Search - Various Artists, Mum, Saint Etienne :: Seasonal Greetings

It's Not Much of a Christmas, Holiday, Winter or even Much o

KC | Northern CA | 12/26/2005

(1 out of 5 stars)

"When the holiday season rolls around, alt. artists have several choices:



a) being ultra cool and hip, they sneer at the whole thing and ignore it.



b) they embrace it wholeheartedly and channel their inner Dean Martin, Chuck Berry or George Michael.



c) they can choose to be weary of the 'traditional' songs so they offer up their own, usually of the somber, reflective, or cynical side of the holiday season.



Any of the above choices are fine.



This CD is none of those. The reason this CD is OOP is not because 'the man' is trying to oppress these indie artists - it's because this CD makes no sense and it's just plain dull.



I'm presuming these artists wanted to avoid any taint of holiday joy and commercialization so they offered up some wintery tracks that have nothing to say - in fact, most are instrumentals.



THese are all normally interesting bands and performers - no doubt their fans as completists are jacking up the used price of this to have it all but you're not missing out on anything.



There is one interesting and well done song - Domotic's downtempo chill "Smith, Klaus & White" so if you don't mind paying for a full CD to get one track ... (just like a major label release ;-)



Ironically, it's achieved the complete opposite effect. This would be a fine CD in the background at your dentists office to lull you into New Agey sleep but other than that - you should pass on most of this CD."

Tracklisting

S. Pross | Los Angeles, CA USA | 01/31/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

"01. Low - Long Way Around The Sea

02. Orso - X'Mas Tomorrow

03. Morgan Caney & Kamal Joory - Darling

04. Opiate - Snow Story

05. Komëit - Atomized

06. Future 3 - It's That Time Again

07. Erlend Øye - Last Christmas

08. Saint Etienne - My Christmas Prayer

09. Badly Drawn Boy - Donna And Blitzen

10. Hood - Winter Will Set You Back

11. Domotic - Smith, Klaus & White

12. Herrmann & Kleine - Catch A Snowflake

13. múm - Nóttin Var Svo Ágæt Ein"