Rihanna’s Loud, a decent, if vapid pop album, got a nomination by the Grammys for best album of the year. I actually don’t find anything wrong with Rihanna, and I think with her army of songwriters and producers behind her, she has quite a bit of good, deserved hits. But here’s the thing, Rihanna is well, blank. Her voice is decent, but has no character. She’s certainly attractive, but we can’t actually buy her as a sex fiend or sassy urban girl or whatever she tries on. Molly Lambert describes her best, honestly. She’s a display case that showcases ideas well, but contributes absolutely nothing beyond that. There’s nothing awful about Rihanna. And her library of hits is quality and admirable. But would I remember her as a great voice, singer, songwriter, dancer or even a pop star? I honestly don’t think I ever considered her as any of those in the first place.

Loud might not be memorable, but it’s just the type to get a Grammy nomination for best album. It’s sold a lot of copies, and Rihanna’s staged “edge” seems just hip enough to pass for artistic integrity. Yet, Loud isn’t too edgy for it alienate blocks of a voting base that’s just too big and disparate to vote for anything too out there (Arcade Fire notwithstanding). Bruno Mars, who might not have as many hitmakers behind him as Rihanna but can actually sing, is also an easy nominee for similar reasons. And of course, the old, white voters that still makes up a sizable bloc will get their say with the Foo Fighters. But it really is all for naught because Adele’s 21, which we all knew would win 10 months ago, is a 2-5 odd to take that prize. She’s the next star who can be embraced and shared by any demographic (and SNL nailed the base appeal of Adele) and her music is classy enough for your grandparents, even. I thought there’d be room for Bon Iver, but I guess his warble was too esoteric, I guess. And there was no baby boomer who was worthy either (I wouldn’t know though). So we’ll have to settle for Rihanna, Bruno Mars and the Foo Fighters as the nominated losers who’ll smile politely while Adele accepts her trophy and quickly thank everyone in her fourth or fifth acceptance speech of the night.

But the obvious question is, “where’s Kanye?” (people are asking where’s Taylor too, but her last album frankly sucked) His previous albums have been nominated every time before. Finally, he records an album that matches his ridiculous sense of self-worth, an album that, after a year’s distance, still holds up as one of the greatest ever in it’s genre, and that’s the one that gets snubbed. Maybe his antics really did catch up to him. Or maybe Grammy voters really hated the Chris Rock interlude. Personally, I’ll miss his contorted face as he fails to contain his anger and annoyance when Adele wins. We’ll have to settle for content disappointment when he wins yet another rap album of the year, robbing us of a desperate chance at breaking up what will surely be a broadcast duller than even previous years.

Tom Jones giving the sex eye to the camera.  David Foster tickling the ivories.  A miracle at the 2-minute mark where, in an instant, Jones magically descends from the top of a church pulpit to the orchestra pit for the second half of the song.  It’s everything you want in a network TV holiday special.

Do yourself a personal favor and share this with a loved one as an early Christmas gift.

I don’t think we’ve posted a reggae Christmas song on this site before. UNTIL NOW.

Scott Weiland mixed old and the new with his Christmas album, putting his touch on the usual standards.  It’s not bad,  just odd.

Weiland took Bing Crosby’s arrangement of the song and re-recorded it.  He croons like the old timers, and surrounds himself with singing women while looking constipated.  I like that he kept it simple.  Sometimes the material speaks for itself and there is something to be said for not reinventing the wheel.  He didn’t try to make a Stone Temple Pilots sounding album, though that would’ve been intriguing.  A “Baby It’s Cold Outside” / “Sex Type Thing” mash up would have been Christmas GOLD.

If pepper spray is indeed a food product, then it’d make one hell of a turkey spice. WELCOME TO FLAVOR COUNTRY. It’d especially work well for deep frying. And maybe in a green bean casserole, because green bean casseroles are awful except for the French’s fried onion part. If there’s ever green bean casserole at a Thanksgiving dinner, I stealthily reach for that first, instead of turkey, so I can get all the fried onion parts. Let the other fools get their turkeys and stuffing. I’ll have a monopoly on French’s onion. I’ll be the JP Morgan of fried onions in my household. My family might think I’m a selfish asshole, but hey, what Thanksgiving without passive-aggressive familial resentments.

