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      7 Podcasts to Binge in a Day

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      Whether you’re craving a thriller, a spy documentary or an exploration of an American musical icon, each of these limited series can be enjoyed in one big gulp.One full year into the pandemic, the end is finally in sight. President Biden has promised to make every American adult eligible for vaccination by May, with the goal of a return to some version of normal life by the summer. Until then, though, we still need to find ways to hunker down and pass the time. And if you’ve already exhausted your Netflix queue and made your way through this year’s Oscar contenders, consider making your next binge an audio one.Whether you’re craving a twisty thriller, a quirky spy documentary or an award-winning exploration of an American musical icon, each of these seven limited series can be enjoyed in a single daylong gulp.‘Wind of Change’There’s no shortage of conspiracy theories about the Central Intelligence Agency — including a claim that it actually invented the term “conspiracy theory” — but none quite like the one at the heart of this eight-part nonfiction series. Here’s the premise: The C.I.A. orchestrated the writing of “Wind of Change,” an anthemic power ballad by the German heavy metal band Scorpions. Why? As part of a covert campaign to undermine the Soviet Union during the Cold War, of course. Hosted by Patrick Radden Keefe, a writer for The New Yorker, this podcast from Crooked Media take the listener on a labyrinth of a story, one that encompasses interviews with ex-spies and aging rockers alike, and may change the way you see pop culture forever.Starter episode: “My Friend Michael”‘Dirty John’Wondery, now a podcasting powerhouse that was recently purchased by Amazon, enjoyed its breakout moment in the fall of 2017, when the network (in tandem with The Los Angeles Times) released the first few episodes of its gripping saga about an abusive con artist and the women he almost destroyed. That show, “Dirty John,” takes place in the idyllic oceanfront setting of Orange County, Calif., where Debra Newell is about to go on a first date with a dreamy doctor named John Meehan. Suffice it to say, Meehan is not what he seems. A TV version was released on Bravo in 2018, but nothing matches the raw force of the audio original — particularly the breathtaking finale, in which Meehan’s disturbing behavior reaches its awful zenith.Starter episode: “The Real Thing”‘The Mystery Show’Picture this: you rent a video from a video store, back when those were a thing. The following day, you go to return the video only to discover that the store is gone. You’re not lost or confused — the store has genuinely vanished. This “Twilight Zone”-esque experience is just one of the real life mysteries that Starlee Kine investigates in “The Mystery Show,” an early hit from Gimlet Media. After the murder mystery “Serial” changed podcasting forever in 2014, there was an onslaught of copycat shows trying to cash in on the same formula by re-examining cold cases. Kine, though, focuses on low-stakes puzzles that involve no true crimes, but are nonetheless utterly captivating.Starter episode: “Case #1: Video Store”‘Passenger List’Blending the old-school pleasures of a radio play with a distinctly modern premise, ‘Passenger List’ is one of the best fictional podcasts of recent years. After a flight from London to New York disappears without a trace somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, the twin sister of one of the doomed passengers (played by Kelly Marie Tran) sets out to uncover the truth about what really happened. Playing on timely anxieties surrounding events like the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines 370, the show from PRX’s “Radiotopia” is both an addictive popcorn thriller for your ears, and now an unexpectedly nostalgic treat for those missing air travel.Starter episode: “Traffic”‘Dolly Parton’s America’You don’t have to be into country music in general, or Dolly Parton in particular, to be pulled in by this Peabody-winning exploration of how the multifaceted star became such an enduring icon. Although much of the show from WNYC Studios is taken up with conversations about just how beloved Parton is by everybody who knows her, “Dolly Parton’s America” avoids hagiography by taking its title seriously, exploring the Dollyverse against a broader national backdrop. The host, Jad Abumrad (“Radiolab”), begins the series by explaining his own connection to the star — he hails from Tennessee just like Parton — and the moment in 2016 that made him see her as a unifying force in an otherwise divided nation. Featuring interviews with musicians, historians, fans and with Parton herself, this is the kind of nuanced and intimate profile that audio does best.Starter episode: “Sad Ass Songs”‘Escaping Nxivm’Last year saw the release of two buzzy rival documentaries about the sex trafficking cult