “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town.” All four of these tracks are great, with my favorites being “We Wish You A Merry Christmas,” which incorporates a riff from the Ramsey Lewis Trio song “The ‘In’ Crowd,” and “Sleigh Ride,” which uses “Walk, Don’t Run,” the Ventures’ first hit song.\n\n\n  \n  Christmas Album\n\n\nThe Ventures released their Christmas album, Christmas Joy in 2002. This album contained all-new recordings, including rerecordings of many of the songs from their 1965 release along with another handful of holiday standards including covers of “Feliz Navidad” and “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.” This one is…not as good. To me, it lacks a lot of the energy and rawness that made the first Christmas album great.\n\nThere is one interesting note. The physical release had a song titled “Christmas Medley” in the middle of the album, a mash-up of Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree” and Gene Autry’s “Here Comes Santa Claus.” This track has been removed from all digital releases. It’s not on Tidal, not on Spotify, not on Amazon Music. The closest was a cover of the medley by the artist Syldave…which I believe is a reference to the Syldavia, the fictional Balkan kingdom from the Tintin books.\n\nMoving on from The Ventures, I want to talk about a couple of The Blue Hawaiians’ tunes. The band, a Los Angeles group who performs a mix of mid-century exotica, surf rock and everything in between, contributed seven tracks to the Trader Sam’s holiday loop.\n\n\n  \n  Christmas on Big Island album\n\n\nMy top two are their cover of “Christmas Time is Here” and “We Four Kings (Little Drummer Boy).” I’m a sucker for good versions of any Vince Giraldi Peanuts music and The Blue Hawaiians’ version is solid. Maybe a notch below the Foo Fighters medley from SNL in 2017 that morphed Everlong into Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) before finishing with Linus and Lucy.\n\nAnd apparently, I’m learning that I’m also a fan of medleys. The Blue Hawaiians’ song We Four Kings is a fast, surf rock mash-up that sandwiches Little Drummer Boy in the middle of We Three Kings.\n\n\n  \n  Santa's Gone Hawaiian album\n\n\nFinally, I wanted to talk about the Genoa Keawe version of Jingle Bells. Genoa, a Hawaiian-born artist began performing professionally before WWII, which led to a radio show and recording in 1946. She worked her entire life to preserve the Ōlelo Hawai’i language and is thought to have the widest repertoire of traditional Hawaiian Meles or songs, chants and poems.\n\nIn 2000, Genoa received a National Heritage Fellowship, the highest honor the United States government bestows in folk and traditional arts.\n\nHer version of Jingle Bells, sung in Hawaiian is amazing and also one of only a few tracks on the holiday loop with vocals.\n\nCheers and Mele Kalikimaka!"
        },
        {
          "id": "posts-2024-07-the-guardians-of-the-galaxy-holiday-special-soundtrack",
          "title": "The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special Soundtrack",
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          "categories": "music, marvel, disney, christmas-special",
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          "url": "/posts/2024/07/the-guardians-of-the-galaxy-holiday-special-soundtrack/",
          "content": "Today we’re piloting the Bowie up to Knowhere to take a look at the Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special Soundtrack and Playlist.\n\nWe won’t spend much time covering the special itself. There are several great Christmas podcasters who have already done that, including Tim Babb on Can’t Wait For Christmas episode 111 and the Tis the Podcast crew, along with Totally Rad Christmas host Gerry D and Just Another Friday Night’s CM Chuck.\n\n\n  \n  Star Wars Christmas Special\n\n\nWhat I will say is that James Gunn conceived of this special long before its release on November 23rd, 2022. An homage to both the Star Wars Christmas Special and the classic Rankin/Bass stop-motion films, Gunn had been trying to get the special made for several years. A process that was complicated and delayed by many factors, including Disney’s firing and subsequent re-hiring of Gunn, the COVID-19 pandemic and the special’s platform shifting from the ABC network to Disney+.\n\nA benefit of this extended baking period is that the special ended up being shot at the same times as the third film in the Guardian’s franchise, making it a bridge between the second and third movies and providing some of the plot development that otherwise would have been shoehorned into Vol. 3.\n\nThis also meant that the special could use the elaborate sets designed for Vol. 3 (which would have never been created just for the special) and could include more of the franchise’s actors who would already be on set and in costume to shoot the feature-length movie.\n\n\n  \n  Playlist Cover\n\n\nAnother benefit was that composer John Murphy could work on the holiday special at the same time as Vol. 3, delivering a movie-quality score to the 42-minute streaming special. This was not Murphy’s first time scoring a James Gunn film. Murphy had just finished scoring The Suicide Squad, where he replaced frequent Gunn collaborator Tyler Bates who was originally named as composer.\n\nQuick tangent: In addition to scoring the first two Guardians films, Tyler Bates also wrote the “Monsters After Dark” song that is used for the Halloweentime overlay on the Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout! ride at Disney California Adventure.\n\nThe score was released as a digital album to coincide with the special’s premiere in November 2022. It contained Murphy’s original score, along with two songs: “I Don’t Know What Christmas Is (But Christmastime is Here)” by Old 97’s and “Here It Is Christmastime” performed by Kevin Bacon and Old 97’s.\n\nGuardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special (Original Soundtrack)\n\n  I Don’t Know What Christmas Is (But Christmastime Is Here) - Old 97’s\n  How Yondu Ruined Christmas - John Murphy\n  Telekinesis - John Murphy\n  Kevin at Home - John Murphy\n  Chasing Kevin - John Murphy\n  Mantis Fights Back - John Murphy\n  He’s an Actor! - John Murphy\n  The Best Christmas Present - John Murphy\n  Kraglin Explains - John Murphy\n  How the Story Really Ended - John Murphy\n  Mantis Reveals Her Secret - John Murphy\n  Here It Is Christmastime - Kevin Bacon & Old 97’s\n\n\nThe lyrics of the first original song, “I Don’t Know What Christmas Is (But Christmastime Is Here)” were written by James Gunn. A fan of Old 97’s since the ’90s and friend of Rhett Miller, Gunn approached the frontman to help him compose the music for his song. Not only did Rhett help compose the music, Old 97’s performed the song onscreen near the beginning of the special. The band appears as the fictional alien band Bzermikitokolok and the Knowheremen.\n\n\n  \n  Knowheremen\n\n\nThe song is a fever-dream explanation of Christmas traditions by someone who has never experienced Christmas, has only met a handful of humans and is trying to piece everything together from third or fourth-hand knowledge. The in-special cannon for the song is that Bzermikitokolok was told about Christmas from Rocket, who was told by Cosmo, who was told by Kraglin who was told by Peter back when the two of them were Ravagers.\n\nThe other song that appears on the soundtrack, “Here It Is Christmastime,” was an existing Old 97’s tune, originally released as a single back in 2007.\n\nThe song was re-recorded for the special with Kevin Bacon providing lead vocals. The song is used near the end of the special, when Kevin Bacon joins the Knowheremen to perform it.\n\nWhile initially a digital-only release in 2022, the soundtrack did receive a limited LP release for Record Store Day the following year: 5,000 albums, pressed in clear vinyl with a red and green splatter.\n\n\n  \n  Recordstore Day Vinyl Release\n\n\nIn addition to the official soundtrack, Gunn also released a Spotify playlist containing all the Christmas songs used in the special. Like the playlists for the previous (and future at that time) Guardians films, the music is an integral part of the storytelling. And, like the other films, Gunn selected the tracks for the playlist early on in the process.\n\nIn an interview, Kevin Bacon mentioned that when he received the script, it already referenced all the songs. So Bacon put them in a playlist and listened to it a lot so he could feel the vibe of the special.\n\nGuardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special (Playlist)\n\n  Dead By X-mas – Hanoi Rocks\n  Christmas Treat – Julian Casablancas\n  Mrs. Claus – Little Jackie\n  Just Like Christmas – Low\n  Christmastime – The Smashing Pumpkins\n  Fairytale of New York – The Pogues feat Kirsty MacColl\n  Christmas Wrapping – The Waitresses\n  Is This Christmas – The Wombats\n  I Want An Alien For Christmas – Fountains of Wayne\n  I Don’t Know What Christmas Is (But Christmastime Is Here) – Old 97’s\n  Here It Is Christmastime – Kevin Bacon and Old 97’s\n\n\nThe playlist sources its material from the early ‘80’s through the end of the aughts and includes classic Christmas tunes like “Christmas Wrapping” and “Fairytale of New York,” alongside more obscure tracks like “Dead By X-mas” and “Mrs. Claus,” the latter of which we covered previously on the “Target’s A Christmas Gig: Two Thousand Ten” episodes and whose inclusion on the Guardians playlist seems to have sparked new interest in what had been a very underappreciated song.\n\nMy favorite track from the playlist is the Pogues’ “Fairytale of New York,” which is used in both the opening and closing credits of the special. Not a horribly shocking pick, but a hard song to top. A haunting ballad about the hard times of Irish immigrants in New York City during the holidays. It’s beautiful…even if the story itself isn’t and it offers a stark juxtaposition to the warm, fuzzy nostalgia of most Christmas tunes.\n\nInterestingly, in 2015, “Fairytale of New York” was deemed the most-played Christmas song of the 21st Century in the UK. I can only imagine it has further cemented that position with lead signer Shane MacGowan’s unfortunate passing last November and the renewed interest in the song.\n\n\n  \n  Julian Casablancas Album\n\n\nMy other favorite track is “Christmas Treat” by The Strokes frontman, Julian Casablancas. It was originally written and performed by Jimmy Fallon and Horatio Sanz (along with Chris Kattan and Tracy Morgan) on Saturday Night Live, where it was called, “I Wish It Was Christmas Today.” You can also find Casablancas version under that title, so I’m not sure why “Christmas Treat” was the name used here.\n\nI remember watching the episode live when it first aired back in 2000 and it still makes me smile every time I hear the intro: the electric keyboard beat and the count-off before Horatio starts strumming his Martin Backpacker.\n\n\n  \n  SNL: I Wish It Was Christmas Today\n\n\nAnd I had that same smile when the song shows up in the special while Drax and Mantis fly the Bowie down to Earth, on their mission to kidnap Kevin Bacon.\n\nThe rest of the playlist is nothing to sleep on, and it’s a bit sad it hasn’t received an official release outside of Gunn posting it to Spotify. But, the real magic happens when you watch the special and see how Gunn uses each track to elevate the scene where it is deployed, a tactic that has become synonymous with him as a filmmaker and especially with the Guardians franchise.\n\nCheers and Merry Christmas!"
