Warmth, magic, excess, music, light: Christmas is the proggiest time of year.

A lot of prog bands have Christmas songs. For a while, I wondered if there was something about Christmas that appealed particularly to proggy types. Then I realised that there are also multiple Christmas folk songs, punk songs, rap songs, jazz songs, and yep, new age songs. Christmas isn’t just a wonderful time of year for the proggy. It’s a wonderful time of year for everyone.

Nonetheless, there’s something especially beautiful about a Christmas prog song. But then, I would think that.

One thing I find endearing is that Christmas tends to bring out the proggy side of non-prog artists. The Pogues’ Fairytale of New York is operatic in its structure. Cliff’s masterful Saviour’s Day is a sweeping Goliath of a song, complete with stirring pan pipe solo. Clearly, there’s something in the air at this time of year.

Let’s explore some of the best Christmas prog songs, together.

Continue reading →

At this time of year, I always feel hungover.

I feel HERT: Heavy, emotional, regretful, tired.

Throughout October, I like to listen to dark, macabre, spooky and fun music. Throughout December, I listen religiously to Christmas music.

In the gap between these two periods, I’m drawn to music that matches the weightiness of the season.

There’s no simple way to describe this music. It’s laddish yet sensitive post-Britpop indie rock defined by its plaintive vocals and “anthemic” choruses, performed by earnest young British or Irish men with nice shirts and mid-length hair. The cool kids, who are wrong about everything, used to call it “bedwetter music”. This is only because they’re terrified of their feelings. I have a better term: Music for a cry and a pint.

Context is everything. When I say “a cry and a pint”, please don’t picture anything solitary – a drink nursed over the course of an hour by a sad individual in the corner of a pub. No, I want you to picture something that’s almost the opposite: A pint held aloft, one of many thousands held aloft in the same room or field. Holding the pint aloft, a noble individual, basking in the raw emotion of the music, elated by the sense of community, feeling like a part of something bigger than themselves yet, at the same time, feeling at one with their feelings. And for this individual, to feel at one with their feelings is a rare feeling indeed.

Music for a cry and a pint is music that’s designed to be bellowed along to by crowds who want something emotional yet comforting. This is music to be sung in the summer by sozzled and sunburned festival crowds. But it’s perfect for this time of year too, when the days are short and cold and things are getting critical.

Let’s explore some of the best music for a cry and a pint, together. For each song, I’m going to highlight the Bit to Bellow Along To With a Pint (BTBATWAP). And to best evoke the unselfconscious abandon that surges through normally-reserved crowds when the beer flows and the song reaches its peak, I’ll be writing these sections ENTIRELY IN CAPITALS.

It’s usually the chorus. It’s always the chorus.

But these songs are by no means the finest songs by each respective band. So in each case, I’ll also highlight another song from the same band, from the same album – one that offers slightly subtler catharsis. Perhaps one for that solitary pint and cry. One to take home with you, then, to treasure when the roar of the crowd has faded to a painful, distant memory.

UPDATE: I have now created a 50-song playlist for a cry and a pint:

Continue reading →