Nxivm, whose leader, Keith Raniere, was recently sentenced to 120 years in prison. But long before either show, CBC Radio was the first to delve into the horrifying and deeply peculiar world of Nxivm, whose members famously included the “Smallville” actress Allison Mack and the liquor heiress Clare Bronfman. In “Escaping Nxivm,”, the first season of CBC’s ongoing “Uncover” podcast series, the journalist Josh Bloch interviews Sarah Edmondson, a former key member of Nxivm who has now become its most famous whistle-blower. An actress by trade, Edmonson makes for a compelling central figure, her voice vividly emotional as she recalls the nightmarish ways Raniere and his chosen leaders gradually chipped away at her sense of self. A tough listen that showcases the unique intimacy of podcasting.Starter episode: “The Branding”‘Bag Man’Many podcasts have found success by re-examining well-known political scandals through a fresh lens (most notably Slate’s “Slow Burn”), but this gem from MSNBC pulls off the same trick with a scandal that almost nobody remembers. That’s because Watergate was dominating headlines at the time, but in “Bag Man,” Rachel Maddow pulls back the curtain on an adjacent 1973 investigation that saw vice president Spiro Agnew accused of brazen political corruption. Maddow does not hesitate to point out what she sees as parallels to President Trump — Agnew angrily dismissed the investigation as a “witch hunt” in one example — and for anyone missing the juicy palace intrigue stories that came out of the Trump White House, this is a must-listen.Starter episode: “An Unsettling Secret” More

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      Dolly Parton Statue Has Tennessee’s Support, but Not Parton’s

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyDolly Parton Statue Has Tennessee’s Support, but Not Parton’sThe state legislature was considering a bill that would kick off plans to erect the statue on Capitol grounds. She has asked that the bill be pulled.“Given all that is going on in the world, I don’t think putting me on a pedestal is appropriate at this time,” Parton said in a statement.Credit…Robyn Beck/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFeb. 18, 2021, 2:14 p.m. ETIt was something that Democrats and Republicans in Nashville could agree on: a statue of the country music legend Dolly Parton on the grounds of the State Capitol.The only problem? It doesn’t have Parton’s vote.The singer released a statement on Thursday asking the Tennessee General Assembly to pull a bill that would have started the process for commissioning a statue of her.“Given all that is going on in the world, I don’t think putting me on a pedestal is appropriate at this time,” Parton said in the statement, which was posted on Twitter and Instagram.A monument to Parton gained support during a debate over whether to remove the bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a former Confederate general, slave trader and leader of the Ku Klux Klan, from the Tennessee State Capitol. In 2019, a Republican House leader, Representative Jeremy Faison, suggested Parton as a potential replacement for the Forrest bronze; in January, a Democratic legislator, Representative John Mark Windle, introduced a bill to initiate plans for the statue on Capitol grounds. According to the bill, the statue would be positioned to face Ryman Auditorium, a storied country music venue.In her statement, Parton, 75, left the option open for a statue to be erected in the future, writing, “I hope, though, that somewhere down the road several years from now or perhaps after I’m gone if you still feel I deserve it, then I’m certain I will stand proud in our great State Capitol as a grateful Tennessean.”The singer was being considered for her role in country music history, her philanthropy and her strong Tennessee roots. (She was born in Sevierville, Tenn., or as she likes to say, “the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains.”) It helped that Parton has long kept her political opinions to herself, saying in the 2019 podcast series “Dolly Parton’s America” that she avoided the subject because “I have too many fans on both sides of the fence.”Representative Windle’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether he planned to remove the bill from consideration. The bill was scheduled to be considered by a House committee on Tuesday.On social media, Parton’s statement asking for the monument plans to be put aside drew plaudits from fans and fellow musicians who called her a “national treasure,” making some even more confident that the singer was deserving of such a tribute.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      What Frustrated Workers Heard in That Dolly Parton Ad