On that note, happy Thanksgiving everyone! May you stuff your foodhole past the point of satisfaction and into sheer, unadulterated pain. HURTS SO GOOD!

Today is the busiest travel day of the year. For some reason, this song, a 23-year-old power ballad, is most evocative of this time of the year. It helps that “Coming Home” is off an album titled Long Cold Winter. Plus, dig that hair! Girls still wear their hair like that back home. Listening to this song truly makes me homesick.

Last year, we posted this awful, awful Lady Gaga Christmas song from earlier in her career, before she was really famous. Now that she’s a bit more successful and whatnot, she’s taking another crack at this whole holiday music thing with a holiday ep. And look, she’s going for the older, classier look. Look at the sweeping gold cursive font. And nothing evokes a proper Christmas like a photo where you look like Barbra Streisand from “Yentl.” Still, while most people sing Christmas songs, and maybe a Hanukah song here or there, no one actually releases music based around Thanksgiving (probably because no one ever had a TV special called A Very Gaga Thanksgiving) So I guess Lady Gaga does deserve some credit for representing an underrepresented holiday, with a rendition of “White Christmas,” of course.

If you’re a hockey fan, last night brought an early Christmas present in the return of Sidney Crosby.  After not playing since receiving two head shots, the first of which at the 2011 Winter Classic.  He scored 4 points in his 2011-2012 debut and had every Penguins fan dancing around in their replica jerseys.

With Crosby back, it is beginning to look a lot like Christmas.  Speaking of Crosby’s, there’s no doubt his distant relative (or so I’d like to believe) Bing was celebrating from the big golf course in the sky.

Even though he didn’t win a single award at tonight’s American Music Awards (Taylor Swift?! Where’s Kanye when you actually need him), we here at Jingle Blog Rock acknowledge the REAL winner: Justin Bieber, i.e., the only one brave enough to sing a Christmas song on the show. If you also take into account the hair and the fact that he didn’t impregnate a groupie backstage after a show, then it’s not even close, really.

BTW, between Bieber and “Breaking Dawn,” you think teenage girls are scared shitless right now of being a baby mamma?

Let’s see…Over the past week, I accidentally overpaid my cable bill by $500, tore my meniscus while playing dodgeball, and told my brother to park somewhere that was not OK and got his car towed. FUUUUCCKKK…. But you know what? How can I not be in a good mood with Christmas so close? I”M FILLED WITH CHRISTMAS CHEER. Or in other words, adult egg nog.

To celebrate Tebow’s game winning drive and the holidays, it’s a DOUBLE VIDEO FRIDAY.  First, a cute video of parents giving their son a Christmas gift with a Tebow twist.

I’m jealous.  My mom treated me pretty well every Christmas, but she could’ve tried harder like these people and sent a letter to Ben Rothlisberger.  Maybe I would’ve gotten an autographed rape whistle.

Since JBR is about Christmas music, not Tim Tebow, here’s Mannheim Steamroller’s “Joy to the World.”  I’m convinced that this band got together after replying to a Pennysaver ad seeking out the strangest looking musicians in all the land.  I’ve never seen so many Hulk Hogan style haircuts on one stage before.  Regardless, they put on a hell of a show.

This isn’t exactly a holiday song, per se, but if the Elephant 6 bands can go on a “Holiday Surprise” tour in 2008 (and again in 2011) with this Christmas-themed promo photo, then by God, the song technically qualifies. It’s also a chance to write about the re-issue  of Olivia Tremor Control’s sprawling 1996 psychedelic pop classic, Music From the Unrealized Film Script: Dusk at Cubist Castle (also re-released is 1999′s Black Foliage: Animation Music). As the lengthy title might suggest, Music… is an un-edited, rambling string of ideas. At least the influences are immaculate, no less than 1966-68 Beach Boys and Beatles, and Will Cullen Hart and Bill Doss are gifted enough to make most of their ideas work. Listeners might get whiplash from songs formed from shards of pop music shoved together like ill-fitting puzzle pieces. The latter half especially sounds like the second half of Abbey Road on acid (if that’s even possible). But hey, if you have the balls to try for your own version of Abbey Road, Sgt. Peppers AND the White Album at once, on your debut no less, you might as well go big or go home. In a way, Music… is a perfect holiday album as it’ll wash over you like a hallucinatory dream. What better way to ride out next week’s tryptophan haze?

