Sunday, December 23, 2012

BEST VERSIONS OF "SLEIGH RIDE"

I am not a big fan of Christmas music. The problem for me is repetition or just plain awfulness. There are some songs that should be exclusive to the person that introduced it. The perfect example of this is "Happy Xmas (The War Is Over)" by John Lennon. There have been several bad cover versions in the past few years. The original is the best.

There are those novelties that we once heard only on Dr. Demento or once a year. Now thanks to radio's obsession with "wall-to-wall" Christmas music (to mask mass layoffs by the corporate radio outlets), these songs get beat to death. Yes, I am thinking of both "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" and "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer."

I have come to the conclusion that "Sleigh Ride" is a perfect song that you can not ruin, especially if you do it as an instrumental. Let me give you my nominations for the top five versions of "Sleigh Ride."
  1. Arthur Fiddler & the Boston Pops with Leroy Anderson (The Original)
  2. The Ventures ("Walk Don't Run" style)
  3. Herb Alpert & The Tiajuana Brass
  4. Al Caiola
  5. Lex Baxter with Ferrante & Teichner   

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