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

A cappella pop: Pentatonix

The human voice is just another instrument, that's how I see it. Whether a melody is performed by a guitar, a flute or a voice, it's all the same to me. In the case of A Cappella music this fact is taken to the next level since all parts of the song are solely made up by the human voice. Percussion, bass, melody and harmonies are all created by the singers' vocal cords. One of the absolute best groups in this style is Pentatonix.

Pentatonix started out in 2011 and participated in the a cappella talent show 'The Sing-Off', which they won. After winning the show they started to regularly upload a cappella covers of existing songs to YouTube of which Somebody That I Used To Know is one of their most watched videos. As their popularity grew they also started to make original songs like Sing, and even went on a world tour.

This however doesn't mean that they've quit their YouTube activities. Once in a while for instance the group releases an Evolution of... video. Evolution of Music, Beyoncé, and Michael Jackson are all equally impressive.

Last but not least Pentatonix also likes to sing Christmas songs. Now I know it's still October at the time of writing, but nevertheless I urge you to check out the absolute extraordinary Carol of the Bells and The First Noel which are some of my all time favourite renditions.

Other favourites: Thrift Shop, Problem and Perfume Medley.

Check out their Official YouTube Channel for more videos.