        },
        {
          "id": "posts-2024-06-hafod-hardware-and-andrea-von-kampen",
          "title": "Hafod Hardware and Andrea von Kampen",
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          "categories": "music, hafod-hardware, christmas-adverts, andrea-von-kampen",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/posts/2024/06/hafod-hardware-and-andrea-von-kampen/",
          "content": "In late 2019 something awesome happened…and no, I’m not talking about my family’s Disneyland vacation…though it was pretty great too. A little hardware store in Rhayader, Wales produced a heart-melting Christmas advert, set to a beautiful folk rendition of “Forever Young.” This is the story of Hafod Hardware and the music of Andrea von Kampen.\n\nUnless you’re really into competitive wheelbarrow racing or rock-paper-scissors, both of which have World Championships in Rhayader (and I say that with all the same seriousness and authority as the Rhayader Carnival website, which cheekily boasts these claims), you may not be familiar with the small town in Powys county, Wales.\n\nRhayader is located about 2 hours west of Birmingham, in the Cambrian Mountains. And, in addition to wacky championships and mountain cycling, Rhayader is also the home of Hafod Hardware, a local hardware store, or ironmonger which has been around in some form or fashion since 1895 and at its current location on East Street since 1930.\n\n\n  \n  Tom, Pauline and Alan\n\n\nThe business last changed hands when it was purchased by Pauline and Alan Lewis in 1999. I do want to mention that Alan passed away recently, in April of this year.\n\nThe shop is currently managed by the Lewis’ grandson Tom Lewis Jones, who started working for his grandparents in 2009. It was initially a job to pay the bills while he and his band pursued a full-time music career. But, as Tom described in an interview, the band broke up and he found he liked working in the shop and being part of the community.\n\nFast forward to 2017 and it was Tom, with the help of his friend, film-maker Josh Holdaway who decided to create a holiday advert to promote the hardware store.\n\nThe first commercial featured Tom on Christmas Eve, driving all over Rhayader on his motorcycle, delivering orders to his customers, a service that Hafod Hardware does in fact offer to locals. The ad continues with Tom falling asleep at his kitchen table, too exhausted to wrap his own family’s presents, then waking up Christmas morning to see that it was taken care of while he slept. It ends with the tagline “Delivering magic, this Christmas.”\n\n\n  \n  Delivering The Magic\n\n\nThe advert generated a bit of buzz back in 2017, albeit mostly regional. And, mostly because Tom stated at the time that the whole video cost £7 to film, or a bit under $10 to produce, the entirety of the budget going to purchase the big red sack Tom is seen carrying throughout the video. The commercial is set to Andrea von Kampen’s version of “I’ll Be Home For Christmas,” but more on her later.\n\nIn 2018, they went for it again. This time, the story revolves around Tom constructing a scale model of Hafod Hardware and ends with him displaying it in the storefront window. Most of the advert is a construction montage, with Tom using various products sold at the hardware store to make his model. It uses the tagline, “Making Houses Homes This Christmas,” and is set to another Christmas cover by Andrea von Kampen, this time “White Christmas.”\n\n\n  \n  Making Houses Homes\n\n\nWhile the first commercial received a bit of notoriety, this follow-up came and went without registering more than a blip. Which I find a bit sad. As a long-time scale modeler myself, and lover of many miniature games from Warhammer to Infinity to Marvel Crisis Protocol, I thoroughly enjoyed it.\n\nIt turns out that the rest of Rhayader agreed with me. Not necessarily about the scale-modeling part, but that the Hafod holiday adverts had become a town tradition and needed to continue. Tom wasn’t planning on creating a new video for 2019, but the support of the locals convinced him to try it again. And this time he struck pure gold.\n\nOnce again teaming up with film-maker Josh Holdaway and musician Andrea von Kampen, the 2019 advert featured Tom’s two-year-old son, Arthur, going through the daily routine of a shopkeeper. From getting up and eating breakfast to opening the shop, stocking shelves, helping customers and wrapping gifts. It ends with Arthur closing the shop and hoisting a Christmas tree up over his shoulder, at which point he transforms into his father, Tom. The commercial ends with the tagline, “Be A Kid This Christmas.”\n\n\n  \n  Be A Kid This Christmas\n\n\nThe commercial is sweet and touching, but, in my opinion, it was the choice of music that caused it to explode. The advert is set perfectly to von Kampen’s cover of Forever Young. That’s the Alphaville song Forever Young from the early ’80s, not the Bob Dylan one from a decade earlier…or the Rod Stewart one from a few years later.\n\nI’m completely aware this rambling description does not do the advert justice, you really need to watch it to understand how perfect it is.\n\nAnd this time it wasn’t just the town of Rhayader who loved it. It took the internet…or at least the United Kingdom’s corner of the internet by storm. Within the first 5 days, the video had amassed over 500,000 views on YouTube and the Hafod Hardware phone was ringing off the hook. People from all over the United Kingdom were calling Tom to let him know how touched they were by his advert.\n\nBut nostalgia-laden English folks weren’t the only ones calling, this was a perfect, pre-packed, news-ready story:\n\n\n  Mom and pop business with over a hundred years of history? \n  Heartwarming video featuring a charming toddler? \n  Hip, young folk singer? \n  David vs Goliath story with the local shopkeeper besting the most expensive adverts of the season? \n  Christmas? \n\n\nThe coverage practically wrote itself. Media outlets everywhere were comparing the Hafod Hardware commercial to “Excitable Edgar,” the 2019 John Lewis holiday advert that premiered a couple of weeks earlier and featured the CGI dragon, Edgar, who is so excited for the holidays that he keeps accidentally setting parts of it on fire; a snowman, a frozen pond, the village Christmas tree. You get the idea.\n\n\n  \n  Excitable Edgar\n\n\n“Excitable Edgar” had it all: elaborate costumes, a large cast of actors and an impressively detailed set depicting a village that seems to exist somewhere between the late Middle Ages and the Victorian Era, but all at once. It also featured a cover of REO Speedwagon’s “Can’t Fight This Feeling,” performed by Bastille and the London Contemporary Orchestra. But, while Edgar succeeded in melting the hearts of the villagers at the end of the advert, by lighting the Christmas pudding, it was Arthur as the Hafod Hardware shopkeeper that melted the hearts of the millions of people who saw the commercial.\n\nAnd where the John Lewis effort had cost several million pounds to produce, the Hafod Hardware commercial, though Tom’s most expensive to date, still came in under £100, or $130 US dollars. See, another soundbite right there and one that, like the others, received a lot of circulation.\n\nWhat wasn’t covered nearly as much back then and, when it was covered, was often inaccurate, was the story of how artist Andrea Von Kampen, the singer who had lent her talent and voice to all three Hafod adverts became involved in the yearly commercials.\n\nIf you read some of the initial coverage from late 2019, or what has been regurgitated around the interwebs since then, you might believe that Andrea was a childhood friend of Tom’s, or the two met in college, or that she was an up-and-coming Welsch songwriter. All of this is entirely wrong. Andrea a Michiganer who in 2016 was finishing college in Nebraska and gained a bit of visibility when NPR retweeted her entry into their Tiny Desk Contest.\n\n\n  \n  AVK Christmas Project Album\n\n\nThat same year, she also recorded a four-song Christmas EP, the AVK Christmas Project. Tom came across some songs from this album while searching YouTube for Christmas music to use in his first commercial in 2017. That’s right, he happened to stumble across her music on YouTube and reached out for permission to use it.\n\nOr, as Andrea explained in an interview for a Nebraska newspaper, her videos only had a couple of thousand views at the time, so he [Tom] must have been doing some digging to find her. Tom asked for permission to use her recording of “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” in his holiday advert, which she gave him for free, as she did again in 2018 to use her version of “White Christmas.”\n\nFor the 2019 advert, Tom reached out again to see if she was interested in recording a cover of “Forever Young” for his next commercial and asked how much he could pay her for it. She agreed to do it again for free if Tom covered the engineering costs. The song was recorded in 20 minutes at a studio in Ashland Nebraska and mixed in under an hour. The total engineering cost was $130, the same $130 we mentioned a minute ago, which was the entire production cost of the third commercial.\n\nAccording to Andrea, things went quiet after she shipped the finished recording off to Tom. That is until the advert blew up and she started getting messages from friends all over England who had seen the commercial and heard her song. To date, and by date I mean mid-June, 2024, the 2019 Hafod advert has been watched over 2.8 million times on YouTube.\n\nThe combination of theme, video and music was so perfectly executed that the commercial was (in my opinion) completely ripped off the following year by another much, much larger company. That company was McDonald’s UK and the commercial was for their 2020 #ReindeerReady campaign, a promotion where you could go to a UK McDonald’s on Christmas Eve for a free bag of carrot sticks in a special bag, labeled “Reindeer Treats”. This campaign lasted a few years and seems to have been pretty popular in the UK. But, like many of the other happy little things in life, money got in the way. Last year McDonald’s UK announced that for the 2023 holiday season, they would still be offering Reindeer Treats, but now you had to pay for them.\n\n\n  \n  McDonald's UK Reindeer Treats\n\n\nBut, we’re not here to hate on McDonald’s or corporate greed in general today, just this lazy rip-off of a commercial. It is a CGI affair featuring a mom and son, the latter of whom is depicted as struggling between wanting to be a teenager and his inner child wanting to participate in holiday activities. Finally, the inner child wins out and the son partakes in a snowball fight with mom, helps decorate the house and remembers to leave out the previously mentioned McDonald’s Reindeer Treats. Awfully similar to the Hafod theme of, “Be A Kid This Christmas” if you ask me.\n\nIn fact, in my mind, the pitch meeting went something like this:\n\nThe creative agency working the campaign showed the McDonald’s UK executives the Hafod advert and said, “People love this, but it’s been a year and no one has an attention span. We’ll do the same thing, get someone else to cover the same song and we’ll animate the whole thing so the dummies don’t immediately realize we’ve just copied it. Oh, and we’ll make sure to tie in the free carrot sticks.” Then much corporate high-fiving ensued.\n\nWhether any of that is accurate or not, and absolutely no disrespect to Becky Hill or the lovely rendition of “Forever Young” she provided, but I can’t for one second think this commercial would exist, or on the off chance it did, would have used the same song if it hadn’t been for the media storm surrounding the Hafod Hardware advert the year prior.\n\nOk, that’s enough time on that, back to the Hafod story.\n\nTom and Andrea teamed up again in 2020. The commercial starts with a now three-year-old Arthur, going around the home, collecting household staples like batteries, milk, eggs and toilet paper. Arthur gives his parents a present that he’s wrapped himself on Christmas morning, a box containing all the items he’s been collecting, along with the shopping list he found and mistook for his parent’s Christmas list.\n\n\n  \n  Give What You Can\n\n\nThe tagline for the advert was “Give What You Can,” and the commercial featured von Kampen’s cover of the pre-Civil War, parlor song, “Hard Times Come Again No More,” written by Stephen Foster. Andrea had recorded this song for the film Molto Bella, or A Chance Encounter as it was later retitled, a movie in which she both starred and wrote the soundtrack.\n\nWhile still a beautiful, touching commercial, it wasn’t able to recreate the same magic. Maybe it didn’t strum the same nostalgic chords as its predecessor. Or maybe coming into the first Christmas of COVID, an advert about gifting toilet paper and batteries felt more like a reminder of the struggle folks were having every day, than a heartwarming message of charity during the holidays. Or maybe the news cycle was just too busy to care a second time about a little hardware store in Rhayader, Wales.\n\nRegardless, this was Hafod’s last true holiday commercial, though they did release a holiday-ish video the following year. The 2021 advert…or maybe PSA is a better description, featured a Christmastime visit by King Charles III, or Charles, Prince of Wales as he was at the time to Hafod Hardware. It was put together as part of Charles’ efforts to support the high streets (think Main Street in a small town or city if you’re in the States) and Hafod’s message encouraging people to “Shop Independent,” or “Shop Local” as we would say.\n\n\n  \n  Charles Visits Halfod Hardware\n\n\nAs a Yankee who has never understood the obsession with royalty, this was the least impressive of the Hafod videos, but there are two great things about this video. First, there is a shot of Charles holding a copy of von Kampen’s That Spell album on vinyl and it also kind of implies he purchased it…or at least left with it…I’m not sure if Royals actually buy anything. Second, it features an original Christmas song by von Kampen, “Old Fashion Holiday.” The song came from a 2021 two-track EP of the same name, which also featured von Kampen’s version of “I’ve Got My Love To Keep Me Warm.”\n\nAnd that’s not the only Christmas music von Kampen has released. As mentioned earlier, there is the 2016 EP AVK Christmas Project which contains her versions of “White Christmas” and “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” plus a cover of “Christmas Time Is Here” and another of her holiday originals, “Lo, How A Rose E’er Blooming.”\n\n\n  \n  A Midwest Christmas Album\n\n\nThere’s also A Midwest Christmas, another two-track EP from 2020 containing the original song, “A Midwest Christmas,” and a cover of “What Child Is This?” on the b-side. That’s a pretty healthy Christmas resume. These are all fantastic holiday tracks, by an extremely talented and still fairly under-the-radar artist.\n\nAll of these tracks and albums are available on your favorite streaming platform of choice: Apple Music, Spotify, or, if you’re like me and want to make sure a few more of your streaming subscription dollars make it into the pockets of the artists, Tidal.\n\nCheers and Merry Christmas!"
        },
        {
          "id": "posts-2024-06-disney-holiday-loops-buena-vista-street",
          "title": "Disney Holiday Loops: Buena Vista Steet",
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          "categories": "music, disneyland, disney, jazz",
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          "url": "/posts/2024/06/disney-holiday-loops-buena-vista-street/",
