Fairytale of New York

Quite possibly the best Christmas song of the last 50 years.


The Pogues Featuring Kirsty MacColl - Fairytale Of New York

O Holy Night

Here it is again!

Fabrizio De André

Despite living in Italy for more than two years now, I don't listen to very much Italian pop music. To be honest: most Italian pop music is really awful. It shares this property with most German pop music, by the way. But since we've been listening to more music at work recently (not because we're more lazy, but because we've improved our experiment in such a way that we can now play music without disturbing it), I've been exposed to more Italian music.
The one artist I've come to like is Fabrizio De André, a cantautore (singer-songwriter) who was active from the sixties up until his death in 1999. He has been compared to (and was influenced by) Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, both in his musical style (though he does enunciate much better than Dylan!), and in the importance of the texts in his work. It seems that his lyrics are sometimes taught in school nowadays, and certainly my Italian colleagues have a pretty good grasp of his most popular songs. Of course, the texts are also the area that I have difficulty with, since my knowledge of the Italian language is still lacking. There are however translations of some of his songs available, and for German-speaking readers, there's an entire website with line-by-line translations.
Many of his songs concern themselves with people at the edges of society: murderers, prostitutes, rebels, etc. Textwise, one of my favorites is "Carlo Martello ritorna dalla battaglia di Poitiers" ("Charles Martel on His Way Back from Poitiers"), a satiric song in which Martel is tricked by a prostitute, complete with archaic language and musical accompaniment on the harpsichord.
You can get an idea of his output by searching YouTube for some of his most popular songs: "Il testamento di Tito", "Il pescatore", "Andrea", "Fiume Sand Creek", "Creuza de mä". There are also two good compilations available: Blu and In Direzione Ostinata e Contraria.

Funny

In case you missed it last year, here it is again.

Messiah Organist on Crack

While on the subject of Christmas music, here's a holiday favorite.

Seen on The Rest is Noise.

O Holy Night

Funny.

Thanks to mein Bruder for making me aware of this.

Music I've been listening to

Since I haven't brought over my CD collection yet (and will probably have to leave it with my parents in Germany for space reasons), I've been making use of iTunes and my digitized collection. These are some of my recent favorites:

• The New Pornographers: The Bleeding Heart Show
  I bought this song on iTunes this weekend after reading a review of a show of theirs online. This is one of those songs I keep hitting 'repeat' for. It starts out slow, builds, and is just perfect when Neko Case takes over the vocals.
• Forro in the Dark: Asa Branca
  Pandora.com (doesn't work in Italy, unfortunately) introduced me to this song a little over a year ago, and I bought the whole album shortly thereafter. Forro is a northern Brazilian type of music that's been described as a mixture of reggae and polka. Forro in the Dark have updated the sound, replacing the traditional accordion with a flute, and getting some help from David Byrne on this track.
• Bajofondo Tango Club: Pa' bailar
  This is what Nuevo Tango should sound like: not just a copy of traditional tangos with a techno beat, but a blend of the two styles, and most certainly very danceable.
• The Shins: Turn on Me
  I got this track for free when it was on Pitchfork's top songs of the year 2007, and got addicted.
• Damien Jurado: Ohio
  Sounds like Dylan. What more can you say?