Tag: Armand Deluxe

Tim: You may remember Armand’s track Almost Christmas Day that we featured two years back; if you don’t then, well, it seems to have gone from the internet now but you enjoyed it, despite the kids choir. This has precisely no children, and I will be astonished if it doesn’t take a sizeable chunk out of your humbug armour.

Tim: Oh, SO JAZZY.

Tim: My feeling with that is of a the opening to a festive film set in the 1950s. We start off in some gritty underworld jazz club, old people smoking and looking a tad miserable (who by the end of the film will be considerably cheery), a woman up on the stage singing this and then roll opening credits.

Tim: Gradually we see a montage of the world outside being decorated, people being happy, and then we’re back for the end of it, and the rest can all be written by J J Abrams because apparently he’s good at films and stuff.

Tim: Hooray! Because enough cinema – basically all you need to know is that, with nine days to go: NEXT STOP IS CHRISTMAS, OH YEAH – THE HOLIDAYS ARE HERE!!!

Tim: DAMMIT.

Tim: Hi Tom! You know how you LOVE children in songs? Well, have I got a treat for you!

Tim: Armand Deluxe puts out a load of Christmas track each year, and this years he’s gathered them all into one finely packaged and delightfully titled album, MISTLETOE&VODKA.

Tim: This one’s from 2011, and just WOW. The idea seems to be basically: put Christmas in a blender and pour it into your speakers, and oh how joyous it is. The lyrics are pretty good, if not entirely intelligible: I think one of my favourite parts is the slight intimation that Santa is actually God, though, which is a lesson we could definitely teach that stinkypoo of a vicar who told kids that Santa’s fictional.

Tim: And yet valid. But anyway, before we get into a needlessly controversial discussion of the nature of existence, the song’s not about the lyrics, and it’s not really even about the frankly wonderful jingly backing and other melody bits. It’s that chorus. That infectious, repetitive chant that right from the start you just know will be there throughout, and to repeat one line a full fifteen times is quite impressive.

Tim: Do you know, I’d not thought of it that way. Replace these children with, say, a full gospel choir, and it might be even better. But without that, does it need to be four minutes? Could we possibly lose one or two of those final chorus repeats? Maybe, but a line like “Forget what’s been and done when the good times roll, in the morning let Christmas roll” is one worth repeating, even if the rhyming could be a little more imaginative. IT’S GREAT.