Carol of the Bells / God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen - The Piano Guys
Over the course of amassing my excessively large collection of Christmas music (... I have around a $30/year budget for it and am approaching 450 songs in total) I have come to appreciate that some seasonal classics are more easily covered than others.
Last Christmas is fundamentally a bad song, often wasting the efforts of excellent bands, and is only listenable when an artist nearly gives up on the melody. White Christmas is dangerous, because are you really going to outdo The Drifters or ol’ Bing himself? No, you are not, and the result is going to be dully generic.
There are more hospitable songs, though. Silent Night can go psychedelic gospel or contemplative cello and still be great. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen is hard to fuck up- Bad Religion can do it as loud punk and Sharon Jones can do it as brassy soul and Verve Remixed can drop the beat and it all slays. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas is beautiful melancholy no matter who does it. Carol of the Bells rocks as synthfolk or chiptune.
My point, beyond putting my embarrassingly-detailed Christmas music opinions on display, is thus: this cello arrangement is excellent, but—God Rest Ye and Carol of the Bells? They’re playing Christmas covers on easy mode.
- Tessa