Tim: Well, that’s an ominous title.
Tom: Blimey, it is and all, isn’t it? Anyway, as I mentioned the other day, Sia’s got a Christmas album out, and here’s the lead single from it.
Tom: Full marks for a video where I said “wait, is that…” multiple times.
Tim: Now, I hate – absolutely despise – the fact that in terms of classic Christmas songs, and as we found out with Avril Lavigne, America has never really got past the 1950s. White Christmas, Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas, Baby It’s Cold Outside, It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year, all stuck in the middle of last century, and so a massive, massive proportion of modern Christmas songs over there feel they have to take that sound and run with it.
In Britain we got a resurgence in the 70’s and 80’s and now pretty much anything goes; Scandinavia’s got people chucking out new ones every year as a matter of course; but America’s never properly moved on. I don’t want to press play on a new Sia track and hear a jazz track from last century, with a video that’s seemingly designed to look like a 1980s sitcom, I want a modern track.
Tom: The 1980s sitcom, I don’t mind, I think this is actually a bit more modern than you give it credit for — I think you may have just forgotten that “last century” is now 17 years ago.
Tim: No, but this is 1950s stuff. I also want more that just one line repeated six times in the chorus – man, Sia’s meant to be one of the greatest songwriter’s around right now, so why have Hanson – bloody Hanson – managed to produce a better track?
Tom: And there you’ve got a very strong point. The phrase “cynical cash-in” is wafting through the air somewhere, but I couldn’t possibly comment.