August 2013 – Christmas Underground

I just wanted to take a moment and say how much I love Bandcamp. Bandcamp is the first digital provider that I don’t feel ripped off by – giving me the opportunity to download lossless audio, as well as, at times, buy a physical object (which I often do!). I like the simple layout, the relatively-new collection feature that shows what you and others have bought (great for going down that rabbit hole), and the ever-expanding ability to surf through the entire Bandcamp library with greater ease. I would like to encourage every band I know to get onto Bandcamp, to take advantage of their better percentages (10-15% vs. the 30% iTunes takes!) and lack of any startup or maintenance fees. Please… if you have released a fantastic Christmas tune and offered it up for free on your website, continue doing so. But for those of us who would love a FLAC… we will pay for that. Throw it on there – what do you have to lose?? Wouldn’t it be great if everyone was happy to pay for music again, even when they are paying for downloads?

Canarie Records/Self-Released?
Buy: Good Luck!

Many moons ago, Swedesplease hipped me to this wonderful, odd little Christmas tune. The anti-christmas lyrics, the rough-around-the-edges vocals, the sparse guitar arrangement and beautiful horn interplay have placed this track solidly in my own personal “classics” collection. I now find myself wanting to learn more about the band in question, Oh Sweet Music. So, after some basic research, which takes some serious digging, I have come up with a few items I believe to be (relatively) true. First, the band is fronted by a man of the name of Magnus Nordström. This turns out to be quite a popular name in Sweden, and has thwarted my attempts to find him on Facebook. Secondly, he was also in a band called Piotor. Each of his bands appear to only have MySpace pages, and they haven’t been attended to in years. Thirdly, he recorded on Canarie Records in Sweden, and appeared on a Series Two Records compilation in the US. Canarie Records appears to be long-gone, and Series Two stopped releasing records in 2010. What I would give for an e-mail address, simply to thank him for the songs (I’ve found about four Oh Sweet Music tunes still available around the net), and perhaps suggest a Bandcamp page where his music can live on with high fidelity downloads and a few bucks in his pocket.

So, I throw out in to the ether, Magnus Nordström, please create a Bandcamp page for your old recordings. I will buy them.

Also, it appears that everyone thinks this song is called “Oh Sweet Christmas,” rather than “(Fly Away For) Christmas,” as it was originally titled (or so I assume… based that it makes sense from the lyrics, and is titled such in the earliest instance of the song being posted.)

Download the song here – I found a link that was still live!

Bottom Line: An interesting original with a rough edge, sung by Swedes who, try as they might to fight it, have quite an ear for pop music. 5/5

Month: August 2013

Bandcamp

Oh Sweet Music! “(Fly Away For) Christmas” (2005)