Tag Archives: laptop sessions

Ranking every Beach Boys song/album: The Beach Boys Christmas Album (by Songwriter Jim Fusco)

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By Jim Fusco:

BEACH BOYS CHRISTMAS ALBUM:

We Three Kings of Orient Are – 9.5
*Little Saint Nick (single) – 10
Little Saint Nick (album) – 9.5
*Our Father – 5
*Auld Lang Syne (alternate) – 5
Santa’s Beard – 7 (LOVE the chord progression and the combination of Mike’s low part and Brian’s high part on “He wants to meet old Santa Claus”)
Christmas Day – 6
I’ll Be Home for Christmas – 7 (I consider this the standard for this song)
The Man with All the Toys – 7.5 (The same reason why I like this song is the reason why it gets docked some points. It has this “dark” sound to it that kinda doesn’t sound very Christmas-song like. However, I like the darker sound because I love those dark Christmastime nights)
Blue Christmas – 6.5
White Christmas – 6
*Little Saint Nick (alternate) – 6.5
Merry Christmas, Baby – 7
Santa Claus is Coming to Town – 5
Frosty the Snowman – 5
Auld Lang Syne – 4 (They couldn’t have done ONE more take to let Dennis have another chance?)

** This is one of my favorite albums. That doesn’t mean it’s the best by any means, but this always makes me SO happy. I have 200 Christmas songs and know how to play most of them. I love Christmas and everything that goes with it. This album contains songs that make me SO happy every time I listen to them, that it automatically brings back memories. I love Elvis’ first Christmas album because of that, too. Something about that innocence and that late ’50s, early ’60s Christmas time vibe… I’ll never live in that kind of world. I’ll never get to experience that, seeing as I grew up in the ’90s (and still growing, in fact, at 23). I hope to give my future children Christmases like that, and that’s why every note on this album is like gold to me. I listen to it about 50 times a year- more than any other album. I know the songs aren’t perfect and the recording sounds a bit rushed, at best. But, they’re voices are at top-notch form here. Classic. **

The Weekend Review: January 2013 Report

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By Chris Moore:

Heartthrob (Tegan and Sara)

Producer: Greg Kurstin, Mike Elizondo, Justin Meldal-Johnsen, & Rob Cavallo

Released: January 29, 2013

Rating: 3.5 / 5 stars

Top Two Tracks: “Drove Me Wild” & “Closer”

 

When I read in advance that Tegan and Sara had “gone pop” for their latest album, my first response was one of profound hesitation.  After all, I’ve found the band’s previous efforts to lack a certain dynamic energy that I’ve always felt was possible, and it has in large part been their identity as co-songwriters and musicians that has kept me coming back for more.  On Heartthrob, the former remains but the latter has been somewhat displaced by the practicalities of pop music (i.e., programming and the like).  However, much to my surprise, this new approach to their sound has reinvigorated their music and unforeseen strengths in their style have arisen.  In short, pop suits them.  From the infectiously catchy opener and lead single “Closer” (with a wonderfully conspicuous wink on the chorus line embellishment, made literal in the music video) to the retro-flavored gem “Drove Me Wild,” the songs maintain a uniform sound, but always with a hook or other appeal.  On previous efforts, as I’ve written, I’ve found Tegan and Sara’s music to suffer at times from the “half and done” songwriting under which there are no new movements or lyrics after the halfway point.  Here, where that does happen, it blends in and works, and my best guess as to why I feel this way is that pop music operates under different rules than rock.  If you’re interested in a flashback to the eighties blended with a clear dose of the contemporary, a band with rock sensibilities turned pop, Tegan and Sara’s Heartthrob is probably the next album for you.  I know that, for me, it has been difficult to break the circuit with this, their latest eminently listenable and fun record, on numerous occasions.

“Better Man” (Pearl Jam Cover)

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By Jeff Copperthite:

Good evening to you all! It’s Jeff Copperthite returning for another Saturday night fever edition of The Laptop Sessions! I’m back to school this week, and i’m sure if you are a student, or have children who are students, I feel your pain. Except mine is the “I have to get back into teaching mode” pain.

However, session-a-day must go on! We are nearing September, which means 2/3 of the year is nearly complete since we started this project. And not a day goes by that Jim, Chris, and myself mutter under our breath “What was Chris thinking?”.

But it will all be worth it – it already all is. That’s because you’re reading this, and have enjoyed nearly 200 videos from the four of us. I also want to thank Mike for jumping in with an awesome original song on Wednesday. Given that I haven’t been doing much writing lately, and Mike had expressed a lot of interest in doing an original, it was the natural thing to do.

Today’s song is one from Pearl Jam – a band that we have seen before on the sessions. I am covering another song from their album “Vitalogy” called “Better Man”. It starts out soft and gets much stronger and emphasized in the last part. This song received (and still does receive) much airplay on the radio.

I don’t feel this is my strongest performance, but it works much better than I thought it did while recording. Note to future artists – never eat a pack of Nutter Butters before recording a video. You’ll have to cancel it out with 1/2 a Gatorade and a Vitamin Water (“Water sucks – Gatorade is better”, to quote the Waterboy).

Anyway, enjoy this latest entry, and check back for your Sunday! Sunday! Sunday! edition with Jimnelious…er, Jim Fusco!

Editor’s Note: Unfortunately, Jeff’s acoustic cover song music videos are no longer on YouTube, but we decided to keep his cover song blog posts up.  We figured these music blog entries would be good for posterity’s sake and because Jeff always gave such insightful posts each Session.  We hope to see Jeff’s impressive catalog of acoustic rock songs here on the Laptop Sessions cover songs and original music blog again in the future.  But, for now, please make sure to check-out hundreds of other acoustic cover songs from all of your favorite bands here on the Laptop Sessions music blog!

“Set You Free This Time” (Byrds Cover)

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By Chris Moore:

Well, after all the fun we had last time, the boys of The Laptop Sessions acoustic cover songs music video blog are back for another Triple Tuesday Special on guitarbucketlist.com. Jeff, the innovator for this event, called me up this weekend and I couldn’t resist!

Here’s my version of a great Byrds tune, “Set You Free This Time.” It’s from their 1965 album Turn! Turn! Turn! and it’s another Gene Clark original. He’s such an underrated songwriter, and I like him more and more every time I listen to his material. And “Set You Free This Time” is such a great song, it deserves to have all three of us give it a shot. The song is very introspective- I wonder if he was writing it about a specific someone, or if it’s just a feeling he had (or was thinking about). For 1965, it was pretty innovative- pop music really didn’t take that turn (turn, turn) until a little while later. Gene Clark always struck me as the same kind of guy that played the lead songwriter (Jimmy) in “That Thing You Do”. He wrote these sad, introspective songs. Then, they were turned into pop hits. But some were just meant to be slow and sad. I’m sure Gene Clark fought with his producers, as well. This song was featured on the second and last Byrds album Gene would appear on (in the 60s, at least).

Jim and Jeff posted their versions below mine so you’ll be able to take your pick…or, hopefully, listen to all three!

As a side note, I would like to thank everyone who frequents my videos. Just yesterday, I accepted my 50th subscriber on YouTube (who, of course, received a coupon, as promised by Jim), and today I’m up to 55. I really appreciate your watching and especially commenting both here and on YouTube!

I hope you’ll continue to check out guitarbucketlist.com as we update the site with new videos every day in 2008!