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyScreenlandWhat Frustrated Workers Heard in That Dolly Parton AdA protest song about degrading work becomes a rousing call to do even more work after that.Credit…Photo illustration by Najeebah Al-GhadbanFeb. 18, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETWe open to shades of gray and beige and what must be the world’s dullest office. In case you didn’t notice the overwhelming tedium, though, there’s help: One actor’s heavy eyelids are dragging his whole body downward, and another, slumped onto one elbow, seems to be collapsing so thoroughly into his desk that he might merge with it. By the time we see papers thudding into the inbox of a young woman — the camera loses focus as she contemplates the files, as if it shares her despair — we’ve gotten the message: Work is where joy goes to die.Then a flicker of hope crosses the woman’s face. She has looked up at the clock, which is moments away from striking 5. She opens her laptop, where we see our first glimpse of real color, in the website for a dance-fitness business she’s starting. After one last edit, she hits publish, then closes the laptop to an office transformed. Her gray sweater is now a red tank top, and she dances past her officemates, all now in bright outfits, converting their cubicles into creative small businesses: an art studio, a bakery, a woodworking shop, a landscaping business that seems to specialize in topiary sculptures, something involving scuba. Their life force is restored, because their jobs and their dreams are now one.The message is familiar, and classically American: bootstraps and businesses, Horatio Alger for the Instagram generation. If this ad — aired by Squarespace, a service for building and hosting websites, during this year’s Super Bowl — had only had a different soundtrack, it might well have been forgotten by Monday.But all this was set to Dolly Parton singing a reimagined version of her famous “9 to 5,” originally written for the hit 1980 comedy of the same name. In that movie, Parton, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin play office workers who semiaccidentally kidnap their sexist boss and, in his absence, transform their office, offering flexible hours, on-site child care and equal pay for men and women. The movie, in turn, was inspired by real women: a group of Boston secretaries who banded together in 1973 to fight against degrading and unfair working conditions. They are the ones who named their cause after the eight daily hours of their lives they wanted to make better.The updated song moves work into the remaining hours: It’s called “5 to 9,” and it is, according to Squarespace, “a modern rallying cry for all the dreamers working to turn an after-hours passion or project into a career.” The two songs are bizarro images of each other: both feisty and plucky, the same tune with very different messages. In the original lyrics: “They let you dream just to watch them shatter,” and “It’s a rich man’s game no matter what they call it/And you spend your life putting money in his wallet.” Now Parton offers that you could “Change your life, do something that gives it meaning/With a website that is worthy of your dreaming.” By the end, she’s belting: “5 to 9, you keep working, working, working, working.” Where once was righteous outrage at a broken system, there is now self-help. And grinding.After the ad aired, as Squarespace tried to promote the hashtag #5to9, a counterversion appeared: #9to5ShouldBeEnough. The ad clearly felt, to many of its viewers, like yet another glorification of an economy in which people must work more jobs, for ever longer hours, just to survive to the next paycheck — often for gig-economy companies that classify them as “independent” contract laborers, instead of offering the sorts of protected, benefited, living-wage jobs for which the women of the original 9to5 group continue to fight. It didn’t help that the gig-economy mainstays DoorDash and UberEats aired their own Super Bowl ads branding themselves as genial supporters of small businesses. DoorDash used the “Sesame Street” song “People in Your Neighborhood”; UberEats resurrected the tongue-in-cheek anti-corporate message of “Wayne’s World.” Both companies have taken in billions during the pandemic, skimming hefty fees off the struggling local restaurants whose food they deliver.Squarespace’s ad was a little different: Starting your own business is not the same as working in the gig economy, no matter how much gig-economy companies like to frame working for them as “being your own boss.” Still, it’s striking that the jobs in the ad — the sorts of creatively fulfilling jobs that characters have in romantic comedies — are also the sorts that are ever rarer and more untenable in our increasingly corporatized economy. Rather than reflecting the work most people actually do in their second shifts, they offer a dream that papers over reality.