Back in 1963, Phil Spector forever transformed the landscape of what we consider 'Christmas Music' by merging his iconic wall-of-sound technique with the holiday season on A Christmas Gift To You. From that point on, Christmas songs were characterized by a rich, layered sound featuring tubular bells and horns. This blueprint was adopted by Wizzard, Mariah Carey, and even Leona Lewis a few years ago. Michael Bublé, however, steers clear of it, which explains why his Christmas tracks fall flat. And yes, Sia also embraces this approach on this year's most popular festive album.
Crucially, the finest Christmas (or 'holiday,' ugh) tunes leave a lasting impression. At the end of his record, Spector included a message thanking listeners for supporting his "endeavour and desire to bring something new and different to the music of Christmas." Christmas albums can be split into two categories: those that follow Spector's example in trying to innovate within the seasonal genre, and those that merely imitate past successes. In the first group, we find the aforementioned Mariah and Wizzard, along with Wham!, Slade, and the Pogues. You know these songs; they've been part of your life forever. Then there's the other side—the try-hards that stick to a formula and quickly fade away. This includes also-rans like Leona Lewis's 'One More Sleep' and Kelly Clarkson's 'Wrapped Up In Red,' songs that came and went without leaving any mark. You could even place The Darkness's 'Christmas Time (Don't Let The Bells End)' here, which gets played less each year. They tried to emulate Wizzard but left little to remember.
Everyday Is Christmas aims for the first category—the leave-your-own-mark pile. Though it's a seasonal special, it remains first and foremost a Sia album, featuring hooks so sharp they'll burrow into your brain and cause lasting damage before you even notice. It brings a certain off-kilter approach to its subject, an outsider's perspective, and delivers some of the best ballads in the business. While Sia Furler and producer Greg Kurstin don't quite reach the pop complexity and depth of last year's This Is Acting, Everyday Is Christmas successfully grafts a taste of her quirky genius onto the universal, Spector-approved language of the modern carol. 'Candy Cane Lane' is a perfect example: lyrically, it's light—essentially a song about eating candy canes—but the chorus is a showstopper. When Furler sings "bring a friend this holiday, bring a friend who loves to play, we'll eat all the candy canes," you genuinely want to join the party. It's practically Shakespeare compared to 'Ho Ho Ho,' which repeats the theme of bringing friends to a bash, only with added "ho ho ho"s—forty-five of them, to be exact. It's a hook you won't be able to shake until at least February 4th. The track features a fabulously jaunty brass part and is extremely danceable—perfect for a Christmas party.
The ballads are more intriguing. 'Snowman' takes the concept of a frozen friend coming to life to a slightly more extreme place than Raymond Briggs's classic, but it's no less heartbreaking. Again, Furler keeps things simple: it's a song about falling in love with a snowman and watching him melt. When she sings, "who'll carry me without legs to run…Who'll hear my secrets if you don't have ears?" you feel genuine heartbreak. Even better is 'Snowflake,' which admittedly repeats the lyrical trick of begging a frozen thing not to melt, but with a more abstract twist. The modern, metaphorical use of the word 'snowflake' seems to hover just out of reach, adding a touch of wry depth to an already lovely piece.
This isn't a gold-standard Sia album by any stretch, but it works because she understands both that festive records are a once-a-year genre and that they only succeed when you blend a bit of yourself into the mix, along with the sixpence and the spice.
