New Holiday Music Playlist

Here are some new Holiday CDs at Central…

Christmas in the Sand/ Colbie Caillat

SoCal beach bunny that she is, Colbie Caillat recognized a gaping hole in our collective Christmas consciousness: thousands of seasonal records exist but not a one was made for the beach. And so her 2012 album fills a specific need — it’s a breezy, sunny holiday platter for those who never see a snowflake in their December. Colbie’s specialty is a light touch but she actually rocks a little bit harder here than usual, letting her duet partner Brad Paisley goose “Merry Christmas Baby” with his gnarly Telecaster and giving “Winter Wonderland” an insistent electronic pulse, elements that make Christmas in the Sand a little livelier than either of her full-length platters, but the casual brilliance of this unassuming but thoroughly entertaining holiday album is that it has a genuine personality. Apart from a couple of pretty good newly written tunes, the songs are familiar but the sound isn’t: Christmas in the Sand is lively, cheerful, and bright, the sound of the season for climates where there’s nary a cloud in the sky. And there’s never been a Christmas album like that before, so it’s something of an achievement for Caillat. -allmusic.com

A Very Perri Christmas/ Christina Perri

Christina Perri’s second EP is a far cry from 2010’s Ocean Way Sessions, which featured a live rendition of her breakthrough, breakup calling card “Jar of Hearts” — Perri, a former café waitress with a golden voice, found her way into the limelight a when “Jar of Hearts” spilled over after a performance on an episode of So You Think You Can Dance. Enter 2012, and Perri has thrown her hat into the annual yuletide blitz with the unfortunately titled A Very Perri Christmas, which pairs five holiday staples with one seasonal original, the quite lovely “Something About December.” It’s fitting that Perri chose the Carpenters’ “Merry Christmas Darling” as one of the five, as her effortless, easy pop vocals owe a great deal to Karen Carpenter, and her renditions of oft-abused standards like “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” and “Ave Maria” are so refreshingly austere that they almost sound groundbreaking. In fact, it’s a shame that she stopped at just an EP.-allmusic.com

On this winter’s night/ Lady Antebellum

Part of Lady Antebellum’s appeal is how they’ve mastered the quiet moments, sounding smooth even at their loudest. That aspect of their personality is absent on their 2012 holiday album On This Winter’s Night, about as big and bold a Christmas album as they come. Lady Antebellum’s approach is very modern, as they rely on secular standards from a variety of styles, copping Phil Spector’s jingling, ornate Wall of Sound for “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home),” covering Donny Hathaway’s “This Christmas,” swinging with blaring horns on “Blue Christmas,” even taking the time to slow down Mariah Carey’s jubilant “All I Want for Christmas Is You” down to a soulful crawl. Everything, even the pretty harmonies on “The First Noel,” is given a high-gloss sheen, which doesn’t make this an album for quiet snowy nights. This is a Christmas album for the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, a soundtrack for days of shopping, present-wrapping, and parties filled with good cheer.-allmusic.com

Christmas/ Francesca Battistelli

Inspired by legendary jazz greats and current contemporaries like John Mayer and Sara Bareilles, singer/songwriter Francesca Battistelli set out to write pop, soul-infused music that would motivate and encourage listeners of any age. Her exposure to the arts began at a young age with her interest and involvement in theatre, music and dance, and at 15, Francesca began writing and performing her own songs. Francesca Battistelli s 11-track album, Christmas, produced by Ian Eskelin, is comprised of both classics and some newly-penned Christmas tunes. The traditional songs include: “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas,” “Marshmallow World,” “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” “The Christmas Song,” “What Child Is This? (First Noel Prelude),” “Go Tell It On The Mountain,” and “Joy To The World.” The new songs all co-written by Battistelli are: “Heaven Everywhere,” “Christmas Is,” “Christmas Dreams” and “You re Here.”-Amazon.com

