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“On Christmas Day” (Brian Wilson Christmas Cover)

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Welcome everyone to a special holiday edition of the Laptop Sessions cover songs music video blog with me, Jim Fusco!  It’s become a Laptop Sessions music blog tradition to do at least one Christmas song every year.  This is my fourth Christmas doing the blog and I’ve amassed a great collection of my favorite Christmas songs in acoustic guitar and piano cover video form.    In fact, if you go to my YouTube page at http://youtube.com/jimfusco, you’ll see I’ve made a video playlist of all my Christmas song videos.  So, if you’re in the holiday spirit (in December, or any other time you need some Christmas cheer), you can click on that playlist and go through every cover song video I’ve done for Christmastime!

Before I get started with tonight’s music blog post, allow me to wish you a great Christmas (or any other holiday you may be celebrating this time of year).  It’s been a crazy year for me and I’m glad I’m back doing the Laptop Sessions videos on a regular basis.  I really do get a lot of joy doing these cover song videos.  Getting to a million views was a big deal for me, as it seemed to reinvigorate my efforts to make the Laptop Sessions the best music blog on the internet.  Next year promises to be another banner year, as my new album, “Those Around Us” is released in January.  For more details on “Those Around Us”, please visit my website at http://jimfusco.com.

Onto tonight’s cover song video.  You know, it’s rare to find a new Christmas song that isn’t overly cheesy and especially over-produced.  The problem with Christmas songs is that there’s only a finite amount of things to write about.  And, believe me, every single one of those things has been written about.  So, after a while, every new Christmas song starts to sound the same with very, very similar lyrics.   Every artist these days has to have a Christmas album.  I guess I can’t blame them- it’s a built-in excuse to have people play your music at least once a year.  Look at the older artists like Bing Crosby.  I honestly don’t know one Bing Crosby song that isn’t Christmas-related.  To me, in pop music, Christmas songs make you somewhat immortal.  I mean, who listens to Perry Como anymore?  But, come the day after Christmas, “Home for the Holidays” plays on every radio station across the country.  Even Elvis Presley’s music is now considered too “old” for even our local “oldies” station, as they only play music from the 60s, 70s, and 80s.  But, they break their own rule and play “Blue Christmas” about ten times a day.  Christmas songs, if they’re popular enough, are the great musical equalizer.

Maybe that’s why I love Christmas music so much- my favorite artists, like the Beach Boys, are brought back into the public’s consciousness every Christmas with song like “The Little Saint Nick”.  Speaking of the Beach Boys, I was given an early Christmas present this year with the announcement of the Beach Boys’ 50th anniversary reunion tour and album.  I cannot even begin to express how excited I am about this.  It’s a dream come true.

Tonight’s video also has to do with the Beach Boys because it’s one of Brian Wilson’s original Christmas songs!  I’ve loved this song ever since I first got a semi-bootleg copy off of his website a few years ago.  Brian used to come out with a Christmas song each year and put it on his site for his fans.  So, I recorded it off of the site.  Thankfully, though, it came out as a bonus track on his recent Christmas album, “What I Really Want For Christmas”.  “On Christmas Day” is a great tune and has a nice chord progression to it.  I’m not sure if I’m the only one who notices this, but to me, it sounds an awful lot like “Belles of Paris” from the Beach Boys’ “MIU Album” in 1978.  Anyway, “On Christmas Day” is a better arrangement and is in a better key- Brian sounds great on his recording.

I chose to do this song on piano because I thought it would translate better than on acoustic guitar.  Plus, it felt more Christmasey (to quote another Brian Wilson Christmas song) to sit at the piano and sing a Christmas song.  I hope you enjoy my rendition!

I hope everyone has a healthy and happy New Year, too.  I’ll be back after the first of the year with an original song from my forthcoming album, “Those Around Us”.  Then, we’ll all celebrate the release of this new album on January 13th!  Take care and see you in 2012!

“Everyone’s In Love With You” (Beach Boys Cover)

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By Jim Fusco:

Welcome to another edition of the Laptop Sessions with Jim Fusco!  A quick update: the recording for my new album has been a fun process and every day I’m more and more excited to hear the finished results.  If you haven’t been following my progress, either go to my website at http://jimfusco.com or directly to my music Twitter feed @jimfuscomusic.

Tonight’s video is one from The Beach Boys- my favorite band of all time.  This song is from one of their most liked albums among fans.  Unfortunately, I don’t fall into that category.  “15 Big Ones” is an interesting album.  Sure, it’s the album where the other members finally got Brian Wilson back into the studio, but to me, it spelled the end of a once-great band.  You see, in the years leading up to “15 Big Ones”, the Beach Boys (the members other than Brian) were writing and producing some amazing music.  IN fact, “Sunflower” may be my favorite album from them.  But, as the nostalgia of the Beach Boys’ #1 greatest hits album, “Endless Summer”, grew in popularity, the band decided to get Brian back to the forefront.  Of course, Brian wasn’t really ready.  He’d been locked away in his room, listening to old music he loved from Fats Domino, Freddy Cannon, etc.  These were songs he loved as a kid and were what got him into rock’n’roll.

