Merry Christmas from London!
So this is Christmas…a time when traditional concerns about indie rock all but melt away but for a token performance by some stadium indie outfit like the Kaiser Chiefs on the Top Of The Pops Christmas special.
But this year, it's not exactly the musical deadzone we can usually expect.
For a start, the U.K. is getting its first genuinely brilliant Christmas number one song since the Pet Shop Boys covered Elvis in 1987. And people are up in arms. Ever since Simon Cowell bought the rights to Christmas, the festive top spot has been the preserve of the X Factor winner singing an anodyne motivational ballad. Even the genuinely fantastic Leona Lewis had to sing the limp ballad "A Moment Like This." But this year, something remarkable has happened. Not only has another genuinely fantastic singer, in the form of Alexandra Burke, but Cowell has chosen a genuinely fantastic song for the winners' single: "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen. But all is not well, and indie zealots all over the country are protesting that this should never have been allowed to happen. The argument seems to run that this is disrespectful to Jeff Buckley, who has also covered the song, and who is dead. They've even started a Facebook group, and the ensuing fuss means that Buckley's version also looks likely to chart when the Christmas chart is announced on Sunday.
I can't see the problem with a great sentimental singer singing a great sentimental song at a great sentimental time of the year. It certainly beats Leon Jackson last year--but you can read NME man Luke Lewis's take the on whole affair by clicking here.
What else? Inspirational Scot tearjerkers Glasvegas have jumped on the festive sentimentality bandwagon with their own festive collection, A Snowflake Fell (And It Felt Like A Kiss). They recorded it with a choir in Transylvania, and their version of "Silent Night" is something to behold. Expect a campaign from Glasvegas fans, up in arms about Alexandra Burke's rendition of the same song to break out imminently.
And it would surely be amiss not to mention our glittering NME Christmas Double Issue. If you want to see Noel Fielding dress up as the Virgin Mary; Kings Of Leon reflect on the year they went Godlike; Lethal Bizzle channelling Barack Obama; the Cribs remembering of Christmasses past; the inside story of the Flaming Lips' Christmas On Mars; Heather Mills reviewing the Tracks Of The Year; and literally sackloads more…then you know what to do.
Merry Christmas from London!
