Monday, December 19, 2005

Christmas Favorites

So I was thinking about what would my "top 20" Christmas and holiday songs be for a single CD... and let me tell you that's pretty hard to do actually.

See I sing, and I grew up singing choral music, so theres a LOT of hymns, and choral stuff that I love; but are pretty obscure. Also I jsut love singing chirstmas songs (both carols and pop tunes). It's sometimes hard to separate the songs I love to sing, from the songs I jsut plove to here (or both).

Honestly 20 isn't enough, but I figured it'd make a good CD, so that's what I included. Also I don't want to sort the songs by order of favorites, because it really depends.

I've included an artist reference for my favorite versions:

Most Wonderful Time of the Year
Andy Williams
Silent Night Bing Crosby
The First Noel Bing Crosby
White Christmas Bing Crosby
Little Drummer Boy Bing Crosby and David Bowie
Let it Snow Burl Ives
Baby it’s cold outside Dean Martin
Adeste Fideles Luciano Pavarotti
Hark the Herald Nat King Cole
Have yourself a merry little Christmas Nat King Cole
Oh Holy Night Nat King Cole
Oh little town of Bethlehem Nat King Cole
Oh Tannenbaum Nat King Cole
The Christmas Song Nat King Cole
I’ll be home for Christmas Perry Como
Silver Bells Perry Como
Pretty Paper Randy Travis
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen Roger Whittaker
Carol of the Bells Trans Siberian Orchestra with Choir
Joy to the world Various (I like a bunch of different versions, some solo, some choir)


Oh and my ten favorite christmas music artists in not a very particular order:

Nat King Cole (the best voice for the softer songs)
Burl Ives
Bing Crosby
Dean Martin
Andy Williams
Perry Como
Luciano Pavarotti (no-one does the projecting songs better)
Elvis
Randy Travis
Roger Whittaker (great christmas music, hate his other stuff)

Instrumentally I dig Vince Guaraldi, Mannheim Steamroller and Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and the old Arthur Feidler stuff with the Boston Pops (though John Williams did the christmas concerts 100 times better, I just never hear those recordings. I went to them a lot as a kid growing up in Boston).

And no, I don't have any women on my favorite chirstmas singer list. The songs I like, I just prefer the male voices on; again probably because I'm a singer myself.

Let's make it a meme; pass it on.