Thursday Thunderdome: Jingle Hells

You all know how this works; two things enter, one thing leaves.

With the holidays right around the corner, it's only right that this episode of the
Thunderdome deal with one of the best parts of this whole season: The Music.

Holiday music is an odd thing, because if you take a second or two to browse through iTunes it becomes instantly clear that they're still making it (a lot of it, in fact) -- but when you get right down to it, there are still really only like half a dozen songs that people want to hear.

There are literally thousands of versions of Irving Berlin's White Christmas recorded by artists in every genre you can think of -- but really when people put that song on at a holiday party or whatever, there's really only one or two versions that count.

If it's not Bing Crosby, most people sort of turn their nose up at it.

A big part of that I suppose has to do with tradition, and the fact that for whatever reason the Christmas holiday that was depicted in all those old Currier and Ives postcards and Frank Capra movies has become the gold standard of what Christmas should be. Regardless of the fact that the vast majority of those images are over sixty years old, apparently they were like the best Christmases ever, and nothing that's happened since has been worth a crap.

And sure, the holiday has become so overwhelmingly commercialized since then that it's easy to kind of hold one up over the other -- but I would argue that just because what we think of first nowadays might be presents and shopping and whatever doesn't mean that the spirit of togetherness and giving has diminished any. We express it in different ways now than perhaps we did in the 40's and 50's -- but when that morning comes around and you see children racing down the stairs all excited to see what is under the tree hoping that your most secret of wishes have been granted, there's just no way you'll ever convince me that it was Madison Avenue that put that light in their eyes.

But if you were to judge simply by the music, you'd maybe think
that Christmas had kinda peaked somewhere in the early 1960's.

So what's a modern kid to do when they want to update their menu of Christmas song choices, but can't really bring themselves to listen to Mariah Carey add those glass-shattering high falsetto notes of hers to your favorite Holiday tunes without vomiting?

If you're a metalhead -- your choices are even more limited than most, largely because of the way that the religious overtones in the holiday tend to clash with the largely anti-religious image that most of that music projects.

But that doesn't mean there aren't songs in the genre to choose from.

So the question before you is this: Of the two clips below -- Which heavy metal Christmas song is the best, and why?

King Diamond -- No Presents for Christmas



Karkis -- Secret Satan

Here are the rules: First, you can only pick one. If you love them both, you have to pick the one that you liked the most.

But here's the twist.

In order for your vote to be counted, you must also tell me the name of your favorite modern-era Christmas song, and why you like it (a link to a youtube version of it would also be nice, but certainly isn't a requirement). It doesn't have to be a metal song -- but I would prefer it to be something from the last 2-3 decades. I figure if we get enough of these together, we can put together a carolling group to go door to door and sing them for everybody -- just to get the Christmas spirit rolling.

Happy Holidays, everyone.

[Listening To:  Mike Keneally – "'Cause of Breakfast" ]