The only original track on Rod Stewart's best-selling Christmas album. Rod recorded a whole Christmas special in Scotland's epic Stirling Castle. The normal rules for taste usually go out the window during the holiday season. This is one time of year that Rod "The Mod" Stewart's red-and-green tartan suits are distinctly appropriate.
Grade: B+
Best YouTube Comment: "I'll bet this is an original song, I doubt anyone else sang this! Refreshing love the remakes, just nice when there is a song I don't know about the holiday, Rod you are smooth as always!" — MusikLover8
Every year, hordes of overly spirited musicians try to capture Christmas cheer in the studio. While there are some artists who can, in fact, create a respectable modern-day holiday tune, it’s safe to say that they’re few and far between.
Many holiday enthusiasts fail in attempts to cover songs from the Christmas canon, performing lackluster versions of songs such as the Vince Guaraldi Trio’s “Christmastime Is Here” or “The Little Drummer Boy” for the millionth time. For the most part, these have nothing new to offer.
Others, knowing they can’t top Burl Ives or Brenda Lee, try to create their own original holiday songs. A select few of these brave souls actually do it right. Run-D.M.C.’s “Christmas in Hollis” and more recently some of Sufjan Stevens’s prolific holiday tidings provide two contemporary examples. Everyone else? Their efforts fall somewhere between getting coal in your stocking and Santa blowing out your eardrums.
Being the holiday sadists that we are, we decided to seek out the worst of the worst contemporary holiday originals. To do so, we used the following criteria:
"I used to be a way better writer and a rapper when I used to want a black Carmengia.
Now a n---- speedin' in a Porsche, feeling like I'm going off of course."
— André 3000
Three notes here:
The one obvious criticism: I really don't like how André 3000 is TOTES ripping off Kendrick Lamar's style here.
Chill, bro. That's a joke. Stay out of my inbox about it.
By the time you get to the end of this song, chances are you'll forget that T.I. is even alive because André 3000 is GODDAMN TOUGH here, son. If you're a rapper and you're on a song with him and he starts doing that hyper-nasally sing-song thing that only he and God can do, then just fuck your life. You're taking that L, that's all there is to it.
The 2012 Billboard Music Awards aired last night. Many absurd things took place. "Empress of Soul" Gladys Knight presented Best Male Artist and screamed "Lil Wayne" for probably the first time in her life, Carly Rae Jepsen performed her sensation "Call Me Maybe" while donning an outfit from the dELiA*s spring seasonal catalog, and 75 percent of legendary rap group Goodie Mob were, again, presented as Cee Lo's Pips for both the song "Fight to Win" and a weirdly awesome MCA tribute, by way of "Fight for Your Right." Also, for those of you convinced of the Mayans' end-of-days predictions, Lil Wayne's The Carter IV won Top Rap Album, which is just a hard thing to hear and then to see in print the following day.
There was also a Whitney Houston tribute, which is my cue to stop talking about everything else.
You know when you have a friend who lives out of town? The friend from high school you made a ton of memories with? But then you lose touch with him for four or five years. And then, out of nowhere, you get word that he might be visiting town in a few weeks. And then you get really excited and tell all your current friends that this person is awesome and that he's going to win everyone over. And then the old friend tells you he's going to show up on Tuesday morning. And you prep yourself for Tuesday morning. But then he shows up Monday night. And instead of you introducing him to your friends, he arrives early and goes out and makes a scene for all to see. It's not a bad scene, it's not a great scene, but you hear through the grapevine that it was a scene nonetheless. And when you finally see your old friend, he's completely different from what you remember. It's not bad, it's just different. Oh, and your friend is wearing gold-plated armor.
What part of "DMX debuts his first post-prison single on Dr. Drew’s Life Changers backed by a small gospel choir” do you not understand? Dr. Drew says: "That’s what we’re talking about!"