So, Brian wasn’t that interested in writing new songs- he ended up going into the studio and having the Boys record many of his old favorites, such as “Rock’n’Roll Music” and “Blueberry Hill”.  Those are the good ones on the album- I’m pretty sure they could’ve left off “A Casual Look” and made it “14 Big Ones” instead.

But, the pun in the title was because the Beach Boys had been a band for 15 years.  And, if I’m not mistaken, this was considered their 15th album.

It’s not a bad album, but it’s definitely dated now.  The synthesizer, brought to even more prominence on “Love You” from the next year, is hard to play for someone right now.  Playing “Palisades Park” for someone and saying, ‘This is from an album considered one of their best” doesn’t really make much of a case for potential fans.

Anyway, there are some great tracks on “15 Big Ones” though, including “It’s OK”.  Actually, I’ve already covered “Blueberry Hill”, “Just Once In My Life”, “Palisades Park” – I must like this album after all!  But, “Everyone’s In Love With You” is my favorite.  It’s definitely Mike Love at his best.  His vocals are sweet and it’s got a great melody.  Songs like this make me wish he had written more (that is, as long as they aren’t “Summer Of Love” from 1992).

I’ve always wondered if “Everyone’s In Love With You” had a bit of a racy meaning to it.  I mean, if you just literally listen to the words, you’ll see what I mean.  But, Mike has said the song is about transcendental meditation, which he was really into at the time.  It’s more of a feeling that everyone shares “love” with each other and individuality takes a back seat to a collective well-being.  At least, that’s what I’ve gained from the whole thing over the years…

I hope you enjoy this song- maybe it’ll prompt you to give “15 Big Ones” a shot someday.  It’s definitely worth a listen, I’ll say that.  I’m pretty busy for the next couple of weeks, but I won’t forget about the music blog.  I’ll be back with another great video soon, so stay-tuned!

“Farmer’s Daughter” (Beach Boys cover)

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By Jim Fusco:

Hello all! Here’s another song for the Laptop Sessions! This one is by request for an early Beach Boys tune called “Farmer’s Daughter”.  It’s a pretty cute little song (only four chords!) made exponentially harder because of the fact that it’s ALL sung in falsetto!  But, as Brian Wilson was about when he recorded this, I’m in my early 20s, so I think I hit the notes!  I, for one, love the songs from the very early Beach Boys albums.  It was definitely a different time.  It was before the Beatles made it big in America and there was an innocence to the music.  Of course, that’s why I love the music I love- I try not to listen to too many depressing songs.  For instance, I was starting to get in to Elliot Smith’s music.  But, as anyone who has heard of Elliot Smith knows, his songs are almost always dark and with an overtone of suicidal thoughts.  Elliot was a great musician and songwriter.  But, I could never become a huge fan because of the songs’ subject matter.  Listing to music has always been a source of joy for me, so I’ve decided to stay in my happy pre-Vietnam music world, smiling all the way. 🙂

Although, I will admit, “Farmer’s Daughter” is a bit too “vanilla”, even for me.  But, Brian Wilson sings it so sweetly and it works.  In fact, many of the songs from their early albums are a bit embarrassing to listen to now.  Remember “Chug a Lug”?  Probably not- it’s not that memorable.  But, basically, it’s about drinking beer…root beer!  I’ve played that song for people over the years and it’s embarrassing every time I do.  But for some reason, I really like that song.  It’s just a song a bunch of teenage friends, brothers, and cousins wrote and sang together for fun.  And their voices are so “cute” that you can’t help but smile while singing.

Speaking of SMiLE, I wonder if these early songs gave Brian Wilson some influence over his most notable work.  He wanted SMiLE to be something fun- something that was brilliant, but also made you not take the music so seriously.  He always seemed stuck in a child-like state.  I wonder if he looked back on these early songs and thought, “Yeah, I’d like to get back to that fun again.  How do I do that while still sounding cool, complex, and relevant?”

One other album I love so much (which you’ll see plenty of videos from here on the music blog) is the Beach Boys Christmas Album from 1964.  It’s one of my absolute favorite albums of all time.  Why?  Well, it fits all the criteria I listed above!  It’s great music with the wonderful innocence and happiness of Christmas built right in.  Nothing puts a bigger smile on my face (musically) than their Christmas songs.

I hope you enjoy, and stay tuned for many more updates to the Laptop Sessions Acoustic Cover Songs Music Video Blog in the coming days.

