Christmas Sounds

Few genres evoke such mixed reactions as Christmas songs. Whether this is caused by the actual quality of the songs or the fact that people have heard Mariah Carey and Wham! one too many times I'll leave for you to answer. In any case I wanted to use this week's blog to present several different Christmas alternatives sorted by genre. Enjoy, and have a very merry Christmas!

A capella

eSNa                                 Silent Night & O Holy Night medley

Home Free                        Grandma Got Runover By A Reindeer

Pentatonix                         God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen & Coldest Winter

Electronic/House

Clean Bandit                      Christmas Special

Major Lazer                       ChristmasTrees

Aquadrop & Big Fish        Creepy Christmas

KiWi                                  The Christmas Party

Instrumental

Ryuichi Sakamoto            Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence

The Piano Guys                Angels We HaveHeard on High

Tina Guo                           Deck the Halls

J-Pop/K-Pop

Namie Amuro                   White Light

SEKAI NO OWARI          Silent Night

JeA                                    Winter, It's You

lol                                       xmaskiss

Rock

Twisted Sister                   Silver Bells

Elle Zamudio                    What Child is This

Soul

Sharon Jones                    Ain't No Chimneys in the Projects & White Christmas

Weekly Sounds Christmas Playlist

Neo soul: Selah Sue

Not all music featured on this site I discover by myself, sometimes I get some help. Such was the case with Selah Sue, a Belgian Neo soul singer, suggested to me by a roommate at work.

Neo soul is a fusion genre of soul music blended with several other styles. This can clearly be heard on Selah Sue's 2011 eponymous debut album. Raggamuffin contains some reggae influences (luckily for me not too much... I'm not a big reggae fan), while Crazy Vibes features a more blues-oriented sound. On the other hand This World is a more traditional soul song with what I call the 'James Bond chord scheme' (start listening at 46 seconds in and you'll know what I mean).

It took her some time, but in 2015 Sue released her second album called Reason. This second album features more electronic influences compared to the first album as showcased by the slightly electropoppy Alone and Fear Nothing, which has a slowed down trip hop beat. My favourite song of the album however is the title track Reason. The arpeggiated synthesizer lines combined with the hip hop beat and Sue's unique sound make it a very hypnotising track.

Recently Selah announced that she's pregnant with her first child, so it will probably take some time for her to release new music.

Other favourites:    Fade Away, I Won't Go For More and 

                               Bang Bang (a collaboration with DJ Fresh & Diplo)

For more songs visit Selah Sue's Official YouTube Channel.

Electronic: Clean Bandit

Chances are you've already heard of Clean Bandit. The British electronic group scored a major worldwide hit in 2014 with their song Rather Be. But let's back up a little to 2010, the year that the group unofficially released their first single. The song, Mozart's House, is quite a minimalistic electronic song but features parts of Mozart's String Quartet No. 21 in D major, creating a unique blend of styles. Follow-up songs Telephone Banking and A&E continued this trend. The latter one by the way starts with a beautiful chorale by Bach called O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden.

All through 2014 Clean Bandit kept collaborating with different vocalists while still maintaining their string-heavy sound. Slowly but steadily however the minimal electronic sound started to shift more towards house music. Songs like Extraordinary and Come Over are still pretty catchy but Real Love and Stronger are a bit too poppy for my taste. Earlier this year however the group released Tears, which is again a brilliant song where strings and beat are seamlessly merged.

Clean Bandit's latest song (featuring Sean Paul & Anne-Marie) is called Rockabye and probably one of my favourite songs of the year.

Other favourites: UK Shanty, Dust Clears and Heart on Fire

Check out more songs and remixes on the Clean Bandit official YouTube channel.