christmas music that is not christmas music

forum games
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1H4BGEg2dc

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@“rearnakedwindow”#p97570 Not sure why it feels “christmas not christmas.”

if it helps, i get it one hundred percent.

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it was a bit of a struggle to find this track

https://youtu.be/w8ejZ1xdWvM

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This is pretty much against the spirit but this is the first time I didn't dislike this song

https://soundcloud.com/yonao/mix-yona-ex-pcmx680001994?utm_source=clipboard&utm_campaign=wtshare&utm_medium=widget&utm_content=https%253A%252F%252Fsoundcloud.com%252Fyonao%252Fmix-yona-ex-pcmx680001994

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Does this count?

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@“hellomrkearns”#p97810 yeah, but even if it didn't, that title demands inclusion.

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I had namco museum vol 1 for my PlayStation at a very early age, around 1996 or 97. It was good timing for namco to re release TOY POP around the same time TOY STORY was changing the world. Due to Toy Story being a fave as one of the first movies I saw as a kid, and being one of the more interesting and deep, varied games in Vol 1, Toy Pop became my favorite. It was so influential on me that I was surprised every time I hear it regarded as a super obscure game.

Anyways here’s my chance to post that this level opening jingle always sounded like “‘Twas the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me…”
https://youtu.be/myhG8IpfBKQ
But today I watched YouTube footage of the arcade original via MAME and realized the audio on PlayStation sounds very different from the original, and the original’s instruments blended a lot more!

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new year‘s music that is not new year’s music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zj9YgTmGpLU

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Sliding in here in/under/ or around the wire, at least for this year‘s Christmas season (idk when the Christmas season officially ends, but New Year’s seems like one of the generally-understood, silently-acknowledged cutoffs), I‘m gonna throw in something from Animal Collective’s first album (sort of) Spirit They‘re Gone, Spirit They’ve Vanished. Sometimes I forget that before they were belting out psychedelic pop songs, AC was some genuinely whacked-out outsider-art-art-brut-ass music. Whew, this is some stuff!

So why is this album a good example of Christmas-not-Christmas?
a. Most listeners read this album as an expression of the loss of innocence. Christmas is all about revering the child, adoring innocence, and yet I think almost everybody has experienced the darker sides of Christmas. Besides the obvious commercialism and so on, I think the secrets and wonder of Christmas naturally lead to letdowns, greed, sorrow, disappointment. I think for many people, seeing through the Santa Claus myth is one of the first moments of actively catching their parents lying to them. So, Christmas represents (or can anyway) both innocence and its depletion. This album does likewise, I think. (I haven't ever close-read the lyrics or anything, this is more of a vibes-based reading).

b. Many of the tracks on this album have a toy-like sound to them. Weird and improvised instruments, etc.

c. Lots of shrill sounds cut through here too. Some people think it's thematically connected (i.e. emblematic of hearing loss), but for our purposes, I'd say they sound wintery to me (a la, hearing sharp, cold gales outside while you're playing with your Christmas toys). Plus some of your classic "icy synths" that have a nice coldness to them.

d. Most importantly, the title comes from a quote from Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol.

Part of me wants to just slam the whole album on here, but I'll go with "La repet" as a representative track.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEclmbHPZmQ&list=PLfjdbpRofEmj0wG0XPjo0Ch6tuHMxjUWs&index=7

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this account is awesome and uses non-xmas xmassy music for snowy bunnies :3

https://twitter.com/BunniesWithVGM/status/1474442498923642881?s=20

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I hadn‘t thought about this album in a long time, but I used to listen to it nonstop when I was in highschool. Later on it turns out I had 0 degrees of separation from dr.octorok irl.

It’s all christmas songs which uses pretty clever music theory to retranspose it into classic NES rhythms but with the christmas chord progressions! I think it was the first time I'd ever heard of Faxanadu, too!

https://youtu.be/yIJGauyIA8Q

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all right @pasquinelli it's time to come out of hibernation (contrary to the season)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0BYYTiVofQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fEOvZq2HpM

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INAa6Cv5EbE

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Can I add this:

https://youtu.be/k5zCPeJmgAs?si=--GoZl0XZLSnYjHk

And this

https://youtu.be/7siNuZ_Cnzo?si=bMFuaT0l784_fzS_

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https://youtu.be/GY9-P_Y3bkI?si=RY-OMxHLS8wtNx7l

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“Only You” by Yazoo came on while I was taking the kids to school this morning and one of them asked if it was a Christmas song, which it isn’t but I can hear it. The cover by the Flying Pickets was the UK Christmas number 1 in ‘83, too.

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I thought I posted this up in this thread already, but I similarly despise Christmas music (I think I figured out why: 90% of the songs are just aggressively, jangily, toxic positively telling you over and over and over again that it is Christmas, and we fucking know that is Christmas) & I did a little exercise a few years back. I think that, in some cases here or there, it can be healthy & interesting to try to find things that you enjoy in a genre of media that you do not enjoy.

So I made this whole playlist & in doing so, discovered that I can enjoy three types of Xmas-adjacent music: sad '70s country Christmas, '70s soul & funk Christmas, & wintery songs that aren’t explicitly about Christmas (like the impetus of this thread). Four types if you include Afroman’s album, “A Colt 45 Christmas,” which is just Xmas songs about weed, hating cops & peepee jokes

anyway, here are some I came across in the “not explicity Christmas/wintery songs” category:

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In the category of songs with December weather, I’m fond of the Cannanes’ “Hey Leopard”.

For a different type of non-Christmas Christmas song, someone at work recently put on a playlist of pop songs mashed up with Christmas songs. Most memorable was a mix of the Velvet Underground’s “Waiting for my man” with “Santa Claus is coming to town” which suggested Santa as Lou Reed’s heroin dealer.

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there’s also the fact that chistmas music is so cliche, by its nature.