‘5 to 9, you keep working, working, working, working.’This was a poor message, AdWeek chided, at a time when “hustle culture feels downright toxic.” Inevitably, though, debate about the ad landed not on Squarespace, but on the shoulders of Parton herself. Was she profiting off the fetishization of an exploitative economy, or was she just another hard-working American with her own side hustle? (There’s an ad within the ad, for Parton’s new fragrance line, which uses a Squarespace site). A Washington Post headline referred to the ad as “Dolly Parton’s betrayal,” while one in Newsweek argued that the ad “Shows We Live in a Dystopia” — but only after cautiously averring that “Dolly Parton Is Awesome.”Parton is beloved for her music, her savvy, her generosity — but also for being the rare celebrity who has managed to rise above the polarization of a country that seems to agree on little except its admiration of her. She is careful not to appear to choose sides in our culture wars, and that circumspection creates a space for us to project, ardently, our own politics onto her choices. Perhaps she was surprised to learn how many people found an ad about hustling after your dream job — the real story of her own hardscrabble-to-superstardom life — to be political. But viewers of the ad saw it in the context of their own experiences: endlessly working, working, working, working.What’s interesting about the two versions of the song isn’t what they tell us about Parton. It’s what they show us about how, four decades later, our economy is still broadly failing the people who toil inside it. The original lyrics offer frustration and disbelief — “What a way to make a living!” — and a clear diagnosis of the problem: companies that aren’t required to respect or take care of their workers. In Squarespace’s hands, the words become “a whole new way to make a living” — a dream of escape, of going out on your own because you’ve given up on an economy that refuses to look out for you.But listeners reacting online kept mishearing that new line. They detected something a lot closer to how they actually experience our economy. Endless hustling, they heard, now offers neither solution nor escape; it is, simply, “the only way to make a living.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Taylor Swift’s Ode to Moving On, and 9 More New Songs

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe PlaylistTaylor Swift’s Ode to Moving On, and 9 More New SongsHear tracks by Barry Gibb and Dolly Parton, Rhye, Tim Berne and others.Taylor Swift’s “It’s Time to Go” is a bonus track from the sessions that yielded her quarantine albums.Credit…Beth GarrabrantJon Pareles, Giovanni Russonello and Jan. 8, 2021Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs and videos. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage.Taylor Swift, ‘It’s Time to Go’[embedded content]Of course Taylor Swift had even more songs recorded during the 2020 quarantine that has already yielded her albums “Folklore” and “Evermore,” which now gets a bonus track. “It’s Time to Go” — terse lines set against an insistent one-note guitar and four chords — maps romantic and workplace setbacks against her own struggle to hold onto her multiplatinum catalog: “He’s got my past frozen behind glass/But I’ve got me.” It’s advice, rationalization, a way to move on: “Sometimes giving up is the strong thing,” she sings. JON PARELESCeleste, ‘Love Is Back’Celeste — who, at least in Britain, has been on the verge of a breakout moment for the past few years — rang in 2021 with a performance of her new single “Love Is Back” on Jools Holland’s annual New Year’s Eve show. Amid rhythmic blasts of brass, the 26-year-old soul singer croons coolly for much of the song before a dazzling grand finale showcases the strength of her smoky voice, which recalls both Amy Winehouse and Billie Holiday. With a debut album, “Not Your Muse,” slated for release on Feb. 26, this could finally be Celeste’s year. LINDSAY ZOLADZSaweetie featuring Doja Cat, ‘Best Friend’The gender warfare in pop hip-hop continues with “Best Friend,” particularly in its video version, which opens by mocking “toxic masculinity” and “another fake woke misogynist” — a bare-chested guest guy — while Saweetie and Doja Cat lounge in bikinis. A twangy two-bar loop accompanies the two women as they flatly declare financial independence and, eventually, find each other. PARELESRhye, ‘Come in Closer’Ideas waft up and ripple away throughout “Come in Closer” the smoothly elusive new single from the breathy, androgynous-voiced Canadian singer and songwriter Michael Milosh, who records as Rhye. Hardly anything is stable; not the beat, not the chord changes, not the vocal melodies or instrumental countermelodies, not an arrangement that moves from churchy organ to a string-laden R&B march to eerie a cappella vocal harmonies. The only constant is yearning: “How I’d love for you to come home with me” is the song’s closest thing to a refrain. PARELESVirgil Abloh featuring serpentwithfeet, ‘Delicate Limbs’Virgil Abloh is best known as a designer; no wonder “Delicate Limbs” begins with fashion-conscious lyrics: “Those gray pants you love might bring you luck, but if they ever fray you can call on me.” But “Delicate Limbs” even more clearly ties in with the catalog of