SOUNDTRACK: SHE AND HIM-A Very She & Him Christmas (2011).
I don’t really know all that much about She & Him. I know it’s Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward. I don’t really know M. Ward at all and I know Deschanel from New Girl (which we love) and because she is in Elf.
I loved how quirky and weird she was on New Girl and how she sang a lot (in the beginning). She has a wonderful voice (as evidenced in Elf). I assumed this would be a kind of quirky, retro-feeling Christmas album.
But it isn’t. It’s not quirky at all. The instrumentation is incredibly sparse, sometimes shockingly quiet. Deschanel displays her voice well. But the whole thing feels kind of stiff and tightly compressed. It’s pretty but not really inviting. Occasionally the album gets bigger with M. singing a few backing vocals and even a lead.
Most surprising is that I didn’t even know the first two songs on the record. I didn’t expect non-standards.
“Christmas Waltz” is her singing to quiet jazzy guitar. It’s possible that since I don’t know the song, I feel like it didn’t set up the album well.
“Christmas Day” has her voice heavily echoed with even gentler guitar. Although near the end of the song, the full backing vocal (all Zooey, I think) helps her out.
“Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” is finally a song I know and I feel like she does a great job of it with a smokey delivery.
“I’ll Be Home for Christmas” also works very well, even if it’s kind of weird to have the jazzy acoustic guitar playing on this relatively emotional song.
“Christmas Wish” is a duet it feels incredibly loud compared to the earlier songs. There’s even drums. It’s just kind of surprising to hear M.’s voice five songs in. I wish he had been introduced earlier.
“Sleigh Ride” also works pretty well. The music is kind of countryish, but the two of them together make it work well.
“Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree” has piano and electric guitar and backing vocals. It doesn’t really rock, but at least the guitar is electric.
“Silver Bells” is her on a ukulele and she accompanies herself perfectly. It’s a bit spare, but the song is quite lovely.
“Baby, It’s Cold Outside” is wonderful for the way it twists the gender roles. But I feel like the song might be too fast–Zooey in particular seems kind of rushed singing it.
“Blue Christmas” is a song I don’t really like, but her version of just her and the acoustic guitar is very pretty.
“Little Saint Nick” brigs back the ukulele with lots of echo on her voice. It’s bright and happy.
“The Christmas Song” is too slow and stiff and kind of a sad way to end the record.
This album is fine for a safe Christmas record. It’s just not that inspired.
[READ: December 13, 2017] “Secondary Memory”
Once again, I have ordered The Short Story Advent Calendar. This year, there are brief interviews with each author posted on the date of their story.
Hello. Welcome. It’s finally here: Short Story Advent Calendar time.
If you’re reading along at home, now’s the time to start cracking those seals, one by one, and discover some truly brilliant writing inside. Then check back here each morning for an exclusive interview with the author of that day’s story.
(Want to join in? It’s not too late. Order your copy here.)
This year I’m pairing each story with a holiday disc from our personal collection.
Some of the stories in this collection have been pretty dark, so I enjoyed the relative lightness of this one. “Relative” because although it starts as kind of a funny anthropomorphized laptop story, there’s some interesting things going on underneath the frame.
It takes about a paragraph to reveal that the narrator s a laptop. Its owner, Vicki is “experiencing a runtime error…in your language she is little uptight.” They are out and about. It assumes they are going to the cafe (where the laptop sees its usual and preferred table). But they walk past the cafe–are they going to the greasy spoon (the laptop would have shown its displeasure by not connecting to the Wi-Fi). But no. It’s even worse. (more…)