It contains the lyrics “Strangers as we met, lovers as we leave,” which is clever until you consider that they were the only living human beings at a party surrounded by mannequins.  Slim pickings, so the chances for a hook up were good unless one of them had a fetish for inanimate objects.  I’d probably leave immediately if I showed up to a party and saw nothing but dolls.  Kenny, on the other hand, took one look at Dolly, sized up the plastic competition and thought “hey, more pussy for me.”

One can only assume that as soon as Dolly and Kenny left for the bedroom, the mannequins turned to life and the REAL party began.

Are there really 50 words for snow that can be set to music for 65 minutes? Is Kate Bush singing about actual precipitation? Maybe she’s really singing about coke. Or maybe even bukkake. Whatever she means, Bush’s new album is achingly beautiful. (BTW, guess the word count for this paragraph)

You can stream all of 50 Words for Snow right now on NPR (and it’s awesome). But I’m really using her new album as an excuse to post this video from a British TV special that could be my second-favorite performance of a Christmas song ever, behind only Bing Crosby and David Bowie. If your grandma acts like this at Christmas dinner, we’d all think she’s finally lost it. But if it’s Kate Bush, then it’s just cool.

It’s a joyous and strange day.  The Baltimore Ravens lost to a horrible team one week after giving their coach a Gatorade bath.  As a Steelers fan, I revel in every Ravens loss, but this one stood out since Baltimore celebrated a week 9 victory like they had just won a championship after improving to 6-2.  Shame on you, Ravens.

Tim Tebow is playing winning football and helping my fantasy team by completing only two passes in a game.  I don’t mind receiving the Christmas gift of optimal fantasy football production, but not even God’s will is going to help Tebow be anything more than a mediocre QB at best.  Running the option in the NFL, as Pittsburgh broadcasting icon Myron Cope once put it so eloquently in the video below, is just “yonkos.”

Myron Cope had his own lexicon of words and expressions.”Okel Dokel.”  ”Yoi.” “Hum-hah.”  His style endeared himself to fans and made him a legend.  In December 1984 when the Steelers were about to face the Denver Broncos in a playoff contest, Cope wrote a Holiday/Fight Song hybrid called “Deck the Broncos (They’re Just Yonkos).”  The Steelers went on to defeat the favored Broncos 24-17.  No doubt the song propelled them to victory.

While the players and the uniform colors have changed, the truth Myron spoke in 1984 is still relevant today.

I wasn’t going to post anything today. But, after enduring 5 weeks of incessant trash talk from Detroit Lions fans after they beat my Chicago Bears by 11 points in their first meeting, and considering the rematch was today… well, I only have one thing to say. 37! to, 13. I bet it’s pretty cold in the D tonight. So cold, so very cold. Somehow, Stafford’s interception total>Tebow’s completions. That pretty much sums up both QB’s this week.

BTW, isn’t it great that Beavis and Butthead are back and somehow still really funny? Eh heh, eh heh.

Yesterday, we gave you a Christmas song from the Barenaked Ladies. If you also look at the tag cloud, you might notice that the “Barenaked Ladies” have the second biggest font size, after “Christmas” itself. And you might be wondering why a band from Toronto with an unassumingly successful career (a couple of big American hits, six top 10 Canadian hits and four platinum albums) has such a huge presence (three posts worth) on this Christmas music blog? Well, “BnL” is the all-time favorite band of Jingle Blog Rock’s co-author, Ryan. And even that is an understatement. He goes to any BnL show within a 2-hour radius of LA. The only time I’ve seen him take a personal day from work is to see them in San Diego. A couple of years ago, he once took a long lunch to see BnL play children’s songs at a local mall. Our boss and I asked him how the concert was the next day. “It was great,” he said. “But it did feel weird being the only adult there without a kid.”