          "content": "There are only two things in this world that rival my love of Christmas. Disneyland is one of them, coffee is the other.\n\nIn fact, if you zoomed in on the epicenter of my personal Venn diagram of happiness, you would find me stepping out of the Market House, coffee in hand and waiting for rope-drop while taking in the sights, sounds and smells of Disneyland at Christmastime.\n\n\n  \n  Photo by Loren Javier\n\n\nOh, and I can’t forget my family. That makes three things that rival my love of Christmas. And yes, they would also be present in my aforementioned fantasy…though they look a little disgruntled. We are already on day five of our hypothetical vacation and we’ve been closing down the parks each night. Everyone’s feet are a little sore and operating on a little less sleep than they’d prefer.\n\nAnd while I’m breathing in the early-morning Disney magic, they’re all remembering back to that time I did the episode on Holiday Loops and almost forgot to acknowledge the copious amount of happiness they bring me. It seems they still haven’t let that one go.\n\nOn the other hand, I could have simply gone back and edited the first sentence of this post, correcting my omission and ensuring my love of my family is never called into question. Instead, I wrote the three additional paragraphs of nonsense you’ve just read. I’m sorry.\n\nSo, what does any of this have to do with Disney Holiday Loops or Buena Vista Steet? Nothing really.\n\nThis was going to be the intro to my inaugural post about the Disney’s Christmas Favorites album, but I couldn’t quite shoehorn it in. Instead, I tucked it away for the next time the topic of Disney was discussed. If you’re reading this, it looks like this is the post where it made it through editing and into the final cut.\n\nFor those of you who have never set foot in a Disney park, music is a big part of the experience. Not just on the rides (or attractions as Disney calls them), but each area of a park, each hotel and shopping district has its own unique soundtrack, usually around an hour in length, which is played continually (hence the “loop”) and further adds to the immersion.\n\nFor example, when you walk down the Esplanade you’re greeted with classic Disney movie tunes like, “You’ve Got a Friend in Me,” “Be Our Guest” or the “Star Wars Theme”.\n\nWell, except that they switched up the playlist last year as part of the Disney 100 celebration and leaned heavily into the music of past and present attractions instead. But, regardless of the version you hear, this particular loop executes its mission flawlessly by delivering a pure form of nostalgia that can both pump you up for the day that awaits you and provide that final sprinkle of pixie dust to send you off at the end of the night.\n\n\n  \n  Photo by Joel\n\n\nLet me take one more small detour here to explain the Esplanade to anyone unfamiliar with the term, especially Walt Disney World fans who are often flummoxed by the concept. At the Disneyland Resort in California, the original Disney resort, the greatest Disney resort, the only Disney resort that Walt Disney himself ever stepped foot inside, there are two gates: Disneyland and Disney California Adventure. The entrances to these parks stand directly across from each other, just over 200 feet apart. The area in-between, which also connects the gates to the Downtown Disney shopping district, the shuttle bus area and the pedestrian walkway from Harbor Boulevard is the Esplanade.\n\nAs I mentioned, this is an especially hard concept for Walt Disney World fans to understand. Where they have a combination of buses, monorails, boats and gondolas, through miles of humid, alligator-infested swampland to get from one gate to another, out here on the Best Coast it is a 30-second walk between parks.\n\nOk, now that we have that out of the way, onto Buena Vista Street…by way of another slightly winding narrative.\n\nAs mentioned before I derailed this post with my light-hearted Walt Disney World bashing, musical loops play all throughout the Disney parks and properties. During the holiday season, a vast majority of these convert over to Christmas loops, each unique and with songs selected to match the theme and ambiance of their area.\n\nMy first and last time experiencing Disneyland at Christmastime was our family vacation in December 2019. Now, I’ve always loved Christmas and by extension Christmas music. It would be kind of hard to imagine someone devoting this kind of time and effort to the topic if they didn’t. But, experiencing Disneyland at Christmastime elevated it from love to obsession.\n\n\n  \n  Photo by Loren Javier\n\n\nEven today, hearing the intro to David Rose’s, “The Christmas Tree” causes me to take a deep breathe and look up, just like I did the first time I heard it on Main Street USA, staring up and the exaggerated holiday garlands and trying to work out how in my head how I could replicate them at my own home.\n\nAnd then COVID happened.\n\nBy June 2020, I was working from home, wondering when lockdown would, wondering why Spotify was relentlessly suggesting The Cure’s Disintegration album and just as importantly, wondering when the happiest place on earth would reopen. My tank of Disney magic, which had been overflowing just six months earlier was completely drained. I needed something, some way to get my Disney fix. That is when I stumbled upon the Magical Soundtracks channel on YouTube, which contains nearly all of the Disneyland area loops and many of the holiday versions. Not to mention many of the Walt Disney World loops for any of those folks who haven’t already left.\n\nThese loops became my go-to work-from-home background music for the rest of 2020. And, each year since then, when Thanksgiving rolls around, the holiday versions receive a good amount of airplay in my home. Some have even become part of my yearly traditions. For example, the day after Thanksgiving is when my outdoor decorations go up and, for the last four years, the Disney Springs Holiday Loop has been my decorating soundtrack. But that’s a topic for another day.\n\n\n  \n  Magical Soundtracks Logo\n\n\nToday we’re talking about the Buena Vista Street Holiday Loop…finally.\n\nBuena Vista Steet is the first area you step into once you are through the gates at Disney California Adventure. When the park opened in 2001, it was called Sunshine Plaza and was themed to look like a postcard of California, complete with a Golden Gate bridge that the Disneyland Monorail passed over.\n\nIn the late 2000s, much of California Adventure underwent a major renovation and re-theming. In mid-2012, Sunshine Plaze was reopened as Buena Vista Street, transformed from a modern, stylized version of California, to a less modern, but still highly stylized version of Los Angeles circa 1920s-1930s, complete with a replica of the Carthay Circle Theatre, where Snow White and the Seven Dwarves premiered in 1937. The Golden Gate Bridge was also removed and now the monorail travels over a replica of the Glendale-Hyperion Bridge.\n\nThis rehab included an overhaul of the area music loop. It went from a California-themed playlist that leaned heavily on the ’60s to a period-appropriate soundtrack of big band, jazz and swing tunes.\n\nSunshine Plaza Area Loop (2001-2010)\n\n  California Dreamin’ - The Mamas and the Papas\n  California, Here I Come - Al Jolson\n  California Sun - The Rivieras\n  Avalon - Natalie Cole\n  Little Old Lady from Pasadena - Jan & Dean\n  San Fernando Valley - Bing Crosby\n  Surf City - Jan & Dean\n  If You’re Going to San Francisco - Scott McKenzie\n  Hooray for Hollywood (The Great Movie Ride version)\n  Route 66 - Natalie Cole\n  Do You Know the Way to San Jose - Dionne Warwick\n  California Girls - Beach Boys\n  I Love LA - Randy Newman\n  Hollywood Nights - Bob Seger\n  Surfin’ USA - Beach Boys\n  San Francisco Bay Blues - Peter, Paul, and Mary\n  26 Miles (Santa Catalina) - The Four Preps\n\n\nBuena Vista Street Area Loop (2012-present)\n\n  Shaking The Blues Away - Crazy Rhythm Hot Society Orchestra\n  Toot, Toot, Tootsie! - Palm Court Theatre Orchestra\n  Charleston - Mora’s Modern Rhythmists\n  Rockin’ in Rhythm - Royal Society Jazz Orchestra\n  California Swing - Mora’s Modern Rhythmists\n  Shake That Thing - Mora’s Modern Rhythmists\n  Doin’ the Raccoon - Crazy Rhythm Hot Society Orchestra\n  Let’s Dance - Benny Goodman\n  The Sheik of Araby - Crazy Rhythm Hot Society Orchestra\n  Dancin’ With A Debutante - Mora’s Modern Rhythmists\n  Get Happy - Mora’s Modern Rhythmists\n  California Blues - Mora’s Modern Rhythmists\n  Business in “F” - Crazy Rhythm Hot Society Orchestra\n  Ain’t Misbehavin’ - Palm Court Theatre Orchestra\n  Henderson Stomp - Crazy Rhythm Hot Society Orchestra\n  Horatio Nicholls’ California Serenade - Palm Court Theatre Orchestra\n  Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue - Crazy Rhythm Hot Society Orchestra\n  Ain’t That Too Bad? - Mora’s Modern Rhythmists\n  Diga, Diga, Doo - Mora’s Modern Rhythmists\n  Fight That Thing - Mora’s Modern Rhythmists\n  Monkey Doodle-Doo - Crazy Rhythm Hot Society Orchestra\n  Too Bad - Royal Society Jazz Orchestra\n  Stompin’ at the Savoy - Newton Wayland, Houston Symphony\n  One O’Clock Jump - The BBC Big Band Orchestra\n  Zulu Wail - Crazy Rhythm Hot Society Orchestra\n  Stampede - Royal Society Jazz Orchestra\n  Sentimental Gentleman From Georgia - Crazy Rhythm Hot Society Orchestra\n  Everybody Stomp! - Mora’s Modern Rhythmists\n  Shivery Stomp - Mora’s Modern Rhythmists\n\n\nThe holiday loop was also refreshed. Gone was the surf-heavy soundtrack featuring Christmas tunes from the Beach Boys, the Ventures and Wave Benders. It was replaced by a selection of jazz and swing holiday tunes from folks like Benny Goodman, Woody Herman, Ralph Marterie and Fats Waller.\n\nSunshine Plaza Holiday Area Loop (2002-2008, 2010)\n\n\n  Note: For the first season (2001), the Holiday loop was the standard Sunshine Plaza loop, with a handful of Christmas songs spliced into the playlist. In 2009, it was replaced by the playlist for Santa’s Seaside Pavillion.\n  Little Saint Nick - The Beach Boys\n  Santa’s Beard - The Beach Boys\n  Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! - Various Artists\n  Little Drummer Boy - Various Artists\n  The First Noel - Various Artists\n  Jingle Bells - Various Artists\n  The Christmas Song - Various Artists\n  White Christmas - Various Artists\n  Jingle Bell Rock - Various Artists\n  What Child Is This? - Various Artists\n  Sleigh Ride - The Ventures\n  Frosty The Snowman - The Ventures\n  Jingle Bells - The Ventures\n  Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer - The Ventures\n  We Wish You A Merry Christmas - The Ventures\n  Little Surfin’ Drummer Boy - The Malibooz\n  Swan Lake Christmas - Nokie Edwards & The Light Crust Doughboys\n  The Twelve Days Of Christmas - Wave Benders\n  Note: The songs attributed to ‘Various Artists’ come from the 2001 album Surf Christmas by Gary Ferguson.\n\n\nBuena Vista Street Holiday Area Loop (2012-present)\n\n  Winter Weather - Benny Goodman & Peggy Lee\n  Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! - Woody Herman and His Orchestra\n  I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm - Mildred Bailey, Red Norvo & His Orchestra\n  Swingin’ Them Jingle Bells - Fats Waller\n  Dig That Crazy Santa Claus - Ralph Marterie and His Orchestra\n  Meet Me Under the Mistletoe - Dick Robertson & His Orchestra\n  Santa Claus Came in the Spring - Benny Goodman & Joe Harris\n  Santa Claus Is Coming to Town - Woody Herman and His Orchestra\n  Winter Wonderland - Lew Stone & His Orchestra\n  It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas - Bing Crosby\n  Santa Claus Is Coming to Town - Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra\n  I Told Santa Claus to Bring Me You - Walter Cummins & Bernie Cummins\n  Winter Wonderland - Parker Gibbs & Ted Weems\n  Frosty the Snowman - Jan Garber and His Orchestra\n  Jingle Bells - Bing Crosby & The Andrews Sisters\n  Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! - Les Brown and His Band of Renown\n  Jingle Bells - Mora’s Modern Rhythmists\n  Santa Claus Is Coming to Town - Bing Crosby & The Andrews Sisters\n  What Will Santa Claus Say (When He Finds Everybody Swingin’?) - Loius Prima\n\n\nThat’s a lot of orchestras and that’s not a bad thing. The Buena Vista Street Holiday Loop is one of my favorites from any of the Disney parks. And, song repetition aside, it’s a great hour of swinging Christmas music.\n\nWhen the holidays come around, I’ll often put this loop on in the kitchen on a weekend morning while I’m making breakfast. It’s an upbeat contrast to a typically dark, cold winter morning. Though my brain has now formed a strong correlation between Louis Prima and the smell of Dutch Babies, so it’s not without side effects.\n\n\n  \n  Photo by Kevin Williams\n\n\nThe Buena Vista Street holiday loop also contains some fantastic Christmas gems you might not hear regularly during the holiday season. Fats Waller’s “Swingin’ Them Jingle Bells,” Benny Goodman’s “Santa Claus Came in the Spring,” and “What Will Santa Claus Say” by the previously-mentioned Louis Prima all fall into this category for me. As does “Meet Me Under the Mistletoe,” which has a special connection. I heard this song on Beuna Vista Steet while sitting with my family on the benches that surround the Christmas Tree and looking at all the period-inspired ornaments like the Santa faces and bells featuring Disney characters.\n\nTwo fun Disney facts about the Buena Vista Street Tree:\n\n  The bell ornaments on the Buena Vista Steet Christmas Tree were designed by artist Sam Carter and inspired by real Disney-licensed bell Christmas lights from the ’30s.\n  All of the ornaments on the Buena Vista Street Christmas Tree are made in multiple sizes, with the ornaments getting smaller the further up the tree they are hung. This adds to the forced perspective and makes the tree, which is already quite large appear to be even taller.\n\n\nBack to the music…and I apologize for all the tangents today.\n\nOut of all the songs on the Buena Vista Street holiday loop, it’s the three Bing tracks that feel most out of place. They stand out for their focal forward, pop sound that didn’t really become popular until the following decade. In fact, Bing didn’t record his versions of “Jingle Bells” and “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” until the 1940s, ‘43 and ‘47 respectively. “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” wasn’t recorded until 1951, the same year Meredith Wilson wrote the song.\n\nIt pains me to say it, but I think the loop would be a tighter, more cohesive representation of the ’20s and ’30s sound if you just plucked out the three Bing tracks. And, since all of the Bing contributions are duplicate tracks, one a triplicate, I don’t think you’d lose much with the edit. There, I’ve said it.\n\nThis brings me to my (hopefully) final tangent of this post. From time to time I’ll see Disney bloggers or hear YouTubers state that Buena Vista Street has a much more rigid timeline. Rather than existing in an amorphic period somewhere in the ’20s-‘30s, it is supposed to represent LA in 1923, the year Walt arrived. This is often followed by callouts or complaints of items that exist on Buena Vista Street but did not exist in Los Angeles, in 1923, on Earth-1218. That last bit is for the Marvel nerds out there.\n\nThis airing of grievances extends to both the regular area music and the holiday loop.\n\nI did some research to try to find out if Disney ever assigned a specific date to Buena Vista Street, like they have with other areas and attractions. For example, the Disneyland version of the Jungle Cruise is set in June, 1938.\n\nI found a series of blog posts Disney released in the run-up to Buena Vista Street opening in June 2012. A post from the beginning of April, started with “When you enter Disney California Adventure park this summer, you’ll step back in time to Los Angeles of the 1920s and ‘30s on Buena Vista Street.”\n\nSeems settled, right? And it was…for exactly two weeks. Then another blog post was released which said “This busy California street will take you back to 1923, when Walt Disney first arrived in California.” Oh boy.\n\nPersonally, I adhere to the looser interpretation, the area being an amalgamation of 1920s-‘30s LA and things that inspire or evoke that period of time, though note strictly adhering to it themselves. Looking at the non-holiday loop, it contains recordings all the way through the early 2000s, but they are all tracks that faithfully reproduce that early swing and jazz sound that would be at home in the era Buena Vista Steet is portraying.\n\nThe holiday version is a much title grouping, sourced mostly from the mid-‘20s to early ’50s. But, this again makes me question the Bing tracks. Chronologically, they were close to the eras being represented, but a shift musically from the rest of the soundtrack.\n\n\n  \n  Ella's Swinging Christmas album\n\n\nHeck, since we’re not limiting ourselves to ’20s and ’30s recordings, there’s a whole catalog of Ella Fitzgerald Christmas tunes that could have been used instead. In fact, she has versions of both “Jingle Bells” and “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” on her 1960 album Ella Wishes You A Swinging Christmas that, at least to me, seem a way better fit on Buena Vista Street, despite being recorded another decade later.\n\nSome of Ella’s tracks from this album are used in the queue loop for the Jungle Cruise’s holiday overlay the Jingle Cruise, which we’ve established is set in June 1938 and seems right at home. But, that is another queue loop for another day.\n\nCheers and Merry Christmas!"
