My Top 5 Non-Traditional Christmas Songs

I love all forms of Christmas music — traditional/religious carols and poppy secular songs alike. It was too difficult to make a Top 5 list that drew from the entire Christmas songbook, so here are the poppy ones first.

5. ‘The Little Drummer Boy’/’Peace on Earth,’ Bing Crosby and David Bowie

OK, so this one is pretty much traditional as most people would define it, but I think the fact that it’s a David Bowie and Bing Crosby duet, complete with cheesy banter at the beginning, puts it into post-modern pop territory. For a while, you think Crosby is going to overpower Bowie, but then the Thin White Duke pipes up, and … wow, that’s some beautiful harmonizing there.

From as early as I can remember, “The Little Drummer Boy” has always gotten to me. There’s something I’ve always found moving about stories like the drummer boy’s — people of modest means offering up all they have. Blah blah blah.

Continue reading “My Top 5 Non-Traditional Christmas Songs”

’80s music videos with 3-wheeler ATVs

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In the 1980s, specifically around ’83, there was a bit of a mania for ATVs, specifically three-wheelers. The three-wheeler, however, was shown to be dangerous and was quickly replaced by its more surefooted cousin, the four-wheeler. But before the big, loud, motorized tricycle was yanked from the scene it would be immortalized in at least two iconic videos of the decade: Continue reading “’80s music videos with 3-wheeler ATVs”