Musical advent calendar: Crash Test Dummies, The First Noel

What happens when a hipster band makes an unabashedly straight-up Christmas classic? That's pretty much the tale of Crash Test Dummies and their splendid version of The First Noel, which they cut for a 1991 compilation record called A Lump of Coal. That kind of title suggested winking and irony, and the video for the cut below shows an appreciation of cheese. (Ellen Reid's smile at the start of the song says it all, but then just listen a little while later to her harmony vocal, which gives a lump in the throat, and not of coal.) The key to the track, of course, is Brad Davis's deep, rich voice.

You can also find the track on the Dummies' own 2002 Christmas record, Jingle All The Way (the cover is above), which is a bit of a mixed bag. It's packed with cheeky wit, but - again - the band confounds you with two cuts that are as unironic as can be: Reid singing lead on both In The Bleak Midwinter and O Little Town of Bethlehem, which is rendered with an alt-country kind of vibe.

Here's the video:

This is the seventh entry in a musical sort of advent calendar I'm writing this year. Check in every day until Christmas Eve for more.

Comments

[RS]

Awesome, I used to love those guys.