Lopez Blogs

There are some songs that just seem to have Christmas baked right into them, even though technically they are not particularly about Christmas. It may be that they reference the winter cold, or have a few sleigh bells here and there. It might be that they talk about snow or mulled wine. But they don't have that innate Christmassy theme like, say, All I Want For Christmas or Do They Know It's Christmas. So in fact you can get away with playing them all year round. Huzzah. But because they were probably released near the festive season, these songs will always carry a little bit of Santa's love within me :P

5 ~ Kylie & Jason, All I Wanna Do: The "flip" side to their epic not number one until after Christmas ballad Especially For You. I was particularly excited about Jason becoming a pop star because it meant I could legitimately put posters of him on my wall and pretend it was because of Kylie. No one was fooled. And darn tooting if he didn't look ten times hotter with his cut hair. This uptempo, probably whipped together in 2 minutes by S/A/W, ditty is just a joy to hear and always gets the party started. Take that Pink.
4 ~ Pop Idol 2, With A Little Love: Screw the Hero track, this is by far the best joint idol finalists song ever released. And it's message is just as lovely in a not so overwrought production. All about letting bygones be bygones and sharing your love, it's awash with a shuffling beat, jingle noises and sleigh bells, but nothing distracts from the quite pretty vocal delivery of the final 10. Sigh. Poor Andy Scott Lee. It was all downhill from here...
3 ~ Shayne Ward, Melt The Snow: Ok this should totally have been the second single after If That's Ok With You. I'm not really sure why this song resonated with me so much, but as soon as i heard it on the fine album Breathless I knew that it would be a favourite of mine. It's quite romantic in that weird Shayne sort of way and sounds quite charming snuggled up in front of the hearth with a mug of warm cocoa. Jolly super.
2 ~ Jason Donovan, When you Come Back To Me: The red raincoat, the gloriously over the top video, the harmony "oooos" during the chorus, the chiming bells - do I really need to go on? Another S/A/W classic that is utterly butterly festive without ramming Christmas down your throat. Fantastic! One of my all time favourite Jason songs :)

1 ~ Erasure, Stop: Or really, anything from Crackers International. This came out at the front peak of my love for Erasure that lasted right up until they were done with their amazing Erasure album before it started to wane. Stop is typical Erasure with it's synth attack on the senses and Andy Bells full throttle vocal delivery. Also recommended is the wistful regret track She Won't Be Home which is just too sad to bear at times... so be sure to head back for the 12" mix of Stop afterwards to perk yourself right back up. It's the viagra of pop Christmas tunes.