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

Glam Metal: Black Veil Brides

Several years ago I was very much into pro wrestling (everybody has their crazy periods right?!). Every week I'd watch the muscular guys and busty girls put on their best performances to gain title belts or end rivalries. Besides these weekly shows once in a while there would be a larger show where story lines were ended or started, so called Pay-Per-Views. As the name implies these shows need to be paid for to watch, therefore the WWE always started promoting these events well in advance to maximize the amount of viewers willing to pay. Thus the same promos would be aired week after week, of course accompanied by a captivating song. For their Hell in a Cell 2012 PPV the WWE used the song In the End by Black Veil Brides. I hadn't heard of the band before but this song made me an instant fan of theirs. The beginning of the song consisting of strings and a choir, later joined by the guitar and drums, hooked me right in. As you can probably guess from watching their early music videos like Perfect Weapon, the band was highly inspired by glam metal acts of the 1980s like Kiss and Mötley Crüe. Lately however they've stopped using the face paint in favour of a more serious look, as can be seen in Goodbye Agony. The band is currently in the process of writing a new album although no release date has been announced yet.

Other favourites: Legacy, Revelation and Heart of Fire

For more videos check out the bands YouTube VEVO channel.