I have to admit though that I find it a bit odd that BnL is the only group to make a repeat appearance on this blog. Of all the legendary acts who recorded Christmas songs: the Beatles, James Brown, Bing Crosby, et al, BnL topped them all. I am not a fan like Ryan though. I found “One Week” annoying when it was on the radio every 15 minutes, but I kinda liked “Pinch Me” when it was a regular on VH1 and “If I Had $100000″ was cute enough. And that’s about all I know of them. Judging by their Christmas album, there are 18 songs Ryan has yet to post. We can only hope that this blog is around long enough for him to post all of them.

Anyway, I decided to continue the Canadian-Christmas theme with a 2008 holiday original from Toronto punk band, Fucked Up. This is actually the second mention of Fucked Up on this blog, which means the only two musical acts to make a repeat appearance on this blog are both from Toronto. BnL might be Ryan’s favorite act from Toronto, but Fucked Up is mine.

It’s a rainy, mellow day here in LA, and “Footprints” by Barenaked Ladies fits my mood. It’s a good holiday tune and makes me wish that it was 20 degrees colder here so the rain would turned into snow. Snow’s much more fun to walk around in, I would be able to peg people with snowballs, and it would be a wonderful sight to see Southern Californians try to drive in it. They shit a brick when there’s an inch of rain, so snow would guarantee a real carmageddon.

I’ve been under the weather the last few days. Here’s a song that fits my mood like a sweater right now. Ain’t it purdy and sad?

On Christmas Day, 1978, Muhammad Ali appeared on the British version of “This Is Your Life.” Among the guests were Tom Jones, Anthony Quinn and Joe Louis in a lively show befitting Ali. At the very end, as the show was winding down, host Mike Aspel introduced one final surprise guests, someone who gave him a car ride from Philadelphia to New York in 1970. Ali knew instantly who it was, and his eyes grew wide with genuine shock.

“No, not Joe Frazier,” he kept repeating.

This was three years after “The Thrilla In Manila,” * arguably (or what the hell, it’s inarguable), the greatest boxing match in history. There will be many words, better words, that’ll be written to capture their rivalry. Needless to say, Frazier was a force of nature who bulldozed his way to a heavyweight title who was the perfect “villain” for Ali. So for a four-year period, Frazier was the foil to vicious, vicious barbs from Ali, repeatedly called “ugly,” a “monkey” and worst of all, an “Uncle Tom.” Yet, Frazier was the one who pushed for a title fight against Ali in 1971 after he was stripped of his title and banned from boxing for three years for dodging the draft, and Frazier even gave Ali a few hundreds during that ban. Frazier eventually beat Ali in “The Fight of the Century,” ** and from then, Ali tried to thoroughly destroy him. For years, Frazier endured brutal punishments, both in the ring and outside, from Ali. Inevitably, he grew extremely bitter, and it left permanent scars, physically and emotionally.

And yet, here he is, on a British TV show, warmly greeting Ali and regaling the audience with a funny tale about that ride to New York, being magnanimous to a man he had every reason to hate. Frazier still harbored bitterness then, and it grew over the years until it culminated in his comments during the 1996 Olympics. Frazier’s intense hatred of Ali clouded him for decades, especially as he ran into financial trouble, but he eventually turned his life (buying a boxing gym in his hometown of Philadelphia) and even forgave Ali in 2009. Life wasn’t always fair to Frazier, and he often reacted in an all-too human way. But he tried hard to be a better person, even if it was excruciatingly hard. This clip of a beaming Joe Frazier shows a man trying his damnedest to be that person. Frazier had a rare opportunity to be a heavyweight champion, and he tried to be as great a champ as possible in all aspects. Few boxers could assume that role so proudly. For that, he will be missed.