        },
        {
          "id": "posts-2024-05-the-holiday-road-ahead",
          "title": "The [Holiday] Road Ahead",
          "collection": {
            "label": "posts",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "stealth-christmas, music, john-lewis, disney, christmas-adverts",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/posts/2024/05/the-holiday-road-ahead/",
          "content": "It’s been a little over two months since I launched ‘Tis the Soundtrack and accidentally fell into the world of podcasting and YouTube videos. It’s been a fun journey and I’ve met some really fantastic people along the way.\n\nWith a few episodes under my belt and a slight investment in some actual recording equipment (so long to my kids’ Razer gaming headset), I’m at the point where I can start charting a path ahead for the remainder of 2024.\n\nI am targeting two episodes per month, with a few additional bits and musing sprinkled in between on the blog. I am also trying to stick to a schedule, with new content being released at the middle and end of each month. This works out to approximately fifteen episodes, not counting this one between now and waking up Christmas morning to see what Santa has brought me.\n\n\n  \n  Crappy AI-generated Chocobo Christmas\n\n\nFingers crossed it’s that Sony ZV-E10 camera I’ve been eyeing. Or, barring that, if the big guy in red has any pull with the powers-that-be over at Square Enix, getting a Final Fantasy Tactics Remaster released in time for the holidays would be a perfectly acceptable substitute.\n\nSo, what are the plans for the next eight months? Well, thanks for asking, I was hoping I’d remember to give myself a lead-in.\n\nBecause devoting a blog and show to Christmas music isn’t enough of a niche on its own, with ‘Tis the Soundtrack I’ll be focusing on a couple of my favorite topics under the holiday music umbrella.\n\nFirst, we’ll be devoting several episodes to the music used in Christmas commercials. Advertising campaigns, Christmas or otherwise, have a unique ability to launch a new artist, propel a song from relative obscurity to cultural mainstay or introduce a fading classic to an entirely new generation. Think of the yearly anticipation that surrounds the release of the John Lewis holiday advert and how it will inevitably send its featured song flying up the UK charts.\n\n\n  \n  Hershey's Kisses \"We Wish You a Merry Christmas\"\n\n\nAnd in other instances, it’s the music that does the heavy lifting, firmly cementing an advertisement in the social consciousness. Be honest, can you hear handbells at Christmastime without immediately thinking about the iconic Hershey’s Kisses commercial where the chocolates ring out “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”?\n\nWhat’s even more impressive is when said audio has nothing to do with Christmas, but through skillful sampling, clipping and editing can be shaped and contorted into something that does indeed evoke holiday magic. Take the 2005 JCPenney “Unwrap the Magic” campaign for instance.\n\n\n  \n  ELO: A New World\n\n\nIt features the Electric Light Orchestra’s song “Livin’ Thing,” but pulls the phrase, “It’s a givin’ thing” from the middle of the chorus to punctuate the commercial’s theme of gift giving. If you find that even remotely interesting, stay tuned. One of the episodes slated for this year will be covering Jeff Lyne’s and ELO’s contributions to holiday advertisements.\n\nThis brings us to the next focus of ‘Tis the Soundtrack: non-Christmas music that has, over time become a permanent fixture of the holiday season. And, no, I’m not talking about stuff like how “Deck the Halls” was derived from a Welsh New Year’s Eve carol.\n\nI’m talking about things like “When You Wish Upon a Star” from Pinocchio, which was used in the 1958 Disney Christmas special From All of Us to All of You. And, while it didn’t register more than a blip here in the States, in Japan and the Scandinavian countries it has been codified as an official sound of Christmas.\n\n\n  \n  Lindsey Buckingham: Holiday Road\n\n\nAnother example is Lindsey Buckingham’s “Holiday Road,” which has the distinction of being featured in every National Lampoon’s Vacation movie except Christmas Vacation. And, since we’re talking about Christmas Vacation, let me take a moment to mention that I was recently on an episode of the Totally Rad Christmas podcast, where totally rad host, fellow ’80s kid and all-around awesome human Gerry D and I discussed the movie’s bootleg soundtrack.\n\nIf you haven’t listened to the episode, or somehow arrived here, but haven’t heard of Totally Rad Christmas, stop reading this right now and go check it out. It’s a much better use of these minutes and an opportunity to listen to Gerry educate me on music theory and composition.\n\nOk, back to “Holiday Road”. While never intended to be a holiday song and specifically omitted from the sole Christmas movie in the Vacation series it seems to be slowly creeping onto Christmas playlists. Between the internet being the bastion of less-than-accurate information that it is and the song being featured on the aforementioned bootleg copy of the soundtrack, it has been loosely associated with Christmas for some time.\n\nThis transition was completed recently when country artist Chris Janson recorded a cover version of the song and then used it to close out last year’s The Wonderful World of Disney: Magical Holiday Celebration with the tune. It is now firmly part of the Christmas tapestry.\n\nDon’t believe me? Here’s a fun experiment. Fire up your music streaming platform of choice, locate “Holiday Road” and enable autoplay or track radio station or whatever your app calls it where it auto-selects the next song.\n\nWas the next song a Christmas song? Chances are good the answer is yes. I just did this exercise myself and Tidal selected Darlene Love’s “All Alone on Christmas” as the follow-up.\n\nPersonally, I don’t consider Holiday Road a bonafide Christmas song. To me, it falls in that Christmas-adjected or maybe Christmas-by-proxy category, but don’t think that means I do not like the song. This grey area happens to be the home of some of my absolute favorite tracks.\n\nSee, in my own house, there is a strict Christmas music season: it starts with Thanksgiving and ends with New Year’s, no exceptions, no room for negotiation. And though I disagree wholeheartedly with this decree, I’ve learned that following it results in a far more amicable living situation the other eleven months of the year.\n\nTo me, songs that loiter in this dubious grey area are like cheat codes. I can listen to them all day long, any time of year and, because they are not overtly Christmassy or even wintery in theme, no one is the wiser that I’m secretly getting my holiday fix.\n\n\n  \n  Kate Miller-Heidke: Liberty Bell\n\n\nWhile playing “Silver Bells” in July would be tantamount to a declaration of war, I can listen to Kate Miller-Keidke’s “Are You Ready?” without as much as an eyebrow raise from my always wonderful, extremely patient, yet somehow-completely-wrong-about-Christmas-music spouse.\n\nFor those of you out there in similar life arrangements, who need to keep the peace while also scratching that Christmas music itch, I’ve started a playlist of these Christmas-by-association tunes titled Stealth Christmas. At this time, the playlist is available on both YouTube and Tidal, with new tracks being regularly added to both. You can find it under the Soundtracks button at the top.\n\nAnd, finally, if you’re unsure whether a song is too Christmassy to be played out of season or you are worried about possibly invoking the wrath of your coworkers or living companions, ‘Tis the Soundtrack has developed the Music Chrismometer, a highly-calibrated, precision scale used to determine just How Christmas a song is.\n\n\n  \n  Official Chrismometer Scale\n\n\nAt the top of this 5-point scale is Bing Crosby singing “White Christmas,” the epitome of Christmas music. The scale progresses downward through Dean Martin’s “Winter Wonderland,” Fleet Foxes’ “White Winter Hymnal,” Simon & Garfunkel’s “Hazy Shade of Winter,” and finally bottoms out with the Edgar Winter Group’s “Frankenstein” at 1.\n\nGoing forward, whenever a song is discussed, we’ll make sure to run it through the Music Chrismometer for an official reading. And for those curious, “Holiday Road” is currently reporting in at a steady 1.75 CMUs, or Christmas Melody Units.\n\nCheers and Merry Christmas!"
        },
        {
          "id": "posts-2024-04-the-christmas-gig-two-thousand-ten-pt-2",
          "title": "The Christmas Gig: Two Thousand Ten, Pt. 2",
          "collection": {
            "label": "posts",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "target, music, indie",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/posts/2024/04/the-christmas-gig-two-thousand-ten-pt-2/",
          "content": "[Note: This is Part 2 of a two-part episode. The first part can be found HERE]\n\nToday we’re continuing our exploration of The Christmas Gig by looking at the television advertisements that featured these songs, my favorite tracks from the digital album and where you can still listen to it in its entirety. This is Target’s The Christmas Gig: Two Thousand Ten, part two.\n\n\n  \n  The Christmas Gig: Two Thousand Ten\n\n\nAs I mentioned in Part 1, of the 14 tracks that comprised the digital album, only 8 were featured in Target’s holiday ads. Of those 8, 6 were produced by Dayton/Faris under the “All Things Merry” campaign title.\n\nDayton/Faris is the husband/wife team of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris. The same Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris who have directed a mountain of music videos for bands including Red Hot Chili Peppers, R.E.M and Smashing Pumpkins. The same Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris who made their film directorial debut in 2006 with a little movie named Little Miss Sunshine.\n\nI was able to track down 5 of their six commercials, mostly from the blogs and YouTube channels of the creatives, agencies and artists involved in the project. They are:\n\nMrs. Claus Ain’t Got Nothing On Me\n\nThis commercial features the song Mrs. Claus by Little Jackie and shows multiple superimposed copies of a woman performing an array of holiday activities like cooking, decorating the house, cleaning and wrapping gifts, all while her partner slowly untangles a strand of lights and strings them on the tree.\n\n\n\nToy Jackpot\n\nThis commercial features the song Toy Jackpot by Blackalicious and depicts a pair of children coming down the stairs and tearing into their gifts, played in reverse. You see gifts re-wrap themselves, stocking refill and it ends with the children rewinding up the stairs.\n\n\n\nElectronic Santa\n\nThis commercial features a robot constructed out of tech gadgets of the day and two kids in gold tracksuits that look like they could be right out of a ’90s Puff Daddy video, all dancing to the song Electronic Santa by Blazer Force.\n\n\n\nTiny Tree\n\nThis commercial features a woman who purchases a small Christmas tree. Not Charlie Brown tiny, but definitely a table-topper. The commercial progresses with her getting her home ready for a Christmas party and ends with her guests hanging ornaments on her tiny tree. This ad uses the song Tiny Tree Christmas by Guster.\n\n\n\nPower Cord Christmas\n\nThis commercial is the only one whose working title does not closely (or entirely) match the song. It features a montage of outdoor lighting displays being switched on. Houses, trucks, basketball hoops, barn doors, stuff like that. All being lit up with an amount of lights that would make Clark Griswold proud. The ad is set to 10,000 Watts by Crystal Antlers.\n\n\n\nYou’ll Never Find My Christmas\n\nThe final commercial and the one I was completely unsuccessful in locating is titled “You’ll Never Find My Christmas” and uses the Bishop Allen song of the same name.\n\nThis ad is referenced on an archive of Target’s site from December 2010 and in a Little Black Book article about Brickyard VFX, the digital studio that provided special effects for some of the commercials. But, other than the title, I have no idea what this commercial was about, nor can I find it anywhere. If anyone remembers seeing it or has any information, please let me know.\n\n\n\n‘Tis the Soundtrack Top 5\n\nNext, in a segment that may appear at first blush similar to the Five Golden Things segment on the Can’t Wait For Christmas Podcast, but is in no way, shape or form an attempt to infringe on any trademarks or intellectual properties of Sweet Timmy B, we are going to look at my five favorite tracks from this album.\n\n5. Coconut Records - It’s Christmas\n\n\n  \n  Coconut Records/Jason Schwartzman\n\n\nIt’s Christmas is the work of Jason Schwartzman’s one-man solo act, Coconut Records.\n\nYou may be more familiar with Jason from his acting career when he portrayed one of the Sherman Brothers in Saving Mr. Banks, the final antagonist Gideon in Scott Pilgrim and has appeared in just about every Wes Anderson movie. He was also the drummer and songwriter for Phantom Planet whose song California was used as the theme song to the show the O.C..\n\nIt’s Christmas is quite similar to other Coconut Records works, including Nighttiming, an album that came out a few years earlier and produced the hit song West Coast…which also appeared on the O.C..\n\nIt’s Christmas is a slowed-down, melodic, melancholy-soaked, 2000’s California indie tune. Nothing wrong with that.\n\n4. Little Jackie - Mrs. Claus Ain’t Got Nothin’ On Me\n\nLittle Jackie is a project of artist Imani Coppola and producer Adam Pallin. Coppola has described Little Jackie as the commercial vehicle that allows her the freedom to create more experimental music under her own name, develop other artists and still pay the bills.\n\n\n  \n  Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special\n\n\nMrs. Claus sounds not too dissimilar to the soul music that was being put out by Adele, Duffy and Amy Winehouse around the same time. In fact, the first time I heard the song, I assumed it was Amy Winehouse.\n\nRecently, this song has received a bit of a revival. It was featured in the 2022 Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special.\n\n3. Bishop Allen - You’ll Never Find My Christmas\n\nBishop Allen is the band I was most familiar with before doing research for this episode. I first saw them when they appeared on the movie Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist, where they also lent their song “Middle Management” to the soundtrack.\n\nIncidentally, that film’s soundtrack also featured a song by one of my then-and-still favorite bands, Vampire Weekend. I’ll pause for a moment for you to judge me.\n\nI mention this because there are a lot of similarities between the two bands and the music they were creating at the time. They both had that East Coast, Ivy League, indie/art rock aesthetic.\n\nBut, even being a fan of Bishop Allen, I along with the rest of the internet still have no recollection of the Target commercial featuring their song. It seems to have been completely scrubbed from the shared consciousness.\n\nI do remember this song being aggressively blasted out the front of our local Hollister a year or two later. I assume it was also playing inside the store, but as someone who was already 30 at the time, stores where over-enthusiastic associates spray down the clothes with perfume while attempting to scream their current deals over the thumping bass absolutely terrified me.\n\nThere is a music video for this song available on YouTube, a stop-motion video featuring three blind mice ornaments, attempting to navigate a Christmas tree. I came across the video years ago and just assumed it was the official video released for the song.\n\nWhile doing research for this episode I learned it was not only an amateur video, but also someone’s first ever attempt at stop-motion. So great job Riley Noelle, on both the video and having a perfectly appropriate last name!\n\n\n\n2. Crystal Antlers - 10,000 Watts\n\nI really like this song. It’s a bit of a departure from the other tracks on this album. Instead of being soft or delicate, 10,000 Watts is pumped up. It’s strained vocals over driving guitars and percussion.\n\nCrystal Antlers was going through some personnel changes around the time this track was recorded and their sound was changing. If you like 10,000 Watts, it most closely resembled the works on their Two-Way Mirror album released the following year\n\nHonorable Mention. Blazer Force - Electronic Santa\n\nElectronic Santa receives the honorable mention not because it’s one of my favorites, but because it seems to be the song most remembered from this campaign. There are tons of YouTube videos featuring it, some where people have gone through the effort of editing the commercial clips into a full music video.\n\nBlazer Force is the name used by Bret McKenzie, or one half of the musical duo Flight of the Conchords to record this track. Side note: During the summer of 2010, around the same time Bret would have been recording this track, he was in LA, acting as music supervisor for The Muppets movie and creating the timeless classic Man or Muppet.\n\n1. Little Isidore - Party Hard\n\n\n  \n  Little Isidore\n\n\nLittle Isidore is the odd artist out on this record. He started as a child star in the 1950s, with a long stint on the show “Talent Scout” decades before the other artists on this album were born.\n\nHe recorded several records with his band, the Inquisitors in the 1960’s, before disappearing for nearly three decades. He resurfaced in the ’90s, reassembled a band and recorded a couple more records in his signature ’50s rock and doo-wop sound.\n\nParty Hard is squarely in that vein, a full, lively track with a nostalgic sound that would be just as at home in the 1950s as the 2010s. And nothing against the indie darlings on this record, but Party Hard is just a step above the rest and my pick for best track.\n\nLittle Isidore also has another Christmas hit, the song “Christmas of Love” from the soundtrack of the 2000s version of How The Grinch Stole Christmas\n\n\n\nLastly, let’s take a look at how you can obtain a copy of The Christmas Gig: Two Thousand Ten. As we covered in part one, the record was never released commercially, outside of the promotional LPs. And Target quickly removed the digital download from their website after the 2010 holiday season.\n\nBut, because the internets were much simpler in 2010, the album was being hosted directly on Target’s web servers. Why is that important you might ask? It’s important because it means that the album was preserved in the backups on Archive.org.\n\nIf you go to Archive.org, point the Wayback Machine at Target.com and select a date in December 2010, you see a preserved copy of the website, with functional download link and all.\n\nNow, I want to pause for a minute here. I have absolutely no idea what the legality is of downloading a digital album from a 14 year old backup of a corporate website and I don’t want to instruct anyone to do anything illegal. That aside, if you enjoy the songs on this album, you should find a way to obtain them that financially supports the artists. We all know how under-compensated musicians are in this era of streaming.\n\nAnd with that, we’ll wrap up this episode. I hope you enjoyed our two-part look at Target’s The Christmas Gig: Two Thousand Ten.\n\nCheers and Merry Christmas!"