Holidays Rule/ Various

Collections of holiday music are a lot like the holiday season itself: not without some magic, but after a few of them you kind of know what you’re in for. While that may sound like a cynical assessment, it’s not meant to be. Holiday music, Christmas songs in particular, become pervasively ubiquitous, with countless renditions of ageless seasonal tunes showing up every year some weeks before Thanksgiving and sticking around until the year changes. Holidays Rule attempts to shake up the standard holiday listening with a cross section of artists ranging from ragtag indie acts to legitimate pop icons having a go at time-honored Christmas classics and wintry holiday songs. The collection features contributions from 17 diverse acts, and at its best, the material succeeds in offering an exciting perspective on songs we’ve all heard in every shopping center and dentist office around the holidays since what feels like the beginning of time.  Fun. open the set with a slickly produced pop-friendly version of “Sleigh Ride.” The pristine arrangement and enormous drums drive the song and turn an often benign tune into something actually pretty exciting. Likewise the Shins take on Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime” does not disappoint, re-envisioning the song in a overt homage to Brian Wilson’s saturated Pet Sounds-era productions. McCartney himself shows up a few tracks later with a sweet and standard reading of “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire.” Eleanor Friedberger from Fiery Furnaces offers the weirdest selection with “Santa, Bring My Baby Back to Me.” The song begins in a regular faux jazz-pop style, breaking down into an overly long section of hypnotic dubbed-out chanting and marimba vamping. More than once on Holidays Rule, bands turn in dire, almost depressive renditions of public domain songs. Calexico’s melodramatic over-orchestrated take on “Green Grows the Holly” and the Civil Wars’ indie folk dirge “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” both drag the collection down with their heavy-handedness. Though the collection has several standouts and a few duds, much of Holidays Rule is as straightforward as it comes, with unremarkable versions of holiday songs by very good names like the Fruit Bats, Holly Golightly, and Irma Thomas backed by the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, among others. At its best, the collection is spirited fun, and at its worst it’s inoffensive background music, but it falls short of the adventurous spin on the holiday times it sets out for.-allmusic.com

Merry Christmas, Baby/ Rod Stewart

Hard as it may be to believe, but Rod Stewart has gotten through five decades without succumbing to a holiday album. That streak ends in 2012 with the release of Merry Christmas, Baby, an easygoing and chipper collection of secular seasonal standards. A couple of carols are thrown in for good measure but these songs — “Silent Night,” “We Three Kings” presented as a duet with Mary J. Blige — along with a mildly incongruous “When You Wish Upon a Star,” slide by easily on the mellow big-band swing of the rest of the record. Song for song, Merry Christmas, Baby is very much of a piece with Rod’s ongoing Great American Songbook series, with Stewart not straying from the familiar form of these songs and producer David Foster laying on all manner of soft, soothing sounds, whether it’s acoustic guitars, synthesizers, strings, or a children’s choir on “Silent Night.” Very rarely does this hint at the Rod of the ’70s — and when it does on the closing “Auld Lang Syne,” its intro given a spare folky treatment reminiscent of his Mercury work, it’s a bracing, effective reminder of Stewart’s skill as a singer — and instead relies on a gladhanding charm that suits the season, not to mention Stewart in his crooning dotage. -allmusic.com

Home for Christmas/ Celtic Woman

Celtic Woman’s fourth holiday collection, which features the talents of Chloë Agnew, Lisa Lambe, Máiréad Nesbitt and for the first time since 2007, Méav Ní Mhaolchatha, arrives just a year after 2011’s German-exclusive Celtic Family Christmas. Offering up the usual mix of amiable holiday pop (“I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town,” “Winter Wonderland”) and triumphant, faith-based classics (“Joy to the World,” “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” “We Three Kings”), Home for Christmas doesn’t deviate at all from the formula, which after selling over six-million records worldwide, shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise.-allmusic.com

Cheers, It’s Christmas/ Blake Shelton

Now that he’s a big television star, Blake Sheldon decided it was time that he acted the part. And so, Cheers, It’s Christmas, a holiday album timed for the Christmas season of 2012, just so happens to arrive during the thick of The Voice‘s third season. Shelton does not play it cozy and country here; he takes the time to make this a splashy celebration, inviting his wife Miranda Lambert in for a duet on one track and her band Pistol Annies for another, keeping it country with Reba McEntire and keeping it Sinatra with  Michael Bublé, perhaps straying a bit too far from home by singing with Trypta-Phunk, but feeling right at home with Kelly Clarkson. Such a long list of guests can’t help but bring to mind those star-studded seasonal variety shows from the ’70s and, in a sense, the record is stuck in that notion of cross-platform crowd-pleasing, trying to be a little bit of everything to everyone, but that’s by no means a bad thing, as Shelton has an easy charm that carries through any bumps in the road. It’s designed to be classically Christmas, with even its handful of new tunes constructed to sound classic, and Cheers, It’s Christmas does indeed wind up somewhat out of time, sounding like a perennial even upon its first listen.-allmusic.com

Now That’s What I Call Today’s Christmas/ Various

Now That’s What I Call Today’s Christmas, released in 2012, followed four volumes of Now That’s What I Call Christmas, which were issued from 2001 through 2010. Those four discs reached across several decades for classic and contemporary Christmas music. This one, as the title suggests, leans on later releases and will be useful for younger listeners tired of hearing their parents’ and grandparents’ established favorites. While many of these songs are OK-to-good originals (Justin Bieber’s “Mistletoe,” Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Mittens,” One Republic’s “Christmas Without You”), many selections are covers of older songs (Demi Lovato faithfully does Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime,” for instance) and interpretations of traditional compositions (including Carrie Underwood’s “The First Noel” and Sugarland’s “Silent Night”). The oldest cut comes from the long-running Trans-Siberian Orchestra, whose “Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24” (1996) closes the disc in instrumental, theatrical form.-allmusic.com

Grammy Nominees 2012 Playlist

Click on the cover art to access the catalog for locating music in the library’s collection.