* Here’s the 1975 article from Sports Illustrated about the Thrilla In Manila

** Here’s Norman Mailer’s classic article on Ali-Frazier I

As a tribute, the first post of 2011 is Williams and the Osmond Brothers singing “Silver Bells” from his 1965 Christmas special.  It was a simpler time when middle aged men could sit around a camp fire with a group of boys and not be looked upon as a deviant.  I’m not saying that this video is anything like the Jerry Sandusky scandal at Penn State, but the look Andy gives one of the Osmond boys while tweaking a marshmallow at 1:36 would be frowned upon today.

Christmas is right around the corner, which means it’s time to cull a song from my personal favorite Christmas album, 1968′s Soul Christmas from Atco Records. Last year, I posted Otis Redding’s soulful take on “White Christmas.” This year, I’m posting Donny Hathaway’s song. It’s now a holiday standard and been covered to death. But, there’s a reason why we don’t get tired of listening to this song. It’s one of the most unabashedly joyous Christmas songs around. And it gets me excited that Christmas is just 3 days away!

So here we are, the home stretch.  In a few days we’ll be enjoying Christmas with our family and, if you’re anything like me, gorging yourself on 4,000 plus calories a day on things like cookies, cheese platters, and Primanti Brothers sandwiches.  Before you gain 10 pounds in two weeks, take a moment from your busy end of the year schedule and listen to this song by Curt Smith from Tears for Fears.

As an Asian-American, I have mixed feelings about the Far*East Movement. On one hand, it’s great to see Asians become more prominent in American pop culture for something that doesn’t involve martial arts or speaking in broken English. It’s cool to see fellow Asians top the Billboard Charts. On the other hand, “Like A G6 is HORRIBLE song.” I mean, it tries aggressively to be as shitty as possible. The beats, the “getting slizzard,” “sippin’ sizzurp” lyrics, I mean, WTF. When I listen to that song, I think of stupid Asian kids trying REALLY hard to be ghetto, but the kind of ghetto they’ve seen in Ma$e music videos growing up. Really, fellow Asian people? You couldn’t do better with your one chance to have a huge hit?

That’s why I’m posting a Christmas song from the Jets. Now this was an awesome Asian pop band. “Crush On You” is an undeniable classic. “You Got It All” has more soul in one line than “Like A G6″ has in it’s entire song. Who cares if they’re all Mormons? A bigger family means a bigger love, as the HBO show can attest. Do I sound like a cranky old fool who hates all music kids listen to? Probably. But you have to remember, young people are stupid. Music from the past is ALWAYS better.

If you were to imagine what a Weezer Christmas song would sound like, then listen to this, it would be identical.  But if you like Weezer, there’s nothing wrong with that.

The greatest gift Weezer could give all of us is an album that isn’t one constant bowel movement of similarly sounding 3 minute nerd pop-rock songs.  That’s a present even Scrooge or The Grinch would enjoy.  I’ve listened to Pinkerton, so I know you have it in you, Rivers Cuomo.  Start 2011 off right by making a good album.

But since that probably won’t happen, I’d accept some figgy pudding, since I’ve never had it before.

This might be sacrilege, especially coming from a Christmas music blog, but there are WAY too many Christmas songs that come out every year. We try to go through a lot of them, past and present, to present to our readers what we think are the best, most interesting, or most likely music to help you get laid. And after listening to hundreds of hours of Christmas songs over the past two months, well, I don’t know if I can take another new Christmas song. It’s now to the point where every band feels obligated to release one, just so a blog like yours truly can post it and give them a bit of extra promo.

So instead of find anymore new music, here’s a link to Pitchfork’s rundown of all the Christmas-related songs released this year. And here’s a concise Christmas song from a very Pitchfork band, Beach House, which will be the last one from 2010 we’ll post. I saw Beach House in concert once. I had no idea that they’d only play one 55-minute long song.

We’re only 8 days away from Christmas, and many people begin their holiday vacations this weekend.  There’s no better way to kick it off than with a cover song from one of the best grunge rock bands from the 90s.  They don’t break new ground with their cover of the Stevie Wonder classic, but hey, it’s Friday and I felt like posting a Pearl Jam song, so screw it.