        },
        {
          "id": "posts-2024-04-christmas-music-bingo",
          "title": "Christmas Music Bingo!",
          "collection": {
            "label": "posts",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "music",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/posts/2024/04/christmas-music-bingo/",
          "content": "Just a quick post today to announce the release of the ‘Tis the Soundtrack Christmas Music Bingo Card Generator!\n\nA perfectly appropriate thing to be announcing at the beginning of April, with absolutely no context or tie-in. Timing was never my strong suit…\n\n\n  \n  Christmas Music Bingo\n\n\nThe Bingo Card Generator is a way to add some extra cheer to a holiday party. Or, a fun game to play while you’re driving through the neighborhood, Christmas-light-looking (just be careful if you’re the driver).\n\nBingo cards are randomly generated from a pool of popular Christmas artists and songs. We’ve tried to keep it to ones you would realistically hear on a Christmas radio station or streaming playlist. Sorry Vandals, your “Oi the the World” didn’t make the cut.\n\n\n  \n  Oi to the World Re-release Album Art\n\n\nAt the time of this post, there are around 150 artists and songs in the pool. Clicking the New Card button will generate a new, randomized card from the available squares.\n\nCards are touch (or click) interactive and can be played directly from this site (just make sure not to refresh the page). You can also use the Download PDF button to save print-ready cards.\n\nCheers and Merry Christmas!"
        },
        {
          "id": "posts-2024-03-the-christmas-gig-two-thousand-ten-pt-1",
          "title": "The Christmas Gig: Two Thousand Ten, Pt. 1",
          "collection": {
            "label": "posts",
            "name": "Posts"
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          "categories": "target, music, indie",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/posts/2024/03/the-christmas-gig-two-thousand-ten-pt-1/",
          "content": "Today we’re talking about an album with a fascinating history.\n\nIt was the brainchild of a rock star creative agency, featured brand-new Christmas songs from over a dozen up-and-coming indie artists, was used as the soundtrack for a massive holiday advertisement campaign and was given away completely free.\n\nThis is one of the topics that got me excited to start ‘Tis the Soundtrack. This is Target’s The Christmas Gig: Two Thousand Ten.\n\n\n  \n  The Christmas Gig: Two Thousand Ten\n\n\nLet me start by saying that I don’t think this album could be made today. Or, maybe more accurately, I don’t think this album would be made today.\n\nThe relationships between record labels, advertisers, streaming platforms and the artists who are continually undercompenstated would make pulling off something like this a feat in 2024. Everything is too messy now.\n\nBy comparison, in 2010 anything was possible. People were still buying music, albeit the shift was already well underway from CD to MP3, the handful of streaming platforms that existed were still in their infancies and we had just spent the last 10 years watching relatively unknown indie acts be slingshotted into the mainstream consciousness by way of Apple, the O.C., Zach Braff and others.\n\nFor the 2010 holiday season, Target turned to the creative agency Wieden+Kennedy to develop their advertising campaigns. These are the same marketing wizard who created the ubiquitous “Just Do It” campaign for Nike in the late ’80s and, more recently handled the insanity that was Grimace’s Birthday for McDonalds.\n\n\n  \n  W+K Grimace's B'day Campaign\n\n\nFor Target, W+K developed two campaigns. The first, and the one which appears to be more firmly cemented in the memories of the interwebs, was the Crazy Target Lady: a series of television and internet ads featuring Minnesota-raised comedian Maria Bamford as the titular character, a completely unhinged Black Friday prepper.\n\nThe second holiday campaign is the one that resulted in the creation of this album. According to Creative Director Don Shelford, the campaign was an attempt to freshen up the Christmas music genre. W+K created some advertisement themes and sent out briefs to about 100 artists including the likes of Dan Deacon, Blackalicious and Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings. The resulting songs, all of which were brand-new, original Christmas songs, became the soundtrack to the advertisement campaign.\n\nI haven’t been able to confirm how many artists in total answered the call and provided Target with new holiday tunes, but fourteen tracks were ultimately collected into The Christmas Gig: Two Thousand Ten, a free digital album you could stream and download from Target’s website throughout the 2010 holiday season.\n\n\n  \n  W+K The Christmas Gig Influencer Package\n\n\nAdditionally, Target and W+K worked with Gotta Groove Records to produce an extremely limited run of promotional vinyl: a pair of red, 7” singles and a full-length album, pressed in clear vinyl and containing 11 of the 14 tracks from the digital offering.\n\nThese were sent out, along with Flip Video Cameras (anyone remember those?) to media outlets and the influencers of the day. In researching for this episode, I stumbled across the Rockin Mama blog whose author received five copies of the 7” single containing the tracks Tiny Tree Christmas and Perfect Gift to give out to her followers.\n\n\n\nThe Christmas Gig: Two Thousand Ten\n\nLabel: Target Brands, Inc. \nReleased: 2010\n\nTracklist\n\n  A1. Guster - Tiny Tree Christmas\n  A2. Darker My Love - Snow Is Falling\n  A3. Natalie Hemby - Perfect Gift\n  A4. Crystal Antlers - 10,000 Watts\n  A5. Bishop Allen - You’ll Never Find My Christmas\n  B1. Jenny O. - Get Down For The Holidays\n  B2. Little Jackie - Mrs. Claus Ain’t Got Nothin’ On Me\n  B3. Blazer Force - Electronic Santa\n  B4. Best Coast/Wavves - Got Something For You\n  B5. Coconut Records - It’s Christmas\n  B6. Little Isidore - Party Hard\n\n\nDigital Tracks (not appearing on the vinyl release)\n\n  1. Blackalicious - Toy Jackpot\n  2. The Pinker Tones - Super Mama\n  3. Ceci Bastida - Un Regalo Para Mi\n\n\n\n\nThere are a few important points to make here. First, according to Target’s press release, only eight of these songs were used in the TV spots. That means the other six were commissioned for the project, never used in advertising and still given out for free.\n\nSecond, the album download was literally a zip file containing the MP3s. 2010 was a while back technologically speaking, but it’s still amazing that there were no barriers.\n\nNo account sign-up needed, no email list to join, no hashtags to tweet, no like and subscribe, nothing. Just click button, get music, done! Oh simpler times. Again, it would be hard to imagine any of this happening in 2024.\n\n\n  \n  Target Album Advertisement, December 2010\n\n\nFinally, let’s take a moment to think about the fact this album was never made commercially available outside of the free digital download and promos records. I get that the market for vinyl in 2010 wasn’t what it is today, but Target was no stranger to producing exclusive CDs at the time.\n\nThey released Songs For A Cause in 2008 (benefiting the Salvation Army) and Disney’s Winter Wonderland in 2010 (benefiting the Walt Disney Corporation, I assume), the latter on store shelves at the same time this campaign was gearing up. Exclusive merch is an area where Target was well-versed.\n\nMy completely uneducated and admittedly under-researched opinion is that a few things could have been working against this album seeing a proper, physical release.\n\nLicensing and usage restrictions on the songs would be the most straightforward reason.\n\nLack of time could be another reason. Manufacturing and distribution takes time. To get discs on shelves in time for the holiday season, you would have to do all the preceding work, including campaign development, corporate sign-off, artist engagement and music review much, much earlier. It’s entirely possible that a CD release was never in the cards simply due to the timeline.\n\nOr, and possibly the most interesting of reasons: selling CDs was completely superfluous to the underlying goal of the campaign.\n\nSee, in 2010 Target was in the final throes of a partnership with Amazon to manage its online shopping presence. This was something fairly common with large retailers at the time. Toys R Us, Borders and Circuit City all had similar arrangements with Amazon providing their digital infrastructure, while increasingly competing directly against them in their respective online spaces.\n\nThese names might not sound like great company today and the same was true in 2010. Circuit City had shuttered its locations the year prior, while Borders was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy at the time and Toys R Us appeared to be another sinking ship. Target needed to avoid that same fate. Where the others had put paltry sums into developing their own, Amazon-less websites, Target was investing billions at the time into their home-grown alternative.\n\n\n  \n  Darker My Love on Jimmy Kimmel\n\n\nTarget needed to create some online shopping momentum going into 2011 and the impending launch of its own online storefront. This I believe was the ultimate goal of the campaign and why Target and W+K were laser-focused on using the free album download to drive traffic to its website.\n\nAll of the campaign television commercials ended with the message, “Get This Song Free At Target.com/christmas” and Target spent the month of December marching these artists out to perform their new tracks on the morning and late show circuits. Little Jackie performed Mrs. Claus Ain’t Got Nothin’ On Me Christmas Morning on NBC’s Weekend Today Show and Darker My Love did Snow Is Falling on Jimmy Kimmel Live!.\n\nSpeculation aside and regardless of the true reason, the result is an extremely rare album that does not surface often. Discogs only shows 8 transactions for this album, each in the $40-$65 range. And, at the time of this episode, there is a single copy listed on eBay for a whopping $750! Yikes!\n\nBut, all is not lost to the annals of time. At least one of these songs recently received new life by way of a streaming holiday special and, through the magic that is the Way Back Machine, there might just be a way to download the original digital album.\n\nWe’ll cover these things, along with my favorite tracks from the album in part two of this episode.\n\nCheers and Merry Christmas!"
        },
        {
          "id": "posts-2024-02-disneys-christmas-favorites-my-og-christmas-soundtrack",
          "title": "Disney's Christmas Favorites: My OG Christmas Soundtrack",
          "collection": {
            "label": "posts",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "disney, music, nostalgia",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/posts/2024/02/disneys-christmas-favorites-my-og-christmas-soundtrack/",
          "content": "For this inaugural episode, I’m reaching back to one of my earliest Christmas memories, the Disney’s Christmas Favorites album. My OG Christmas soundtrack.\n\nOriginally released in 1979, this album was a fixture throughout my childhood. It lived year-round on the LP shelf at the bottom of my parent’s stereo system, surfacing twice a year: first, on the evening we decorated the tree, then again on Christmas day. After that, having fulfilled its annual obligation, it would retire back to its home to sleep until it was called up to duty the following year.\n\n\n  \n  Disney's Christmas Favorites Album\n\n\nAs a child, I didn’t particularly like the album. My kid brain could not reconcile why someone would go through all the effort of featuring Mickey and the gang on the cover, blasting down the hill on a sled, but not have the decency to ask any of them to sing. Not a single character. Not so much as an interlude. Nothing.\n\nIt would be like putting on the Urban Chipmunk album that came out around the same time only to find that instead of Alvin and the crew, you’d just strapped into forty-five minutes of Ronnie Milsap. Not the worst thing in the world, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a grade-schooler excited about that trade-off.\n\nSo, if not the classic Disney characters implied by the artwork, who was on the album? It was packed with thirteen of the most classic of Christmas tunes: White Christmas, Frosty, Rudolf, Jingle Bells, you know the drill, all performed by either Larry Groce, The Disneyland Children’s Sing-along Chorus (sometimes accompanying Larry) or the Mike Sammes Singers. These names meant very little to five-year-old me whose musical knowledge both started and ended with the Beach Boys, an early fascination I directly attributed to another Disney creation of the time, The Flight of The Navigator.\n\n\n\nDisney’s Christmas Favorites\n\nLabel: Disneyland Records (2506) \nReleased: 1979\n\nTracklist\n\n  A1. White Christmas (Larry Groce and Children’s Chorus)\n  A2. Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer (Mike Sammes Singers)\n  A3. We Wish You A Merry Christmas (Children’s Chorus)\n  A4. Winter Wonderland (Larry Groce and Children’s Chorus)\n  A5. Jolly Old Saint Nicholas (Children’s Chorus)\n  A6. Do You Hear What I Hear? (Mike Sammes Singers)\n  A7. O Christmas Tree (Larry Groce)\n  B1. Frosty The Snow Man (Larry Groce)\n  B2. Jingle Bells (Children’s Chorus)\n  B3. Deck The Halls (Larry Groce and Children’s Chorus)\n  B4. Little Drummer Boy (Mike Sammes Singers)\n  B5. Santa Claus Is Coming To Town (Larry Groce)\n  B6. Silent Night (Larry Groce and Children’s Chorus)\n\n\n\n\nWhile that level of musical naivety might be excusable for five-year-old past-me, I am a bit embarrassed to say that forty-something-year-old present-me still had no working knowledge of either Larry Groce or the Mike Sammes Singers until I started researching for this post. Turns out they are both extremely talented, highly prolific artists with interesting histories. For those of you as clueless as I was, here is just a taste of their accomplishments.\n\nLarry Groce’s resume includes recording a total of nine albums for Disney, five of which went platinum. He also co-founded Mountain Stage, a 2-hour, nationally syndicated music program that he hosted for its first 38 years! Mountain Stage has its own important place in music history, being the first national exposure for many artists who have gone on to be quite famous. Names you might recognize like Lyle Lovett, Sheryl Crow, Alison Krauss, Phish, Tori Amos, The Avett Brothers. The list goes on and on.\n\nOh, and Larry also recorded his own one-hit-wonder in 1976, “Junk Food Junky” which spent an impressive 15 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at #9.\n\nEqually impressive are the Mike Sammes Singers, whose career spanned the late 1950s to the late 1980s and included everything from radio jingles to soundtracks to television theme songs and a whole slew of Disney records. They also featured on hit songs from the likes of Tom Jones, Olivia Newton-John and even the Beatles. That’s right that is the Mike Sammes Singers you’re hearing providing all the background chanting on I Am the Walrus.\n\nI could go on and on about both these tremendous artists, but we’ve strayed pretty far off course and need to start bringing it back in.\n\nThis is the part of the episode where you might be expecting me to talk about how much I’ve come to love this album over the years. Unfortunately, reality rarely ends like a Hallmark movie. And unless you’re David Nehdar, nor does it feature nearly as much Lacey Chabert.\n\nSo, thirty-some years later and I still don’t love this album. Don’t get me wrong, the tracks are all well done, if maybe a bit sterile. But when it comes right down to it, if I’m in the mood for White Christmas, I’m probably reaching for Bing, not Larry. The same goes for Rudolf, except substitute Gene Autry and Mike Sammes accordingly. That or I’m putting on some indie-hipster nonsense from the early tens. Sorry.\n\nBut that’s the thing about nostalgia, right? It’s not so much about liking something as it is about how that thing makes you feel. And hearing these songs, seeing the album art, heck just thinking about it evokes some of my clearest childhood Christmas memories. Like sitting on the living room floor, meticulously deciding where each and every ornament would be placed once the lights were strung on the tree. Or the mad-dash descent, down the stairs Christmas morning to see if Santa had finally brought the Teddy Ruxpin I’d been coveting. And, after being let down a couple of years in a row, finding not only Teddy but a Diplodocus Dino-Rider waiting for me. Best Christmas ever!\n\nIt makes me wonder if 30 years from now my own kids will hear Kelly Clarkson on some oldies station and have the same immediate nostalgia for our holiday traditions as I have etched into my soul by the pops and cracks of the vinyl spinning up while Larry Groce starts into White Christmas.\n\nCheers and Merry Christmas!"