Record Of The Year

Lonely Boy/ Black Keys

Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You)/ Kelly Clarkson

We are young/ Fun.

Somebody That I Used To Know/ Gotye Featuring Kimbra

Thinkin Bout You/ Frank Ocean

We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together/ Taylor Swift

Album Of The Year

El Camino/ Black Keys

Some Nights/ Fun.

Babel/ Mumford & Sons

Channel Orange/ Frank Ocean

Blunderbuss/ Jack White

Song Of The Year

The A Team/ Ed Sheeran

Adorn/ Miguel

Call Me Maybe/ Carly Rae Jepsen

Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You)/ Kelly Clarkson

We Are Young/ Fun.

Best New Artist

Alabama Shakes

Fun.

Hunter Hayes

The Lumineers

Frank Ocean

Library Patron Playlist Request 10.02.12

Hi Colleen,

Thank you for requesting a personalized playlist! Based on your musical preferences, here is a selection of titles you might enjoy. All of the albums listed are available for checkout from the library’s collection.

I and love and you/ Avett Brothers

The Avett Brothers have expanded their reach since 2000, adding elements of pop and hillbilly country-rock to a bluegrass foundation, and they carry on that tradition with I and Love and You, whose songs introduce a new emphasis on piano and nuanced arrangements. Working with a major label’s budget allows the group to add small flourishes — a cello line here, a keyboard crescendo there — but the resulting music is hardly grand, focusing on textures rather than volume. Scott and Seth Avett share vocals throughout the album, delivering their lyrics in a speak-sing cadence that, at its best, sounds both tuneful and conversational. Given the opportunities presented here — the ability to add strings, organs, and harmonium to the mix — the two devote more time to slower songs, which display those sonic details better. The result is an intimate, poignant album, laced with rich production that often takes as much spotlight as the songwriting itself.- allmusic.com

Vaporize/ Broken Bells

James Mercer and Danger Mouse (aka Brian Burton) want their project Broken Bells to be seen, and heard, as an honest-to-goodness band, not a side-project dalliance. It’s a little tricky to do that when first listening to their self-titled debut album, since they’re such well-known and distinctive talents: Mercer crafted singularly bittersweet indie pop with the Shins, while Burton brought the Beatles and Jay-Z together on The Grey Album and went on to shape sounds for equally omnivorous artists like Beck and Gorillaz. Mercer’s songwriting skills and Danger Mouse’s production mastery sound like a potent combo, and they are, when the pair balances its ambitions and respective strengths. They work hard — maybe too hard — at avoiding their previous sounds. Mercer’s vocals and melodies will almost certainly evoke the Shins to some degree or another, but he and Burton steer clear of the bright pop that countered that band’s gloomier moments in favor of winding melodies and mellow atmospheres.-allmusic.com

Fixin’ to die/ G. Love

Fixin’ to Die isn’t the first G. Love album billed without Special Sauce, but this one really stands apart from the rest of his discography.  With lots of high lonesome backing vocals and prominent banjo, this actually feels like a country album most of the time. It’s almost entirely acoustic, too. We don’t even hear an electric guitar until track eight, where Luther Dickenson offers up some tasty George Harrison-esque slide. It’s this track and “Walk On” that most resemble Special Sauce, and they almost feel out of place here. Most of the album is far more intimate and introspective, and it’s easy to see that most of these tunes wouldn’t fit into the standard party/feel-good ethos of most Special Sauce tunes, but the production and playing of the Avett Bothers really make it work. After 15 years or so, it’s pretty interesting to hear G. Love in such a different context.-allmusic.com

There’s no secrets this year/ Silversun Pickups

Silversun Pickups had a bit of a breakthrough with 2009’s Swoon. Moody and fuzzed-out singles like “Substitution” and “Panic Switch” drew new listeners to the band’s particular brand of melodic and rhythmically infectious guitar-based rock. They even garnered a Best New Artist nod at the Grammy Awards despite having already developed a cult following after debuting with their 2005 EP, Pikul. -allmusic.com

