SUFJAN STEVENS: SONGS FOR CHRISTMAS (2006)
Noel:
1) Silent Night; 2) O Come O Come Emmanuel; 3) We're Goin' To The Country!; 4)
Lo How A Rose E'er Blooming; 5) It's Christmas! Let's Be Glad!; 6) Holy Holy,
Etc.; 7) Amazing Grace.
Hark!:
1) Angels We Have Heard On High; 2) Put The Lights On The Tree; 3) Come Thou
Fount Of Every Blessing; 4) I Saw Three Ships; 5) Only At Christmas Time; 6)
Once In Royal David's City; 7) Hark! The Herald Angels Sing!; 8) What Child Is
This Anyway?; 9) Bring A Torch, Jeanette, Isabella.
Ding! Dong!: 1) O Come, O Come Emmanuel; 2) Come On! Let's Boogey To The Elf Dance!;
3) We Three Kings; 4) O Holy Night; 5) That Was The Worst Christmas Ever!; 6)
Ding! Dong!; 7) All The King's Horns; 8) The Friendly Beasts.
Joy:
1) The Little Drummer Boy; 2) Away In A Manger; 3) Hey Guys! It's Christmas
Time!; 4) The First Noel; 5) Did I Make You Cry On Christmas Day? (Well, You
Deserved It!); 6) The Incarnation; 7) Joy To The World.
Peace:
1) Once In Royal David's City; 2) Get Behind Me, Santa!; 3) Jingle Bells; 4)
Christmas In July; 5) Lo! How A Rose E'er Blooming; 6) Jupiter Winter; 7)
Sister Winter; 8) O Come O Come Emmanuel; 9) Star Of Wonder; 10) Holy, Holy,
Holy; 11) The Winter Solstice.
General verdict: Santa Sufjan is
coming to town, and for those of us who still celebrate Christmas, he's A-OK.
I confess that, going against my own rule of
thumb, I have only managed to listen to this behemoth once — after all, it is a whoppin' two hours of Christmas
music, and it's not even Christmas season at the moment. It might have been
easier to make five separate short reviews for the five Christmas EPs that
Sufjan had diligently and meticulously presented for his fans from 2001 to 2006
(for some reason, missing 2004) before merging them all together in this one
mega-package; but such an approach might make Sufjan look like a professional
Christmas caroler, occasionally diverting the audience with a few minor side
projects (Illinois, etc.), and make me look like I'm taking the message of Roy
Wood's ʽI Wish It Was Christmas Every Dayʼ way too seriously.
In any case, my lack of diligence may be
redeemed by an overall positive evaluation: ironically, this was the easiest
and most enjoyable collection of Sufjan Stevens tunes I have had to sit through
so far. The man may be a formulaic and mono-moody songwriter alright, ambitious
beyond actual capacity and smooth beyond reasonable tolerance, but in the
context of Christmas celebrations, all of this actually plays to his advantage.
I mean, all this time I have been talking about pixie dances in the everglades
and about teddy bears playing chimes in dollhouses — well, in a way, that is what Christmas is all about, and
Sufjan fits right in here: gimmicky enough to give the old standards some new
spins, but not arrogant enough to spoil the Christmas mood with too many modernist
or avantgardist deconstructions.
Each of the five volumes is a mix of
traditional carols and Sufjan originals, with the latter gradually taking over
the former so that Joy, the last
volume, is almost completely comprised of new music. If you wanted to, you
could easily isolate the originals and end up with a full extra CD of new music
— but you shouldn't want to, since the very idea is to integrate the old with
the new, and some of the arrangements that Stevens comes up with for the oldies
are just as important to the experience as his own songs. As usual, many of
them are based upon drones / vamps with endless repetition of the same chord,
but at least now you can explain that away as imitations of sleigh bells. Santa
has a long journey through snowy roads ahead of him, after all.
In between standards, Sufjan weaves in
occasional humorous vignettes — ʽGet Behind Me, Santa!ʼ, in particular, is a
funny dialog between Santa and a protagonist who is sick to death of the
Christmas season ("I don't care about what you say Santa Claus / You're a
bad brother breaking into people's garages"), presided over by a poppy
horn riff that might, in fact, be more memorable than any such stuff on Illinois. There is also a bit of space
for intimate sentimentalism: ʽDid I Make You Cry On Christmas Day?ʼ is a song
of semi-repentance for a strained relationship, with a tender falsetto chorus
that is more oriented at people listening in dark reclusion than people having
fun over a family Christmas dinner.
Most of the tracks are reasonably short, too,
which is a plus in my eyes, since I have never considered Stevens to be a
master of extended mesmerizing codas. The most obvious exception is ʽStar Of
Wonderʼ off the last EP, of which he probably thought that its piano-based
groove, when properly sprinkled with additional kaleidoscopic bursts of falling
stars, made for a good hypnotic experience. It really does not — the
production, as is usual with Sufjan, does not have sufficient depth, and the
"I see the stars coming down there..." singalong harmonies are too
wispy and ghostly; but if we are just talking straightahead Christmas ambience,
why not?
I suppose it also goes without saying that,
since the material covers a five year period, you will see some signs of
Sufjan's musical evolution — particularly noticeable if you play Noel and Joy back-to-back: the first EP is quite minimalistic, relying more
on banjos and acoustic guitars for accompaniment than anything else, whereas
the last one is in full-fledged Illinois
mode, with multiple overdubs of keyboards, strings, woodwinds, and whatever
else is available. However, on the whole the transition is so gradual that if
you choose to listen to all five EPs in a row, like I did, you might not even
notice it. Sure, Sufjan's arsenal of musical technologies may have increased
significantly over the years, but his butter-smooth personality has remained
stable and monolithic: from the opening anthemic declarations of ʽO Come O Come
Emmanuelʼ to the closing anthemic declarations of ʽHoly, Holy, Holyʼ we witness
the exact same rock-steady meekness of spirit — which gets so annoying on so
many of the man's Big Artistic Statements, but seems so adequate on his
Christmas offerings.
Bottomline predictions: if you like Sufjan
Stevens in general, you will like Songs
For Christmas in particular. If you consider Sufjan Stevens a Holy Man of
God, you will play Songs For Christmas
at least once every year. And if you are indifferent to Sufjan Stevens, but
Christmas has some sentimental value for you, you might want to try and give
this one a spin — it is quite a possibility that Sufjan's way into some
people's hearts might lie through their chimneys.
Still stubbornly clinging to that yellow font on white background, eh?
ReplyDeleteWho is this Sufjan? Did he give himself the name Stevens to replace Cat after his conversion to Islam? And he is going to replace Gram Parsons as a great unsung genre creator in 40 years? The mind boggles.
ReplyDeletePretty unusual for a Christmas album to stand as one of the highlights of an artist's career (Phil Spector excluded) but here we are.
ReplyDeleteGeorge, I realize you're probably just listening to mp3s of these albums, but the liner notes and packaging of this one were a lot of fun, including comic illustrations of the lyrics and chord charts for the songs.
More significantly, the liner notes describe Sufjan's conflicted feelings about Christmas going back to his own slightly traumatic childhood experiences (that line about a parent throwing presents in the fire was based on a real experience) and how an incident involving burning pancake batter helped him appreciate Christmas again. Provides some interesting context for the album anyway.
Mr just keep going with yellow I like it .... Splendidly yellowing ...
ReplyDelete