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-jingle-bells-guy-lombardo",
          "title": "Jingle Bells",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/jingle-bells-guy-lombardo/",
          "content": "This album, originally titled Jingle Bells (Yuletide Favorites) was released in 1952 as a single 10” LP, a set of 4 45rpm singles and a set of 4 10” shellac discs.\n\nThese versions all had 8 tracks, ommitting “Winter Wonderland”, “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus”, “Christmas Candles” and “(‘Round the) Christmas Tree at Home”.\n\nThis copy is an Indianapolis repress (stereo) from around 1962."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-mantovani-christmas-carols",
          "title": "Christmas Carols",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/mantovani-christmas-carols/",
          "content": "Orignally released in 1953, this album has been released under multiple names, with different track orders, including An Album of Christmas Music (UK 1957) and Christmas Holiday (Japan 1964).\n\nThis copy is an original 1953 Mono pressing, in a sleeve from a later Stereo reissue."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-christmas-at-mission-santa-barbara",
          "title": "Christmas at Mission Santa Barbara",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/christmas-at-mission-santa-barbara/",
          "content": "The Padres Choristers was composed of Franciscan Clerics from Mission Santa Barbara, California, all in their four final years of preparation for priesthood.\n\nThis copy is a 1956 10” reissue of the 1953 original.\n\nThe album is also availble as part of a compilation CD, along with Songs of the California Missions and can be purchased directly from the Mission Santa Barbara."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-columbia-choir-the-christmas-mood",
          "title": "The Christmas Mood",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/columbia-choir-the-christmas-mood/",
          "content": "This album contains 12 of the 15 Burt Carols, a collection of songs written by Alfred Burt as yearly Christmas cards to friends and family.\n\nIt is the original recording or the carols, shortly after Burt died of lung cancer.\n\nThis album was re-released the following year, adding two of the three missing carols; “Carol of the Mother” and “What Are the Signs”.\n\nThe Burt Carols start gaining popularity when they were recorded by Tennessee Ernie For in 1958 (The Star Carol) and Nat King Cole in 1960 (Caroling, Caroling)."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-a-merry-christmas-to-you-david-rose",
          "title": "A Merry Christmas To You",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/a-merry-christmas-to-you-david-rose/",
          "content": "This album was released in 1956 on MGM Records. It has never been reissued or re-released.\n\nThis is the first of two Christmas albums by David Rose, followed by _The David Rose Christmas Album in 1968."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-merry-christmas-lawrence-welk",
          "title": "Merry Christmas From Lawrence Welk and His Champagne Music",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/merry-christmas-lawrence-welk/",
          "content": "This album has only been released on Vinyl (1956, repressed in 1957) and Reel-To-Reel (1956). It has never been reissued."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-songs-of-christmas-norman-luboff",
          "title": "Songs of Christmas",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/songs-of-christmas-norman-luboff/",
          "content": "Each track on this album is a medley of three-to-four Christmas songs.\n\nThis copy is a 1964 Stereo reissue on Harmony Records."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-hbso-music-of-christmas",
          "title": "The Music of Christmas",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/hbso-music-of-christmas/",
          "content": "This album, conducted by Carmen Dragon, was originally released on vinyl and reel-to-reel in 1957. CD remasters were released in 1996 (US) and 2015 (Europe).\n\nThe track “Carol of the Bells” is used in the Main Street U.S.A. Holiday Loop at Disneyland and other Disney parks."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-johnny-mathis-merry-christmas",
          "title": "Merry Christmas",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/johnny-mathis-merry-christmas/",
          "content": "Originally released in 1958, Merry Christmas was Johnny Mathis’ first Christmas album, followed by Sounds of Christmas (1963), Give Me Your Love for Christmas (1969), Christmas Eve with Johnny Mathis (1986), The Christmas Album (2002), Sending You a Little Christmas (2013) and Christmas Time Is Here (2023).\n\nPercy Faith was the arranger and conductor for this album, which features his orchestra.\n\nThis copy is a Columbia Two Eye Red label reissue from 1966."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-christmas-sing-along-with-mitch",
          "title": "Christmas Sing-Along with Mitch",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/christmas-sing-along-with-mitch/",
          "content": "Part of the Sing Along with Mitch album series, with also spawned a weekly NBC series of the same name, this is the first of two Christmas albums, followed by Holiday Sing Along with Mitch.\n\nThis album originally came with tear-off lyric sheets stapled to the inside of the gatefold."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-christmas-with-conniff",
          "title": "Christmas with Conniff",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/christmas-with-conniff/",
          "content": "This copy is a later Stereo reissue. I’m estimating it to be from around 1970, based on the red Columbia Six Eye label with yellow text."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-mills-brothers-merry-christmas",
          "title": "Merry Christmas",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/mills-brothers-merry-christmas/",
          "content": "The Mills Brothers became the first black group to have a network radio show when they signed a 3 year deal with CBS in September, 1930.\n\nTheir music, a unique blend of vocal jazz and pop, is showcased on this album.\n\nThis copy, a 1979 remaster, omits one track (“I’ll Be Home for Christmas”) and has a different track order from the original 1959 release."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-andre-kostelanetz-joy-to-the-world",
          "title": "Joy to the World: Music for Christmas",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/andre-kostelanetz-joy-to-the-world/",
          "content": "This album starts with a 13-minute medley, containing 8 songs.\n\nThis is Andre Kostelanetz’s first Christmas album, followed by Wonderland of Christmas in 1963."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-lanza-sings-christmas-carols",
          "title": "Lanza Sings Christmas Carols",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/lanza-sings-christmas-carols/",
          "content": "This album was released in 1959, the same year Mario Lanza died (age 38).\n\nThis copy is estimated to be a 1979 reissue. It has the Red Seal label RCA Victor began using in 1976, but has an original, lined RCA inner sleeve with a 1979 date stamp."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-seasons-greetings-from-perry-como",
          "title": "Season's Greetings from Perry Como",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/seasons-greetings-from-perry-como/",
          "content": "This is Perry Como’s second full-length Christmas album, following Perry Como Sings Merry Christmas Music, first released as a collection of 78s in 1947.\n\nThis album includes “The Story of the First Christmas” on the B-side, a collection of sacred carols all referencing the birth of Jesus."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-percy-faith-music-of-christmas",
          "title": "Music of Christmas",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/percy-faith-music-of-christmas/",
          "content": "This album was originally recorded in Mono in 1954. This is the Stereo re-recording from 1959."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-the-old-sweet-songs-of-christmas",
          "title": "The Old Sweet Songs of Christmas",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/the-old-sweet-songs-of-christmas/",
          "content": "This album comes from the Old Sweet Songs series, which also includes The Old Sweet Songs, More Old Sweet Songs and The New Old Sweet Songs.\n\nThis copy is a 1965 (est.), Mono reissue on Harmony Records."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-a-music-box-christmas",
          "title": "A Music Box Christmas",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/a-music-box-christmas/",
          "content": "Rita Ford Music Boxes was founded in Manhatten by Rita Ford in 1947. Originally a period antique shop, Rita Ford Music Boxes grew to the world’s largest dealer of antique and modern music boxes.\n\nThis 1961 album is the first in a series of releases from Rita Ford Music Boxes that continued through the late 1980’s, all recordings of antique music boxes. The series contains two other Christmas albums, The Story of Christmas (1968) and A Christmas Tree - A Collection of Enchanting Music Box Melodies (1985).\n\nEight tracks from this album (A2, A3, A5, B2, B4, B5, B7 and B8) are used in the Main Street U.S.A. Holiday Loop at Disneyland and other Disney parks.\n\nThis copy is an early 1960’s mono reissue (1963?) featuring the Columbia red, two-eye label."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-felix-slatkin-seasons-greetings",
          "title": "Seasons Greetings",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/felix-slatkin-seasons-greetings/",
          "content": "There are two versions of this album. The first version, released in 1961 on Liberty Records, as The Fantastic Strings of Felix Slatkin, has track B4 mislabeled. It is listed as “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” on the album, but is actually “Ihr Kinderlein Kommet (O Come Little Children)”.\n\nThe second version, which is the version I own, was released on Sunset Records in 1966, as The Holiday Strings of Felix Slatkin. It is an abridged album, removing “Ihr Kinderlein Kommet” and “Away in a Manger” and slightly changing the track order.\n\nTwo tracks from the original album, “Ihr Kinderlein Kommet” and “Deck the Halls” are used in the Main Street U.S.A. Holiday Loop at Disneyland and other Disney parks."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-lawrence-welk-silent-night",
          "title": "Lawrence Welk",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/lawrence-welk-silent-night/",
          "content": "This album was originally released in 1961 on Dot Records. It was reissued in 1968 and 1978 with new artwork, first on Ranwood (1968) and then on Sunnyvale (1978).\n\nFive tracks from this album (A1, A2, A3, A5 and A7) are used in the Main Street U.S.A. Holiday Loop at Disneyland and other Disney parks."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-stan_kenton_kentons_christmas",
          "title": "Kenton's Christmas",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/stan_kenton_kentons_christmas/",
          "content": "This album was originally released as From The Creative World Of Stan Kenton Comes… A Merry Christmas! on Capitol Records in 1961.\n\nThe title was changed to Kenton’s Christmas for the 1970 reissue (this version). The name changed back for the 1991 and 2003 CD reissues."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-christmas-in-the-old-world",
          "title": "Christmas in the Old World",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/christmas-in-the-old-world/",
          "content": "This album is a collection of Christmas songs from Western Europe (Austria, Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Spain and Sweden).\n\nIt was released on vinyl in 1962 and has never been re-released or reissued."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-bert-kaempfert-christmas-wonderland",
          "title": "Christmas Wonderland",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/bert-kaempfert-christmas-wonderland/",
          "content": "Orignally released in 1963, this album has been released under multiple names, with different track orders, including, Christmastide with Kaempfert (Germany 1963, US 1966) and A Drop of Christmas Spirit (UK 1980)."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-wonderland-of-christmas-andrea-kostelanetz",
          "title": "Wonderland of Christmas",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/wonderland-of-christmas-andrea-kostelanetz/",
          "content": "This is an early 1970s re-release of the 1963 original. Estimating the year at 1972 based on the Columbia Limited Edition brown label and other Limited Edition album release dates.\n\nThis is Andre Kostelanetz’s second Christmas album, following Joy to the World: Music for Christmas in 1959."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-christmas-with-johnny-mathis",
          "title": "Christmas with Johnny Mathis",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/christmas-with-johnny-mathis/",
          "content": "This album was originally released as Sounds of Christmas in 1963 for Mercury Records.\n\nThe album name changed to Christmas with Johnny Mathis when it was re-released on Harmony Records in 1971 and stayed for the Columbia re-release in 1976.\n\nAll re-releases, including this 1976 Columbia copy are missing what was originally track 6 on the A side, “The Little Drummer Boy”."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-the-many-moods-of-christmas",
          "title": "The Many Moods of Christmas",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/the-many-moods-of-christmas/",
          "content": "This album consists of four long medleys, two on each side and titled “I, II, III, and IV”.\n\nThis copy is a late 1970s reissue. Estimating it at 1978 based on the Red Seal label RCA began using in 1976 and the “Recent Releases” on the album’s original inner sleeve."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-the-spirit-of-christmas-with-the-living-strings-mono",
          "title": "The Spirit of Christmas with the Living Strings (Mono)",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/the-spirit-of-christmas-with-the-living-strings-mono/",
          "content": "This is the first of several Christmas albums from the Living Strings, followed by White Christmas (1968), The Sound of Christmas (1970), and The Most Beautiful Sounds of Christmas (1978).\n\nThis copy is the original 1963 Mono release of the album."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-the-spirit-of-christmas-with-the-living-strings-stereo",
          "title": "The Spirit of Christmas with the Living Strings (Stereo)",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/the-spirit-of-christmas-with-the-living-strings-stereo/",
          "content": "This is the first of several Christmas albums from the Living Strings, followed by White Christmas (1968), The Sound of Christmas (1970) and The Most Beautiful Sounds of Christmas (1978).\n\nThis copy is the original 1963 Stereo release of the album."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-beach-boys-christmas-album",
          "title": "The Beach Boys' Christmas Album",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/beach-boys-christmas-album/",
          "content": "The first 5 tracks on this album are all original songs, written by Brian Wilson.\n\nThis copy is the 1991 CD reissue, that includes 4 bonus tracks (tracks 13-16) not on the original album."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-a-charlie-brown-christmas",
          "title": "A Charlie Brown Christmas",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/a-charlie-brown-christmas/",
          "content": "Released by Fantasy Records in 1965 to coincide with the originally airing of the holiday TV special, there have been over 200 unique reissues and remasters, across nearly every available media format.\n\nThis copy is a 2025 Best Buy-exclusive, neon green pressing."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-christmas-favorites",
          "title": "Christmas Favorites",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/christmas-favorites/",
          "content": "The Hollyridge Strings were a Capitol Records studio orchestra in the 1960s and 1970s, focusing on orchestral versions of contemporary (for the time) pop and rock music.\n\nThey have released several orchestral albums covering Beatles songs, as well as albums covering The Beach Boys, The Four Seasons, Elvis, Nat King Cole and Simon and Garfunkel.\n\nChristmas Favorites, their sole Christmas album was arranged and conducted by Stu Phillips and released on vinyl in 1965. There is also a 2008 CD reissue.\n\nThis album is one of the more expensive Christmas albums, with both the original vinyl release and the CD reissue both in the $50-$100 range (as of 2026) for a copy in nice condition.\n\nThe track “Jingle Bell Rock” is used in the Main Street U.S.A. Holiday Loop at Disneyland and other Disney parks."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-eddie-dunstedter-christmas-candy",
