Tu eres un sellout

You may notice on the right side of the page (an area of stylized HTML deemed by some Spanish-speaking, law-studying members of the general audience to have become too commercial) that I've linked to three particular albums. These, my English-speaking amigos, are the CD's that I always associate with Christmastime. It was 1996 when I first got into R.E.M. with the appropriately titled New Adventures in Hi-Fi, and that Christmas was when I first starting working my way backwards through the band's catalogue. Monster is still one of my favorite albums, and how "Star 69" has been overlooked as one of the greatest pop songs I shan't ever know.

As for Beck's Midnite Vultures, I had to wait a whole month after its November 1999 release date before I could sit and listen to this amazing record. (Nowadays I've usually heard albums a whole month before their release date.) I imagine this will be a great party album in any decade, and to this day "Debra" still remains the funniest song I have ever heard (best falsetto too, Monster's "Tongue" being second). Bonus trivia: the hilarious video for Beck's "Sexx Laws," featuring copulating kitchen inventory, was also the first time I heard uttered the word "booya," delivered by none other than Jack Black.



Christmas eve 2002, I didn't know who or what Ryan Adams was, had never heard him sing. I got Gold solely on the basis of his critical acclaim. I would wager this is done by many people more than it's admitted nowadays, but in my case the gamble paid off. Adams now takes up a disproportionate amount of my iPod's memory, due in no small part to his compendium of songwriting. I recall listening to "La Cienega Just Smiled" over and over, overlooking the Northern Arm of the Halifax Harbour. I also remember the oversized bottles of Corona my father bought for no reason for me and my brothers to share that Christmas.

So what albums do you always associate with the holidays? (Not you O, tu puedes besar mi cu- ay jus kidding!)