Christmas with No Hats

Longtime readers know that two of my favorite rock bands are Jethro Tull and Men Without Hats. As it turns out, both released new albums this year, and I picked up both this month.

The Jethro Tull Christmas Album is easily the better of the two. At first I was mildly disappointed in it since about half of the tracks are new recordings of earlier songs from throughout their history: "A Christmas Song", "Another Christmas Song", "Ring Out, Solstice Bells", "Fire At Midnight", "Weathercock", "Jack Frost and the Hooded Crow". Still, these are all quite good songs and the new renditions - while not very different from the original versions - are enjoyable twists.

The album overall has a strong acoustic feel, and fits very nicely with Ian Anderson's solo album of earlier this year, Rupi's Dance, about which I've probably gushed before. It contains versions of a number of traditional carols, sounding a bit on those tracks like a more inventive version of A Fresh Aire Christmas.

The original tracks, most notably "Birthday Card at Christmas", are also quite good. The album's lyrics really consolidate Anderson's attitude towards Christmas (also spelled out in the liner notes) clearly: An appreciation of the season, and the spirit of celebration and family, while disdaining its excesses and not seeing it only in the Christian light that many do.

Another thing that TJTCA and Rupi's Dance show, which I suspect many miss, is this: Nearly 20 years ago, Tull took a 3-year hiatus, reportedly because Anderson was having problems with his throat and/or vocal chords. Their albums in the late 80s and early 90s - though including several fine efforts - seemed to confirm this, as Anderson's vocal range and expressiveness seemed severely diminished (I saw the band in concert in 1989, and they performed very little from their 1975-1984 recordings). While it seems doubtful he'll ever recapture his physical abilities of the mid-90s, Anderson's latest work seems to show greater vocal ability than he's displayed in many, many years. As a result, the performances seem fuller and more satisfying than anything he's done since the 1970s.

And that, for Tull fans everywhere, is a Christmas present well worth receiving.

At the other end of the spectrum, No Hats Beyond This Point is a colossal disappointment.

A little background: Canadian group Men Without Hats were one of the quirkier synthesized dance-pop groups in the 1980s. By-and-large I hated 80s music, which seemed mostly style-over-substance stuff, banal and uninteresting. MWH had the initial hook of Ivan Doroschuk's deep, expressive vocals overlaying their synth-heavy compositions (they're best known, of course, for "The Safety Dance"). But although they continued to produce fairly light pop songs, their overall sound became more complex, as they moved to use synthesizers to sound like a full band rather than just a collection of weird or industrial sounds. (They even mixed in short acoustic tunes from time to time.)

They disbanded after their 1991 album (their fifth), and Ivan released a solo album in the mid-90s. Now they've re-formed (whatever that means, since the band is basically Ivan and his brother Stefan, and whoever else they recruit) and released NHBTP.

And, very strangely, it's a straightforward pop album, sounding entirely synthesized, and using its synthesizers to... produce a collection of weird sounds.

Even Ivan's voice can't save the overall sound from the retro 80s feel - not quite as bizarre as if Scritti Politti had come back from the dead, but still very odd. The decent compositions, such as "In California", "Roses" and "Dreaming", are buried under the electronic silliness. Then there's "How Does It Feel", which might be a decent ballad if it weren't for the boingy twanging in the background. And also the rather embarrassing "Body", whose melody seems forced and whose lyrics seem beyond trite.

They do get points for "Telepathy", though, which satirizes The Buggles with a goofy melody and the funny lyrics, "Internet killed the video star... and telepathy killed the internet star." Chuckle.

But overall this feels like a huge step back for the Hats, who were last seen playing with electronic filtering of traditional electric rock instruments on the excellent Sideways. NHBTP feels like those 80s pop groups from whom the Hats worked to distinguish themselves. It's the last sort of thing I'd have expected from them.

If you want to check out the Hats at their best, track down a copy of Pop Goes the World, which is a wonderful example of synth-pop. I especially recommend the track "O Sole Mio".