“Dream Angel” (Brian Wilson Cover)

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Hey, hey everyone and welcome to your “no bad stuff” edition of the Laptop Sessions.  Geesh, say one thing about your current state of well-being and they jump all over you… 🙂  Anyway, I’m back tonight with another acoustic cover song music video for you all to enjoy!

Things have been crazy lately, but what else is new.  I’ll be happy when my 2009 taxes are all done and the end is in sight.  I’m keeping my fingers crossed on a couple of fronts.  Work has been busy, as usual, but manageable.  I’m getting a bit worried about my after-work work (lack of productivity in recent days), but I hope to rectify that tomorrow night.  My 5k, that I’m running with my brother Mike, is coming up this weekend and there’s still plenty of training to do.  Also, we’ve set up three parties/get-togethers here at the new house for those who haven’t seen it yet.  Considering that we’ve lived here for four months now, these are people we haven’t seen in a long time, so it’ll be great to host them here.  This weekend, as well as the next two weekends after that, look to be fun and eventful.  It’ll be nice talking with my friends from my Italy trip and my old college buddies.

On the music front, I did three very important things tonight that I want to share with you before I get into the body of the post:

1. I got The Laptop Sessions music blog listed on about 200 Social Bookmarking sites (like Digg and Del.ic.ious).  This will give the site more inbound links and will give it a chance at some real popularity.  I’m hoping it will bring the site to new heights.  And it wasn’t too expensive (besides, I’ve been saving-up!).

2. I also submitted the music video blog to 195 directories with a Google PageRank 2 or higher!  This is really good, as these will count as 1-way inbound links that are categorized, so we should see some major increases in Google traffic soon.  I really hope many eyes will be seeing this site soon.  I’m really hoping for 2,400 views a day (we got almost 2,200 yesterday).

3. Finally, I did something I should’ve done about seven months ago- I registered my new album, “Halfway There” on CD Baby.  This allows me to sell the album digitally on services like iTunes and Amazon MP3.  I’m getting anxious (and a bit excited) to play shows again.  My brother and I are planning on attending a local open mic night in the next couple of weeks.  I’ll keep you posted on that.  There’s a couple more areas of promotion I want to try, but until the FMP Store is back up and running, I don’t want to spend the money.  Also, I’m hoping that I can get some new fans and finally sell some copies of “Halfway There”, as the production (not to mention the packaging and the album cover) is really good.

Okay- onto tonight’s acoustic cover song music video!

Everyone knows that Brian Wilson is my musical hero.  I’ve met the man, met his band, and was a big part of the online community.  That is, until life stepped-in.  After I moved-out, there was little time to read the message board and post my thoughts.  I hope those folks there will understand that a 25 year old just needs a bit of “growing up” time before he can join a community like that again.  We’ll see if they’re understanding.

A few weeks ago, I wanted to play Becky a song from Brian Wilson’s second solo album, “Imagination” from 1998.  I then realized that it wasn’t on my iPod!! How could this be??  With over 11,000 songs, I didn’t have one of my absolute favorites of all-time??  Then, I remembered- the family copy (that my father owns) is now scratched and/or just won’t rip into my iTunes.  I tried it a couple times back when I was making my collection, but it wouldn’t work.  So, while I was on a nice weekend trip with Becky over Valentine’s Day, we stopped at this cool (but kind of overpriced) underground (literally) record store in Northampton, MA.  They had a copy of “Imagination” on CD!!  So, I bought a used copy (that had never been played before) and we got to listen on the way home.

The album rekindled my love for the song “Dream Angel”.  This is a great tune with some amazing harmonies, all sung by Brian Wilson.  This is really a perfect song- a great sound, great vocals, and even a nifty guitar solo.  No, it’s not going to win any lyrical awards, but it’s a happy tune and that’s good enough for me.  Brian is really at his best, vocal-wise, in this song.  I’ve even placed it in my Top 10 songs list in the past- looking back, I think it was a wise decision.

If you’ve heard the song before, you know what I’m talking about.  If not, then you’re about to hear a great tune and I hope you’ll listen to the rest of “Imagination”, too!  I hope you enjoy my acoustic cover version of this song- I’m back on the nylon string guitar tonight.  It gave a more smooth sound and it was so fun to play.  Make sure to watch it in HD, too!  Because not only is the picture clearer, but the audio is done at a higher quality, as well.  I hope you enjoy tonight’s Laptop Session and come back next Tuesday for an all-new video from a new artist on the blog.  And this is a big one- they’ve had NUMEROUS Number One hits and they’re one of the most popular acts of the past 30 years.  Why haven’t we covered a song from them yet?  Well, I’ll explain that next week.  And, see if you can guess in the meantime.  First correct guess gets a free CD!  Talk to next Tuesday.