November 30, 2007

Winter Holidays = God Awful Pop Music

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Regrettably, I spent my morning listening to songs on the Monster Ballads Xmas CD and the LeeVees’ How Do You Spell Channukkahh EP. Any holiday spirit I had when I woke up this morning has now been completely ripped out of my system.

I’m not sure why holiday rock almost always = terrible rock, but the monster ballad CD and the silly Jewish rock EP are living proof that rock songs about Santa and pop songs about potato latkes are not, and will never be, cool, funny, interesting, or enjoyable in any way. I want to personally thank them for giving me a full-fledged holiday headache.

Did Lita Ford really think that recording “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” with Twisted Sister was a good use of her time? And when Tom Keifer of Cinderella sings “Blue Christmas,” all I can think is, who the hell is Tom Keifer? As difficult as it is for me to admit that I actually bought a Winger tape (yes, a cassette tape) once, their version of “Happy Christmas (War is Over)” is four minutes and six seconds of sheer torture. As for the LeeVees, to me they sound like They Might Be Giants performing at a Bar Mitzvah.

Twisted Sister guitarist Jay Jay French, a co-executive producer of the rock CD, had this to say about the compilation:”‘The ‘Monster Ballads Xmas’ CD will bring the party vibe into the holiday season with enough hairspray to further enlarge the hole in the ozone layer above the North Pole.” Wow.

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THE BIG PICTURE

You expect the big picture, and it's our job at Mother Jones to give it to you. And right now, so many of the troubles we face are the making not of a virus, but of the quest for profit, political or economic (and not just from the man in the White House who could have offered leadership and comfort but instead gave us bleach).

In "News Is Just Like Waste Management," we unpack what the coronavirus crisis has meant for journalism, including Mother Jones’, and how we can rise to the challenge. If you're able to, this is a critical moment to support our nonprofit journalism with a donation: We've scoured our budget and made the cuts we can without impairing our mission, and we hope to raise $400,000 from our community of online readers to help keep our big reporting projects going because this extraordinary pandemic-plus-election year is no time to pull back.

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