          "title": "Christmas Candy",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/eddie-dunstedter-christmas-candy/",
          "content": "This album was released in 1965 as Christmas Candy in the US and A White Christmas in the UK. It has not been reissued or re-released."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-capitol-the-sound-of-christmas-vol1",
          "title": "The Sound of Christmas",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/capitol-the-sound-of-christmas-vol1/",
          "content": "The first of two compilation albums in the Capitol Records The Sound of Christmas series. The second album, The Sound of Christmas Vol. 2 was released the following year in 1967."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-we-wish-you-a-merry-christmas",
          "title": "We Wish You a Merry Christmas",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/we-wish-you-a-merry-christmas/",
          "content": "We Wish You a Merry Christmas was Ferrante & Teicher’s second Christmas album, following 1962’s Snowbound.\n\nThis copy was reissue from 1971-77, when United Artists used their brown label."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-music-to-trim-your-tree-by",
          "title": "Music To Trim Your Tree By",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/music-to-trim-your-tree-by/",
          "content": "This 1966 compilation from RCA Victor has never been reissued or re-released. The back of the album contains a abbreviated history of the tree decorating tradition."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-capitol-the-sound-of-christmas-vol2",
          "title": "The Sound of Christmas Vol. 2",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/capitol-the-sound-of-christmas-vol2/",
          "content": "The second of two compilation albums in the Capitol Records The Sound of Christmas series. The first album, The Sound of Christmas was released the year prior, in 1966.\n\nThe track “Caroling, Caroling” by the Hollywood Pops Orchestra is used in the Main Street U.S.A. Holiday Loop at Disneyland and other Disney parks."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-ed-sullivan-presents-music-of-christmas",
          "title": "Ed Sullivan Presents Music of Christmas",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/ed-sullivan-presents-music-of-christmas/",
          "content": "Ed Sullivan Presents Music of Christmas was the final (and only Christmas) album in the Ed Sullivan Presents series.\n\nThe series mainly featured collections of songs from musicals (ex. Ed Sullivan Presents Songs and Music of My Fair Lady). This album was, according to the back of the album, a collection of Christmas songs, selected by Sullivan.\n\nFour tracks from this album (A1, A3, A5 and B3 ) are used in the Main Street U.S.A. Holiday Loop at Disneyland and other Disney parks."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-the-magic-of-christmas",
          "title": "The Magic of Christmas",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/the-magic-of-christmas/",
          "content": "The Soulful Strings was a project comprised of Cadet Records house band players (circa 1966-71) and led by arranger Richard Evans.\n\nThis album was originally released in 1968, one of only a handful of holiday albums from Cadet (originally Argo), along with The Rotary Connection, Kenny Burrell and both Sound of Christmas and More Sounds of Christmas from the Ramsey Lewis Trio."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-raymond-lefevre-merry-christmas",
          "title": "Merry Christmas",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/raymond-lefevre-merry-christmas/",
          "content": "This album was released under several other names in different regions, including Feliz Navidad (Mexico), Musica De Navidad (Spain), Joyeux Noel (France, Lebanon, Canada), Joyeux Noels (Japan, Indonesia) and Christmas Symphonies (Germany).\n\nTwo tracks from this album, “Silver Bells” and “Jingle Bells” are used in the Main Street U.S.A. Holiday Loop at Disneyland and other Disney parks. A third track, “Little Father Christmas” was likely used previously, but has since been replaced by the same track from Paul Mauriat."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-the-david-rose-christmas-album",
          "title": "The David Rose Christmas Album",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/the-david-rose-christmas-album/",
          "content": "This album was released as Little Drummer Boy in other countries and reissued in the US under the same name in 1968.\n\nIt was released in CD in 2011 by Real Gone Music.\n\nThis is the second of two Christmas albums by David Rose, preceded by _A Merry Christmas To You in 1956.\n\nOriginal copies under the The David Rose Christmas Album name, as well as CD copies sell for $50-100, in nice condition."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-living-strings-white-christmas",
          "title": "White Christmas",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/living-strings-white-christmas/",
          "content": "This is an early Christmas album from the Living Strings and/or Living Voices, preceded by The Spirit of Christmas with the Living Strings and followed by The Sound of Christmas (1970) and The Most Beautiful Sounds of Christmas (1978).\n\nThis copy is a 1969 reissue of the original 1968 album."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-fred-waring-christmas-magic",
          "title": "Christmas Magic",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/fred-waring-christmas-magic/",
          "content": "This double album is an abridged re-release of two previously separate albums; The Sounds of Christmas (1959) and The Meaning of Christmas (1961).\n\nThis copy is a Capitol Records promo-stamped album."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-christmas-with-danny-davis",
          "title": "Christmas with Danny Davis and the Nashville Brass",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/christmas-with-danny-davis/",
          "content": "This copy is a mid-to-late 1970s RCA budget reissue, denoted by the ‘ANL1’ prefix."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-lexington-singers-its-christmas",
          "title": "It's Christmas",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/lexington-singers-its-christmas/",
          "content": "The Lexington Singers are a still-active choral group from Lexington, Kentucy.\n\nThis album contains no date information.\n\nThe back of the album sleeve gives a history of The Lexington Singers, including events from 1958 through 1967, so this album could not have been released earlier than 1967.\n\nI’m estimating it was released in 1970, based on Custom Fidelity catalog numbers both preceding and following it that were released in the same year."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-living-strings-the-sound-of-christmas",
          "title": "The Sound of Christmas",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/living-strings-the-sound-of-christmas/",
          "content": "This is a later Christmas album from the Living Strings and/or Living Voices, preceded by The Spirit of Christmas with the Living Strings and  White Christmas (1968) and followed by The Most Beautiful Sounds of Christmas (1978)."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-singers_unlimited_christmas",
          "title": "Christmas",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/singers_unlimited_christmas/",
          "content": "The Singers Unlimited were a four part jazz vocal group from Chicago, IL. Christmas was their second album, after A Capella a year earlier, in 1971.\n\nThe group featured Len Dresslar, who voiced of the Jolly Green Giant from 1959 to the late 1990s and Bonnie Herman, known for the original “Like a Good Neighbor, State Farm Is There” jingle."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-jim-nabors-merry-christmas",
          "title": "Merry Christmas",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/jim-nabors-merry-christmas/",
          "content": "The album was released on vinyl and cassette in 1972, with a CD re-release in 1986."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-henry-mancini-selects-great-songs-of-christmas",
          "title": "Henry Mancini Selects Great Songs of Christmas by Great Artists of Our Time",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/henry-mancini-selects-great-songs-of-christmas/",
          "content": "This is the 1975 release in the Great Songs of Christmas compilation series (1961-1977) for Good Year Tire.\n\nThis album is the first album in the series produced by RCA Special Prodcts (1975-77). All previous releases were produced by Columbia Special Products (1961-74).\n\nThis album is also the only release in the series to have the songs selected by a guest artist (Mancini). According to the information on the back of the album, Mancini compiled a list of songs, which was presented to Good Year Managers to vote on. The songs receiving the most votes are the ones that appear on the album."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-the-most-beautiful-sounds-of-christmas",
          "title": "The Most Beautiful Sounds of Christmas",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/the-most-beautiful-sounds-of-christmas/",
          "content": "This album is from the Living Strings and Living Voices, RCA Victor’s studio orchestra and studio singers. It was released on vinyl and cassette in 1978, and remastered for CD in 1990."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-its-a-wonderful-life",
          "title": "It's A Wonderful Life (Gonna Have A Good Time)",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/its-a-wonderful-life/",
          "content": "This 4 track, EP was relased on vinyl and cassette in 1987 (with a vinyl re-press in ‘88).\n\nIt also received a Japanese-only CD release in 1993.\n\nTracks from this album were mentioned in the Warped Tour 2025 Christmas Playlist episode.\n\nThis album was also the topic of the 2025 Christmas Podcast Day episode."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-the-nightmare-before-christmas",
          "title": "Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas (Soundtrack)",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/the-nightmare-before-christmas/",
          "content": "The 2 picture disc set originally released as a Hot Topic-exclusive, for the film’s 10th Anniversary in 2003. This copy was another Hot Topic-exclusive from the following year (2004), with different pictures on the discs."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-a-new-orleans-christmas",
          "title": "A New Orleans Christmas",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/a-new-orleans-christmas/",
          "content": "This is a NYNO compilation album featuring Christmas songs by Allen Toussaint and several other New Orleans-area jazz artists.\n\nThis album only had a single release in 1997, on cassette and CD.\n\nFive of the tracks on this album (tracks 4, 5, 7, 8 and 11) can be heard as part of the River of America Holiday Loop, along the Rivers of America, between Frontierland and New Orleans Square in Disneyland. This same loop had previous (2011 or earlier) played inside the Blue Bayou restaurant and currently plays in Tokyo Disneyland’s Royal Street area during the holidays.\n\nThis album was mentioned in the Disney Holiday Loops: Frontierland post and episode."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-bright-eyes-a-christmas-album",
          "title": "A Christmas Album",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/bright-eyes-a-christmas-album/",
          "content": "Originally released on CD by Saddle Creek in 2003, this album received its first vinyl release in 2009 (followed by 2013 re-releases on both vinyl and CD).\n\nThis copy is the 2023 release from Dead Oceans on clear red vinyl.\n\nNote: The track numbering does not start over on side B (ex. B1, B2), instead continuing from the numbering on side A."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-merry-christmas-from",
          "title": "Merry Christmas From...",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/merry-christmas-from/",
          "content": "This 7” single was originally released in 2002, a year before their breakout album, White Elephant.\n\nThis copy is a 2011 reissue on Jack White’s Third Man Records label."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-the-lost-christmas-eve",
          "title": "The Lost Christmas Eve",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/the-lost-christmas-eve/",
          "content": "I received this album as gift from my son for Christmas 2025."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-a-very-she-and-him-christmas",
          "title": "A Very She & Him Christmas",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/a-very-she-and-him-christmas/",
          "content": "This album was originally released in 2011 on vinyl and CD. Vinyl reissues have happened most years since 2015, with cassette releases occurring in 2021 and 2022.\n\nShe & Him is a duo consisting of Zoey Deschanel and M. Ward, formed in 2006. Prior to forming their group, Deschanel had performed “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” for the movie Elf (2003), where she sang it onscreen and recorded a version with Leon Redbone for the soundtrack."
        },
        {
          "id": "albums-its-a-holiday-soul-party",
          "title": "It's a Holiday Soul Party",
          "collection": {
            "label": "albums",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/albums/its-a-holiday-soul-party/",
          "content": "This album contains a mix of original and classic holiday songs.\n\nThe song “Just Another Christmas Song” was featured on Ken Kessler’s Merry Mixtape.\n\nThis copy is the red and white, Candy Cane reissue from 2021."
        },
        {
          "id": "404",
          "title": "404",
          "collection": {
            "label": "pages",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/404",
          "content": "404\n\nPage Not Found :(\n\nThe requested page could not be found."
        },
        {
          "id": "500",
          "title": "500",
          "collection": {
            "label": "pages",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/500",
          "content": "500\n\nInternal Server Error :(\n\nThe requested page could not be delivered."
        },
        {
          "id": "about",
          "title": "About",
          "collection": {
            "label": "pages",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/about/",
          "content": "About\n\n‘Tis the Soundtrack is the creation of Kevin Williams and produced under his KarteDrop brand.\n\n\n  \n  Kevin Williams - AI Artist Rendition\n\n\nKevin is a technology leader obsessed with outstanding customer service and enabling folks to be expressive and creative in their work (the latter often resulting in the prior).\n\nBy day he leads technology and service initiatives for a large manufacturing and distribution company.\n\nBy night, he maintains a handful of personal projects, mainly revolving around his loves of Disneyland, Christmas and Coding.\n\nKevin’s full bio and information on his other projects are available on his personal site - Beer and Coding in Eugene.\n\nContact Kevin about ‘Tis the Soundtrack at hello@tisthesoundtrack.com."
        },
        {
          "id": "bingo",
          "title": "Christmas Music Bingo",
          "collection": {
            "label": "pages",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/bingo/",
          "content": "Christmas Music Bingo\n\n    \n\n    \n\n\n\n\n    \n        \n        New Card\n    \n    \n        \n        Download PDF\n    \n\n\n\n\nCreate Your Cards\n\n\n  \n    Print out a bingo card for each player\n\n    (Pro Tip: Just print page one. The card should fit on a single 8.5” x 11” sheet - no need to waste a scend one for the rules and extra website stuff).\n  \n  \n    Refresh this page to generate a new, unique card for each player.\n  \n  \n    Or…each player can play directly from their own device - the bingo squares are clickable!\n\n    (Pro Tip: If you’re playing on a phone or tablet, remember not to navigate away or your card will be wiped!).\n  \n\n\n\n\nPlay The Game\n\n\n  \n    When you hear a Christmas song, look for the artist or the song title on your card.\n  \n  \n    If you have either the artist or song on your card, mark off that square.\n  \n  \n    If you have both the artist and song squares, mark them both!\n  \n  \n    Individual artists and song titles will only appear once per card, but you can mark off different songs by the same artist if you have them (and likewise different artists performing the same song).\n  \n  \n    Continue until the first player has completed a row of 5 squares, horizontally, vertically or diagonally.\n  \n  \n    The center space is always a free space.\n  \n  \n    Have fun!"
