Hope you all had a nice holiday.
Now that older albums are eligible for the Billboard 200 again, the Beatles took advantage and held down several places in the last Billboard 200 chart before Christmas. In that chart, "Abbey Road" was at #81, "The Beatles" (White Album) was #85, "The Beatles in Stereo" boxed set was at #99, The "Beatles 1" album was #126, "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" was #130, "Rubber Soul" was #163, "Revolver" #170, "Past Masters" #177 and "Love" was at #184. These were basically re-entries in the chart, so it was holiday sales that boosted the Fabs back into the charts. Also, Paul McCartney's "Good Evening New York City," was also there. In its fifth week on the chart, it placed at #43, up from #50. Its peak was #16.
The New York Times, meanwhile, named Paul McCartney's "Wonderful Christmastime" as the worst ever holiday song, according to votes from readers. We guess those New York Times readers have never heard this, which was a revered annual tradition at our office Christmas party for many many years at my former newspaper. And yes, yours truly gets the medal for that tradition, one we'll wear proudly.
A roughly 16 minute audio excerpt of the recently published "lost" Lennon interview that we wrote about recently is on the Kenwood blog. Many of the quotes we mentioned in the article are in the excerpt. The audio excerpt cuts off near the end and adds a bit of Elliot Mintz from "The Lost Lennon Tapes." But what's there is very interesting. The whole tape would be fascinating. Let's hope it surfaces. Meanwhiile, the New Statesman has published some small written excerpts online here and here.
The Voices of Lee, who we wrote about doing a Beatles medley on "The Sing-Off," didn't win the finals, sorry to say.
GameSpot's Reader's Poll for Game of the Year included some votes for "The Beatles: Rock Band," -- 1 percent with 254 votes. Readers picked "Uncharted 2: Among Thieves." The editors picked "Demon's Souls."
Beatlefan editor Bill King knows Beatles and Bulldogs -- that's the University of Georgia Bulldogs. This feature from Like the Dew profiles Bill's Junkyard Blawg commentaries on the football team.
Above is Paul McCartney's performance of "Mull of Kintyre" from London on YouTube. C'mon Paul, we want to see it in America, too.
Comments
Nobody loves McCartney's music more than me here (and if they do, God bless you, because I wouldn't think it possible). I actually LIKE the album "Wild Life," for example.
However, "Wonderful Christmastime," as catchy as it might be (in that annoying way that many songs get in your head no matter how much you'd wish they'd vacate it), it is NOT a very good song. In comparison to the classic John & Yoko "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)," it doesn't even register a blip on the screen. John's song is a "10" while Paul's would rate a, say, "-6." I think any number of his throwaway Beatles Xmas message compositions/sopng fragments are light years better than "Wonderful Xmastime." Check out the snippets of his little acoustic ditties on both the '68 and '69 Xmas messages, and they have the potential to be much better songs. I'm sure he was responsible for the classic "Xmas Time Is Here Again" from the '67 message (which has been covered by the Smithereens and Ringo himself). Agree with the Times.
"Wonderful Christmastime" is about the only Christmas song I can stand. When they put on the Christmas music at work, it is torture until this song comes on. I mean, why do people suddenly want to listen to Bing Crosby and Andy Williams? I lsiten to Paul any chance I get. And "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)", "so this is Christmas and what have you done?", a very negative song for the Holidays (just kidding, I like it but not as much as Paul's song).
"Wonderful Christmastime" could be vastly improved by wiping the gawd awful Casio keyboard off the tape.
Have the Times' readers never heard "Granmda Got Run Over By A Reindeer" or "All I Want For Christmas Is A Hippopotamus?" Truly cringe-inducing numbers. One of the local D.C. radio stations uses Paul's song on a TV ad to promote their Christmas music, so it's hardly the worst of all time. It's catchy. Why are readers so hateful and jealous of people who are so successful in so many ways? They just can't stand the idea of it. Yes, John's Christmas song is superior and Paul should have spent more time on his...eliminated the synth pounding that gets in the way, etc., but still.
Well another Christmastime has come and gone. Christmas morning I played my Beatles' Christmas messages all seven of them. I hope everyone has a great 2010! Let's ALL remember that Love is the Answer.
I agree w/ NY Times, Wondeful Christmastime is not that great. I think John's song is far superior.
Love the McCartney classic, better than the Lennon Song "Happy Xmas" and far far superior to the vapid "Ding Ding Ding Dong".
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