Abloh’s collaborator, serpentwithfeet, a.k.a. the singer and songwriter Josiah Wise. It’s an incantatory enigma, wandering among electronic drones, jazzy drum crescendos and cinematic orchestration, building extraordinary drama. PARELESBarry Gibb featuring Dolly Parton, ‘Words’Viewers of the recent HBO documentary “The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart” will recall that it was not Dolly Parton nor Kenny Rogers who wrote their mammoth 1983 hit “Islands in the Stream,” but, actually, the Brothers Gibb. So Parton is a natural choice for a duet partner on Barry Gibb’s moving and delicately crafted new album “Greenfields — The Gibb Brothers’ Songbook Vol. 1,” on which the last surviving Bee Gee adds a little twang to some of the group’s standards and collaborates with country artists like Miranda Lambert and fellow Aussie cowboy Keith Urban. Parton joins him for a piano-driven, gently elegiac rendition of the 1968 hit “Words.” On the original single and often in concert, this was the rare Bee Gees song that Barry Gibb sang solo. Reimagining it as a duet, and especially with a voice as warm as Parton’s, makes “Words” feel less like a confession of regret and more like a prelude to reconciliation. ZOLADZSun June, ‘Everything I Had’“Everything I had, I want it back,” Sun June’s Laura Colwell sings on the Austin band’s latest single — certainly a relatable refrain for these times. It’s also a fittingly wistful sentiment for a band that playfully describes its sound as “regret pop,” blending the melodic flutter of Colwell’s voice with dreamy tempos that invite contemplation. (Its second album, “Somewhere,” will be out on Feb. 5.) The lyrics, though, conjure a certain restlessness, as Colwell considers moving all the way to Los Angeles before settling on a new apartment three doors down from where she used to live — presumably just far enough to stare longingly at the old one. ZOLADZJohn Fogerty, ‘Weeping in the Promised Land’“Weeping in the Promised Land” is John Fogerty’s memento of 2020: pandemic, disinformation, economic crisis, Black Lives Matter. In a quasi-hymn, with bedrock piano chords and a swelling choir, he surveys the devastation overseen by a “pharaoh” who keeps “a-preaching, but he never had a plan.” It doesn’t foresee redemption. PARELESScience Friction, ‘Heavy Mental’[embedded content]The alto saxophonist Tim Berne and the trumpeter Herb Robertson circle each other like fighters getting acquainted in the first round at the start of this itchy, low-fi recording, which Berne captured at 55 Bar in Greenwich Village 17 years ago. He’s been releasing recordings from the vault on Bandcamp, and this one — which he found on a CD-R lying on his studio floor, and posted Christmas Day — is especially raw and lively. The guitarist Marc Ducret joins after a minute, adding his own wiry lines and helping outline the track’s central melodic phrase before Tom Rainey’s drums and Craig Taborn’s keyboards enter and the quintet wriggles into a long, tumbling jam. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOMiguel Zenón and Luis Perdomo, ‘Alma Adentro (Live)’At the Jazz Gallery this fall, the alto saxophonist Miguel Zenón and the pianist Luis Perdomo recorded a concert of boleros (or romantic songs, from a range of Latin American traditions), and the set was so understatedly good that after streaming it on Zenón’s Facebook page, the pair decided to release it as an album. This track is a ruminative lament, written by the Puerto Rican singer and polymath Sylvia Rexach for her brother, who had died in an accident; it was the title track — and the most tender moment — on Zenón’s big band album a decade ago. On the new version, as Perdomo alone carries its downward-spiraling chord progression, the pair spends nearly 10 minutes wandering into and away from the song’s wistful melody, as if reliving a distant memory. RUSSONELLOAdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Mariah! Dolly! Carrie! 2020 Can’t Quarantine This Cheer

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storycritic’s notebookMariah! Dolly! Carrie! 2020 Can’t Quarantine This CheerPop stars try to pull off a Christmas spectacular in tough times, with three sparkly but heartfelt specials now on streaming services.Pop divas in holiday sparkle: from left, Carrie Underwood, Mariah Carey and Dolly Parton.Credit…From left: Anne Marie Fox/HBO Max, Apple TV Plus, CBSDec. 