        },
        {
          "id": "",
          "title": "Index",
          "collection": {
            "label": "pages",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/",
          "content": "Digging deep to bring you the merriest of music, all year long.\n\n\n    Latest Post\n\n\n\n    \n        \n        Two Year Anniversary!\n        \n            I can't believe I'm saying this, but it's our two-year anniversary! I know, I'm just as shocked as you! What started as a little experiment two years and twenty-four (admittedly inconsistent) episodes ago has grown into an incredibly fulfilling project and the most fun I've had with a hobby since the years I spent dragging my wife around Oregon, writing about craft beer and homebrewing. But that's a story for another time....[continue reading]\n            \n                    \n                        Vinyl\n                    \n                    \n                        Podcasting\n                    \n                    \n                        Music\n                    \n                    \n                        Collecting Music\n                    \n                    \n                        Banjo\n                    \n                    \n                        Anniversary\n                    \n            \n        \n    \n\n\n\n\n\n    Recent Posts\n\n\n\n        \n            \n                \n                    \n                \n                Two Year Anniversary!\n            \n        \n        \n            \n                \n                    \n                \n                The History of the Christmas Album: The First Format War (1890-1925)\n            \n        \n        \n            \n                \n                    \n                \n                2025 Christmas Podcast Day: Fishbone - It's a Wonderful Life EP\n            \n        \n        \n            \n                \n                    \n                \n                Merry Mixtapes: Alonso Duralde - Have Yourself A Movie Little Christmas\n            \n        \n        \n            \n                \n                    \n                \n                The History of the Christmas Album: The Rise and Fall of Sheet Music (1840-1910)\n            \n        \n        \n            \n                \n                    \n                \n                Warped Tour 2025 Christmas Playlist\n            \n        \n\n\n    All posts"
        },
        {
          "id": "listen",
          "title": "Listen",
          "collection": {
            "label": "pages",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/listen/",
          "content": "Podcast\n\n ‘Tis the Soundtrack Podcast\n\n\n‘Tis the Soundtrack is available on all major podcast platforms, or subscribe directly using the links below.\n\n\n\n    \n    \n    YouTube\n    \n\n\n    \n    \n    Apple Podcasts\n    \n\n    \n    \n    Amazon Music\n    \n\n    \n    \n    Spotify\n    \n\n    \n    \n    RSS\n    \n\n\n\n\n\n Guest Appearances\n\n\nBelow are some ‘Tis the Soundtrack appearances on the other fine podcasts of the Christmas Podcast Network.\n\n\n    \n      \n          \n          Totally Rad Christmas - Gremlins, the Score and Soundtrack\n          \n      \n      What’s up, dudes? “Gremlins” is a classic holiday horror, made better by Jerry Goldsmith’s score and the killer hits of Michael Sembello and Peter Gabriel. Thus, Kevin Williams from ‘Tis the Soundtrack joins me to really dig into a couple of cues from the “Gremlins” score and dish about music theory of it all as well. [listen]\n    \n    \n      \n          \n          The Sounds of Christmas - Blues Brothers Christmas\n          \n      \n      Ken from the Sounds of Christmas talks to Kevin from the Tis The Soundtrack podcast about turning the Blues Brothers into a Christmas movie by replacing all of the songs with appropriate (in most cases) Christmas songs! [listen]\n    \n    \n      \n          \n          Totally Rad Christmas - Lollipop Dragon: The Great Christmas Race\n          \n      \n      What’s up, dudes? It’s Christmas Podcast Day 2024! Kevin Williams from ‘Tis the Soundtrack joins me to discuss the quirky yet wholesome Christmas special “Lollipop Dragon: The Great Christmas Race!” Brought to you by the Society for Visual Education, Inc., a division of the sewing company Singer, the special was part of a huge series of books, tapes, and other merchandise. [listen]\n    \n    \n      \n          \n          The Sounds of Christmas - Christmas Movie Musical Moments\n          \n      \n      Ken Kessler from the Sounds of Christmas is joined by Kevin from 'Tis The Soundtrack about a ten-month old Cosmo article that seems to be making the round again, and their picks for the top musical Christmas moments that instantly give you a dose of Christmas Spirit! [listen]\n    \n    \n      \n          \n          Totally Rad Christmas - Christmas Vacation Score and Soundtrack\n          \n      \n      What’s up, dudes? It was 1989, and the Griswolds had an amazing and quirky holiday staycation adventure with fantastic music woven throughout! Kevin Williams from ‘Tis the Soundtrack joins me to discuss the fabulous song selection and Badalamenti’s orchestral score to “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation!” [listen]\n    \n\n\n\n\n\n    Home"
        },
        {
          "id": "soundtracks",
          "title": "Soundtracks",
          "collection": {
            "label": "pages",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "/soundtracks/",
          "content": "Mixes\n\n\n\nStealth Christmas\n\nThis is the mix tape that started it all. A collection of decidedly non-Christmassy songs which have appeared in holiday advertisements.\n\nIf you are someone who has to enjoy your Christmas music on the down low for the first 11 months of the year, this is the mix for you. You can blast these tunes in public without anyone batting an eye that you are secretly getting your holiday fix.\n\nTidal\n\n\n    \n\n\nYouTube\n\n\n\n\n\n\n    Home"
        },
        {
          "id": "",
          "title": "'Tis the Soundtrack",
          "collection": {
            "label": "data",
            "name": "Posts"
          },
          "categories": "",
          "tags": "",
          "url": "",
          "content": ""
        },
          {
            "id": "posts",
            "title": "Posts",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/",
            "content": "# Posts\n\n\n    \n        \n            \"  class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n\n\n\n\n\n     1 %>\n        \n            \n                \n                    \">\n                \n            \n            \n                \n                    \">Next Page >\n                \n            \n        \n    \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-page-2",
            "title": "Posts (Page 2)",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/page/2/",
            "content": "# Posts\n\n\n    \n        \n            \"  class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n\n\n\n\n\n     1 %>\n        \n            \n                \n                    \">\n                \n            \n            \n                \n                    \">Next Page >\n                \n            \n        \n    \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-page-3",
            "title": "Posts (Page 3)",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/page/3/",
            "content": "# Posts\n\n\n    \n        \n            \"  class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n\n\n\n\n\n     1 %>\n        \n            \n                \n                    \">\n                \n            \n            \n                \n                    \">Next Page >\n                \n            \n        \n    \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "albums",
            "title": "Albums",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/albums/",
            "content": "# Albums\n\n\nMy personal collection of Christmas albums on CD and Vinyl.\n\n\n\nAlbums are sorted by their original release date. New! indicates albums purchased within the last 90 days.\n\n\n\n\n\n    \n        \n            \n                \"  style=\"\">\n                     -  ()\n                \n                \n                     New!\n                \n            \n        \n\n        \n            \n                \"  class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                    \n                        \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                    \n                     -  ()\n                \n            \n        \n    \n    \n\n\n\n\n\n\n     1 %>\n        \n            \n                \n                    \">\n                \n            \n            \n                \n                    \">Next Page >\n                \n            \n        \n    \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "albums-page-2",
            "title": "Albums (Page 2)",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/albums/page/2/",
            "content": "# Albums\n\n\nMy personal collection of Christmas albums on CD and Vinyl.\n\n\n\nAlbums are sorted by their original release date. New! indicates albums purchased within the last 90 days.\n\n\n\n\n\n    \n        \n            \n                \"  style=\"\">\n                     -  ()\n                \n                \n                     New!\n                \n            \n        \n\n        \n            \n                \"  class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                    \n                        \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                    \n                     -  ()\n                \n            \n        \n    \n    \n\n\n\n\n\n\n     1 %>\n        \n            \n                \n                    \">\n                \n            \n            \n                \n                    \">Next Page >\n                \n            \n        \n    \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "albums-page-3",
            "title": "Albums (Page 3)",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/albums/page/3/",
            "content": "# Albums\n\n\nMy personal collection of Christmas albums on CD and Vinyl.\n\n\n\nAlbums are sorted by their original release date. New! indicates albums purchased within the last 90 days.\n\n\n\n\n\n    \n        \n            \n                \"  style=\"\">\n                     -  ()\n                \n                \n                     New!\n                \n            \n        \n\n        \n            \n                \"  class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                    \n                        \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                    \n                     -  ()\n                \n            \n        \n    \n    \n\n\n\n\n\n\n     1 %>\n        \n            \n                \n                    \">\n                \n            \n            \n                \n                    \">Next Page >\n                \n            \n        \n    \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-vinyl",
            "title": "Vinyl",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/vinyl/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-podcasting",
            "title": "Podcasting",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/podcasting/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-music",
            "title": "Music",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/music/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-music-page-2",
            "title": "Music (Page 2)",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/music/page/2/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-music-page-3",
            "title": "Music (Page 3)",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/music/page/3/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-collecting-music",
            "title": "Collecting Music",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/collecting-music/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-banjo",
            "title": "Banjo",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/banjo/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-anniversary",
            "title": "Anniversary",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/anniversary/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-victor-herbert",
            "title": "Victor Herbert",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/victor-herbert/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-thomas-edison",
            "title": "Thomas Edison",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/thomas-edison/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-sheet-music",
            "title": "Sheet Music",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/sheet-music/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-phonograph",
            "title": "Phonograph",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/phonograph/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-peter-wilhousky",
            "title": "Peter Wilhousky",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/peter-wilhousky/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-mykola-leontovych",
            "title": "Mykola Leontovych",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/mykola-leontovych/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-leon-jessel",
            "title": "Leon Jessel",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/leon-jessel/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-irving-berlin",
            "title": "Irving Berlin",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/irving-berlin/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-graphophone",
            "title": "Graphophone",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/graphophone/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-gramophone",
            "title": "Gramophone",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/gramophone/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-emile-berliner",
            "title": "Emile Berliner",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/emile-berliner/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-alexander-graham-bell",
            "title": "Alexander Graham Bell",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/alexander-graham-bell/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-78",
            "title": "78",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/78/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-ska",
            "title": "Ska",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/ska/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-punk",
            "title": "Punk",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/punk/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-its-a-wonderful-life",
            "title": "Its A Wonderful Life",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/its-a-wonderful-life/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-funk",
            "title": "Funk",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/funk/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-fishbone",
            "title": "Fishbone",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/fishbone/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-columbia-records",
            "title": "Columbia Records",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/columbia-records/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-christmas-podcast-day",
            "title": "Christmas Podcast Day",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/christmas-podcast-day/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-merry-mixtapes",
            "title": "Merry Mixtapes",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/merry-mixtapes/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-have-yourself-a-movie-little-christmas",
            "title": "Have Yourself A Movie Little Christmas",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/have-yourself-a-movie-little-christmas/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-bing-crosby",
            "title": "Bing Crosby",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/bing-crosby/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-alonso-duralde",
            "title": "Alonso Duralde",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/alonso-duralde/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-frank-sinatra",
            "title": "Frank Sinatra",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/frank-sinatra/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-warped-tour",
            "title": "Warped Tour",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/warped-tour/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-lost-christmas",
            "title": "Lost Christmas",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/lost-christmas/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-leon-day",
            "title": "Leon Day",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/leon-day/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-walt-disney-world",
            "title": "Walt Disney World",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/walt-disney-world/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-jazz",
            "title": "Jazz",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/jazz/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-disneyland",
            "title": "Disneyland",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/disneyland/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-disney",
            "title": "Disney",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/disney/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-country-music",
            "title": "Country Music",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/country-music/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-walmart",
            "title": "Walmart",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/walmart/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-target",
            "title": "Target",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/target/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-golden-records",
            "title": "Golden Records",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/golden-records/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-easter",
            "title": "Easter",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/easter/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-tim-babb",
            "title": "Tim Babb",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/tim-babb/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-cant-wait-for-christmas",
            "title": "Cant Wait For Christmas",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/cant-wait-for-christmas/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-totally-rad-christmas",
            "title": "Totally Rad Christmas",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/totally-rad-christmas/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-the-sounds-of-christmas",
            "title": "The Sounds Of Christmas",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/the-sounds-of-christmas/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-thank-you",
            "title": "Thank You",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/thank-you/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-lost-christmas-podcast",
            "title": "Lost Christmas Podcast",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/lost-christmas-podcast/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-sophia-reyes",
            "title": "Sophia Reyes",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/sophia-reyes/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-jim-noir",
            "title": "Jim Noir",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/jim-noir/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-j-c-penney",
            "title": "J C Penney",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/j-c-penney/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-fatboy-slim",
            "title": "Fatboy Slim",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/fatboy-slim/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-black-pumas",
            "title": "Black Pumas",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/black-pumas/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-gerry-d",
            "title": "Gerry D",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/gerry-d/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-ken-kessler",
            "title": "Ken Kessler",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/ken-kessler/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-wizzard",
            "title": "Wizzard",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/wizzard/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-tom-petty",
            "title": "Tom Petty",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/tom-petty/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-roy-orbison",
            "title": "Roy Orbison",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/roy-orbison/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-jeff-lynne",
            "title": "Jeff Lynne",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/jeff-lynne/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-grandaddy",
            "title": "Grandaddy",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/grandaddy/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-electric-light-orchestra",
            "title": "Electric Light Orchestra",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/electric-light-orchestra/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-tiki",
            "title": "Tiki",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/tiki/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-surf-rock",
            "title": "Surf Rock",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/surf-rock/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-exotica",
            "title": "Exotica",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/exotica/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-marvel",
            "title": "Marvel",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/marvel/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-christmas-special",
            "title": "Christmas Special",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/christmas-special/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-hafod-hardware",
            "title": "Hafod Hardware",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/hafod-hardware/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-christmas-adverts",
            "title": "Christmas Adverts",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/christmas-adverts/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-andrea-von-kampen",
            "title": "Andrea Von Kampen",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/andrea-von-kampen/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-stealth-christmas",
            "title": "Stealth Christmas",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/stealth-christmas/",
            "content": "You are viewing all posts with the  tag.\n\n\n    \n    \n        \n            \" class=\"zoom\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 200px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\">\n                \n                    \" sizes=\"100vw\" class=\"shadow\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 150px; border-radius: 0.125rem;\">\n                \n                \n            \n        \n    \n  \n\n\n\n    Home"
          },
          {
            "id": "posts-categories-john-lewis",
            "title": "John Lewis",
            "categories": "",
            "tags": "",
            "url": "/posts/categories/john-lewis/",
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