Both Hands/ Ani DiFranco

Canon is a document to be sure, a “best of,” but it’s also a testament to something else: that through the biz and media trends, from riot grrrl to the rise of the ’90s and 2000s troops of female singer/songwriters who come and go, DiFranco is always here, has been present, and has not paying attention to the machinations of such things. She’s on a path, and the music here offers that it’s a wildly divergent one sometimes, but it is unquestionably hers, and she doesn’t let go of anything she collects — until she’s ready to, that is, and even then you can see the traces of her own scratch marks all over that thing: fascination, Eros, agape, heartbreak, betrayal, love, violence, celebration, and anger both righteous and petty (she discovers these things herself, it’s not a critical judgment). Or maybe, she simply weaves them all into her own quilt, thread by thread, to be identified and grabbed when needed most. Her street smarts remain intact after nearly two decades of being in the public eye and she has created a place for herself without owing a debt to anyone. Forget the stories and interviews: it’s all in the music on Canon.-allmusic.com

Autorock/ Mogwai

Possibly the most accessible yet sophisticated album Mogwai has released, Mr. Beast strips away most of the electronic embellishment of their recent work in favor of a back-to-basics sound that returns to and expands on the approach they pioneered on Young Team. Mr. Beast is also a surprisingly spontaneous-sounding album — in the best possible sense, its freshness makes it feel like a recorded practice session and also helps give relatively delicate pieces like “Team Handed” the same amount of impact that heavy, searing tracks like the closer, “We’re No Here,” have. Interestingly, more of Mr. Beast tends toward the former kind of song than the latter; “Friend of the Night,” “Emergency Trap,” and the glorious, slow-burning album opener, “Auto-Rock,” give the album an unusually refined, even elegant feel that is underscored by the prominent use of piano and lap steel in the arrangements. -allmusic.com

This tornado love you/ Neko Case

There are few voices as haunting as Case’s alto, and she flaunts her vocal chops over a number of semi-ballads, from the cinematic “Prison Girls” (a country-noir love letter to someone with “long shadows and gunpowder eyes”) to the sparse title track. She does a surprise duet with chirping birds during “Polar Nettles” — a result of the pastoral recording sessions, which took place in a barn — before tackling a cover of Sparks’ “Never Turn Your Back on Mother Earth,” whose title very well may be the album’s mission statement. There’s still room to tackle love from the perspective of different characters — a man in “Vengeance Is Sleeping,” a disbeliever in “The Next Time You Say Forever,” a smitten wind vortex in “This Tornado Loves You” — but nature remains at the forefront of Middle Cyclone, whose 14 songs conclude with a half-hour field recording of noisy crickets and frogs. Moody and engaging throughout, Cyclone is another tour de force from Neko case.-allmusic.com

Postcard from 1952/ Explosions in the sky

Like their home state of Texas, Explosions in the Sky are all about wide-open spaces, preferring to leave the landscape as it is rather than trying to fill every last bit of empty space just for the sake of doing so. It’s this aesthetic that sets the band apart from the busier bands in post-rock and, really, rock in general. More so than some of their earlier albums, Take care, take care, take care can’t be skimmed or rushed, but instead requires the listener to let it unfold on its own terms, giving it time to flower and bloom when it’s ready. While this may not make it the most immediately exciting album of Explosions in the Sky’s career, it easily stands to be one of their most rewarding.-allmusic.com

Ain’t no rest for the wicked/ Cage the Elephant

The more things change in rock, the more they inevitably stay the same — and in the case of Cage the Elephant, that’s a good thing. Actually, it’s a very good thing. Cage the Elephant didn’t exist until 2005, but as this self-titled album demonstrates, their ability to be influenced by alternative rock and classic rock simultaneously is a definite plus. Drawing on influences from different eras, this Kentucky-based band has an appealing sound that combines a strong appreciation of the Rolling Stones with elements of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Beck, hip-hop, and punk. This isn’t full-fledged R&B, but it is certainly funky by rock standards — and that funkiness serves Cage the Elephant well on bluesy, gritty, infectious offerings like “Free Love,” “Back Stabbin’ Betty,” and the single “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked.”- allmusic.com

Gold Guns Girls/ Metric

Metric’s third full-length album, Fantasies, is a glossy, slick, and so-clean-you-could-eat-off-it slice of modern rock that may scare off some of the band’s early fans due to the unrepentant commercial nature of the album. Anyone who isn’t repelled by the band’s professionalism and ambition to sound perfect will find it to be quite enjoyable. That Metric title a song “Stadium Love” gives you a clue to the ambition of the band. There’s nothing small or careful about Fantasies — it’s a full-on bid for pop glory and it’s a smashing success.- allmusic.com