18, 2020, 9:00 a.m. ETWith the C.D.C. advising against faithful friends who are dear to us gathering anywhere near to us, it’s understandable that we all might need some extra assistance getting into the holiday spirit this year. One of the few bright spots of the season, though, is the abundance of new Christmastime musical specials, helmed by some of our most beloved and benevolent divas. Thank the streaming wars, in part: HBO Max, Apple TV+ and CBS All Access have all jockeyed to get a different A-list angel atop their trees, perhaps in hopes that they’ll persuade you to subscribe to one of their services before your long winter hibernation (or at least forget to cancel before your free trial is over.) Whether gaudy, glorious excess or down-home simplicity, each offers a different take on a perplexing question: How do you stage a Christmas spectacular in decidedly unspectacular times?First up is Carrie Underwood, whose “My Gift: A Christmas Special From Carrie Underwood” is streaming on HBO Max. A companion piece to her recent first holiday album, the stately and reverent “My Gift,” Underwood’s special finds her fronting an orchestra led by the former “Tonight Show” bandleader Rickey Minor. Featuring duets with John Legend and, adorably, her 5-year-old son Isaiah (whose pa-rum-pa-pum-pums are impressively on point), “My Gift” is relatively light on pizazz — save for the eight (!) increasingly dramatic costume changes. As Underwood’s stylists told “People” magazine in an article devoted entirely to all of her different “My Gift” outfits, the fact that the country powerhouse wouldn’t be moving around the stage much gave them an opportunity to “break out these giant confections of tulle and sequins that would never really be appropriate for any other event.” The most memorable is a crimson-tinged Diana Couture dress-and-cape number that suggests a cross between a bridal cake-topper and Jude Law on “The Young Pope.”A scene from “Mariah Carey’s Magical Christmas Special,” which features guests like Jennifer Hudson and Ariana Grande.Credit…Apple TV PlusThe splendor and stirring purity of Underwood’s voice is powerful enough that even a plunging ball gown adorned with literal angel wings cannot overshadow it. Underwood’s most sublime belting, though, doesn’t come until the penultimate set of songs, when she absolutely blows the roof off “O Come All Ye Faithful” and “O Holy Night.” It’s enough to make the relative restraint of the rest of the show pale in comparison. “We really wanted this special and my album to be something that people would return to year after year and not feel dated,” she told “People” and, accordingly, there’s nary a nod to 2020 in sight. It’s a safe choice in a production so full of them that, despite its ample cheer, ends up feeling a little hermetic and snoozy.An offering not as worried about time-stamping itself is “Mariah Carey’s Magical Christmas Special,” a star-studded entry from Apple TV+ in the Yuletide streaming wars. It’s certainly the most plot-heavy of the bunch (a neurotic elf played by Billy Eichner must restore Christmas cheer to a world low on tidings by booking an impromptu Mariah concert, or something), and the one with a wardrobe that most frequently luxuriates in the lack of F.C.C. oversight of streaming content. Perhaps when she wrote “All I Want For Christmas Is You” she was singing to double-sided tape.Though a tad convoluted, Carey’s special is full of one-liners and knowing winks; when the elf has trouble tracking her down, she informs him, “It’s called elusive, darling.” Woodstock makes a brief, animated cameo (perhaps to remind us that Apple owns the streaming rights to the “Peanuts” specials, too), which provides a segue into Carey’s gorgeous, sultry rendition of “Christmastime Is Here.” A lot happens throughout these overstuffed 43 minutes, and the special could have done without some of the bells and whistles. The whistle notes, however, are another story.The most diva-licious moment of the whole affair comes when Carey is joined by two very special guests, Jennifer Hudson and Ariana Grande — who she stages behind her, so that they end up looking like the Supremes to her Diana Ross. Classic elusive chanteuse. By the song’s finale, though, she’s invited them both to stand beside her and riff. It provides the opportunity for something the world has been waiting for ever since a young Grande earned the nickname “Baby Mariah”: They look at each other respectfully, inhale deeply, and harmonize their whistle notes. This must be the exact sound heard when the Covid-19 vaccine enters one’s bloodstream.In “A Holly Dolly Christmas,” Dolly Parton offers the crackling warmth of a hearth.Credit…CBSA woman who might know is Dolly Parton, generous Moderna vaccine trial donor and star of the heartwarming CBS special “A Holly Dolly Christmas.” An hourlong show originally made for Sunday-night broadcast on CBS (and now streaming on CBS All Access), hers is the most traditional of the bunch, and hardly the flashiest: “It’s not a big Hollywood production show, as I’m sure you’ve noticed,” Parton says, gesturing around a set meant to look like a homey church. But she also specifies, “We have managed to do this show safely …. testing, wearing masks and social distancing.”Parton is such a charismatic presence that she doesn’t need guest stars, plot twists, or costume changes to keep this a transfixing show. Whether she’s hamming it up during “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” or filling the spiritual “Mary, Did You Know?” with empathic emotion, her special offers the