Fittingly, Kanye West closes out his G.O.O.D. Friday series of free downloads with a Christmas song. Now you might think that the writers of this blog listens to Christmas music 24 hours a day, 361 days a year, excluding the days when we attend the Gathering of the Juggalos every summer. But we do like to listen to non-Christmas music here and there, and this blog is one of many, many others who think My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is swell. In fact, we’ll go as far as to say that it’s one of the best hip hop albums of all time. Of all… no, that joke is played out. We won’t go into why we like it so, since both the album and the various responses has already been analyzed to death. For someone who takes himself and his art REALLY seriously to the point of parody, this song is disarming in how slight and exuberant it is. There’s also an extremely catchy chorus sung by Musiq Soulchild. Yes, “Christmas In Harlem” is a toss-away and not too compelling, but Kanye’s been on such a roll this year that even his toss-aways are decent. And if you came to this Christmas music blog looking for a respite from the inevitable Kanye jerk-fest that’ll happen in many year-end music retrospectives, then sorry. You see, MBDTF really is that good.

If someone told Billy Idol in 1985 that he would end up recording an album of Christmas standards, he probably would have kicked his own ass.  Even the baddest punk rockers can never say no to a good old-fashioned cash grab, which is what most holiday albums are, and what most older artists record when they’re washed up.

I thought the songs would be horrible, but it’s actually a solid Christmas album, if unoriginal.  Idol sings surprisingly well when he’s not screaming.    So take a listen and if someone gives you a hard time about liking Billy Idol’s Christmas album, do what the 1985 version of Billy Idol would do and kick their ass.

It’s that time of the year again, when we get to enjoy one of the few perks from our otherwise desultory job, the office holiday party. We might spend most of our lives waking up before we want to, sitting in traffic that doesn’t move, doing mind-numbing tasks that’s impossible to enjoy, and waste away in awful traffic again so we can get back home to eat Lean Cuisines while watching TV. But for one night a year, our employers plow us with booze, cookies and either a dance floor or a karaoke machine, and all is right with the world.

Now an office party isn’t like any normal party. We’re not supposed to get hammered and embarrass ourselves in front of our superiors and co-workers. We’re still technically in a work environment. We have to be PROFESSIONAL. There’s really only three things one can do at an office party. First, there is a lot of schmoozing going on. Maybe your company’s CEO will be so taken by your charms that he/she will immediately promote you over your asshole boss. You might even be a VP!, all because of that witty, topical you told over brownies. Second, someone WILL drink too much and make an ass of themselves. You should not be in that person, but you should be that person making him or her the butt of your relentless jokes. It’ll make you look better at the expense of someone you might have to compete with at work, and your co-workers will always think of you as more competent compared to the other guy who got sloppy drunk and throw up in a trashcan. Finally, this is the one time of the year where you can get away with an office hookup. Everyone had one drunken one-night stand. Why not with that hot administrative assistant who you’ve never actually talked to. Will the morning after be awkward? Undoubtedly. But Christmas isn’t Christmas without the walk of shame past your office conquest who’s vagina your fingers inhabited mere hours before.

So here then, is a Lady Gaga Christmas song that’s all about having sex on the holidays, with probably a co-worker. This song is from 2009, the year she broke, and it’s horrible. This does get me wondering, has anyone gained actual musical credibility as quickly as Lady Gaga? When she first came out, I thought of her as a novelty, nothing but shock outfits and semi-catchy, but disposable songs. But somehow, after hearing “Poker Face” and “Paparazzi” a hundred times on the radio, they didn’t sound bad at all. Then, “Bad Romance” and “Telephone” were legitimately good pop songs, and now she’s nominated for a Best Album Grammy and became a spokesperson against “don’t ask, don’t tell.” All this in a year, when she started off as this! I’d equate this to the Knicks’ Raymond Felton going from a mediocre point guard that was thrown away by Charlotte, of all teams, to one-half of a devastating pick-and-roll duo with Amar’e Stoudamire and an honest All-Star candidate. Or back in 2008, when Ev Smith somehow leaving the Island in that version of the Real World/Road Rules Challenge. And yes, it is that easy to write like Bill Simmons.