The gift of music
Christmas pop CDS by DAVID HEPWORTH
Back in the 70s, when I worked in a record shop, the week leading up to Christmas was only our second busiest of the year. The busiest was was the seven-day period which followed Christmas, when everyone came in to spend their record tokens.
Much has been lost in the shift from the long playing record to the download to the stream. There’s nothing the music business mourns more than the money it used to make out of the record token market. ‘This Christmas, give the gift of music,’ as an old ad campaign used to put it.
You can still do that. It’s still a good idea to give a festive CD as a Christmas present. It’s like turning up at a party with a chilled bottle of champagne. None but a churl turns that sort of thing away.
The music business recognises this, which is why they keep putting Christmas CDS out. There will be no shortage of collections of old favourites done by talent-show winners such as Kelly Clarkson whose When Christmas Comes Around (Atlantic £11.99 hmv.com) – her second collection of frosted favourites – and firm-jawed country heartthrobs with the likes Brett Young And Friends Doing The Christmas Classics (Big Machine £10.99 hmv. com). You don’t have to be a stick in the mud to realise that, when it comes to the cardies-andcomfort Christmas album, the last word was spoken a long time ago. The Christmas Song (UMC £8.12 amazon. co.uk) by Nat King Cole, A Charlie Brown Christmas (Concord £8.25
amazon.co.uk) by the Vince Guaraldi Trio and A Christmas Gift For You From
Phil Spector (Philles £2.99 amazon. co.uk) still touch the parts that others can’t reach, no matter how many years have gone by.
When we’re giving the gift of music, we are not simply seeking to please the recipient. We’re often trying to say something about ourselves. That’s why people of true taste and discernment may also arrive at the front door bearing a chocolate log and Tinsel and Lights (Buzzin’ Fly currently only available as an MP3
download or vinyl LP), the carefully secular but still seasonal 2012 set by Tracey Thorn, A Holly Dolly
Christmas (Butterfly £12.99 hmv. com) by that infallible crowd-pleaser Dolly Parton or even The New
Possibility (Takoma £11.40 amazon. co.uk), a record of Christmas tunes played on the acoustic guitar by the late John Fahey, which has accompanied the wrapping of presents consistently since 1968.
2021 has been an unusual year for album releases. The artists who were prevented from touring to support an album tended to hold their records back. Elton John took advantage of the time he was confined to barracks to record The Lockdown Sessions (EMI £10.99 hmv.com), in which he collaborated – in some cases via Zoom – with the likes of Dua Lipa and Gorillaz.
Bruce Springsteen has finally agreed the release of The Legendary 1979 No Nukes Concerts (Columbia £22.99 hmv.com) which features him and the classic line-up of the E Street Band playing Madison Square Garden in the last days before he became an international superstar. No human being ever exerted himself on a stage more than he did at the time. Very few new releases will create as much of a stir as The Beatles’ Let It Be (Apple £7.99 hmv.
com), which is getting another airing thanks to Peter Jackson’s epic movie re-working of the original footage shot back in 1969. As is the custom nowadays, you can spend anything up to £130 on your version, depending upon whether you’re satisfied with the CD or would prefer the full-blown 180 gram half-speed mastered (search me) version with the hard back booklet. There’s a rich irony in all this fuss being made of the reissue of a record which was supposed to mark the end of the fuss about the Beatles.
If you want to give a record which you might like to listen to yourself, allow me to recommend Heart & Soul (EMI £8.99 amazon.co.uk) by Eric Church, who came up with the original idea of making a triple album where you wrote the song in the morning and recorded it in the evening of the same day, thereby preserving the freshness that often gets lost in the post-production period. Church tends to get marketed as a country act but his appeal is a lot broader. This would appeal to anyone who ever bought a Bob Seger or
Stones record and he also does a mean Elvis impression. As one of his songs puts it, Put That In Your Country Song.
Finally if you’re going anywhere between Christmas and New Year and you want to prove how soulful you are, arrive shyly clutching a copy of
She Walks In Beauty (BMG £7.99 hmv.com) by Marianne Faithfull with Warren Ellis. This is a collection of her readings of her favourite works of the Romantic Poets set to ethereal music provided by one of Nick Cave’s key men. You don’t have to know that she recorded this after almost dying from COVID to appreciate its bruised beauty. Hand it over with the words ‘I thought you might be the kind of person who would appreciate this’ and anyone would be flattered.