crackling warmth of a hearth. Before singing her classic “Coat of Many Colors,” she tells a moving story about her late mother’s selflessness, her painted eyes brimming full of tears the entire time. Just try not to cry along with her.Earlier in the fall, Stephen Colbert showed just how tall an order that is, when he was reduced to tears after Parton burst into a ballad a cappella during their televised interview. “Like a lot of Americans,” he explained, “I’m under a lot of stress right now, Dolly!” It’s nothing to be ashamed of, though: Plenty believe there’s something deeply cathartic about Parton’s voice and her overall demeanor. As Lydia R. Hamessley writes in her recent book “Unlikely Angel: The Songs of Dolly Parton,” “For many listeners, the restorative effect of Dolly’s music seems to flow to them directly from Dolly herself, so they often experience her as a healer.” Which sounds like something we could all use right about now. As Parton spins yarns about her humble beginnings and sings songs of enduring faith in the face of despair, “A Holly Dolly Christmas” might, actually, be an effective cure for the 2020 holiday blues.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      20 Albums That Put a New Spin on the Holidays

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best MoviesBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest TheaterBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story20 Albums That Put a New Spin on the HolidaysStandards? Sure! But a crop of seasonal records from Dolly Parton, Tinashe and others introduce fresh original songs, too.Clockwise from top left: The holiday season has brought albums from Love Renaissance, Carrie Underwood, Leslie Odom Jr., Andrew Bird, Fuerza Régida and Jordin Sparks.Jon Pareles, Jon Caramanica, Giovanni Russonello and Dec. 10, 2020, 1:47 p.m. ETMariah Carey’s modern classic “All I Want for Christmas Is You” finally hit No. 1 (after 25 years) last holiday season, surely inspiring more songwriters to try their hand at a well-worn but welcome annual tradition. Our pop and jazz critics surveyed the latest releases and picked out 20 that offer worthy additions to your seasonal playlists.3D Jazz Trio, ‘Christmas in 3D’Here are three veteran jazz musicians who understand the joys of a firmly pressed swing rhythm, and how far it can take you. The pianist Jackie Warren, the bassist Amy Shook and the drummer Sherrie Maricle have released three albums as the 3D Jazz Trio (it stands for 3 Divas), which grew out of their work in Maricle’s DIVA Jazz Orchestra. The latest flaunts the kind of powerful locomotion that drives the DIVA big band, steaming through 10 holiday tunes — Warren’s buoyant improvising right hand leading the way. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOAndrew Bird, ‘Hark!’The singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and virtuoso whistler Andrew Bird riffles through moods and genres on his holiday album: He’s wistful, sardonic, jaunty and pensive by turns. Along with Bird himself, the songwriters include Schubert, Irving Berlin, John Prine and John Cale. Bird mingles songs of his own with idiosyncratic takes on the standards: whistling a wordless “O Holy Night” over pizzicato strings, toying with bossa nova and Hot Club jazz in the Vince Guaraldi “Peanuts” tune “Christmas Is Coming,” bringing Western swing to “Auld Lang Syne.” Bird’s “Greenwine” is a gruesomely comic rewrite of “Greensleeves,” while “Night’s Falling” and “Alabaster” offer comfort through long winter nights. JON PARELESThe Bird and the Bee, ‘Put Up the Lights’Greg Kurstin, a hitmaking producer with Adele, Sia and others, has been recording breezy, slyly retro pop since 2005 with the singer and songwriter Inara George as the Bird and the Bee. Their holiday album has a multitracked George harmonizing coolly with herself on songs like “Sleigh Ride” and “Deck the Halls,” and enlists Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl to supply the hefty beat on “Little Drummer Boy.” Kurstin’s productions for “The Christmas Song” and “Christmastime Is Here” collapse the decades between blurry old movie scores and digital glitches. And two of their own songs, “You and I at Christmas Time” and “Merry Merry,” celebrate domestic comforts amid playfully meandering chords. PARELESKarla Bonoff, ‘Silent Night’The cozy yet polished Southern California sound of Laurel Canyon in the mid-1970s returns on the holiday album by Karla Bonoff, who’s entitled to it. She got her songs recorded in the mid-1970s by Linda Ronstadt and Bonnie Raitt, among others. The guitars are burnished, Bonoff’s piano offers hymnlike chords and the vocals are natural and intimate. She sings old carols, Joni Mitchell’s “River” and a song she wrote with Kenny Edwards, “Everybody’s Home Tonight.” PARELESBarnaby Bright, ‘Bleak Midwinter’Barnaby Bright is Becky and Nathan Bliss, a married couple based in Nashville. She sings lead, he’s the producer and occasional backup singer; both write songs. Their holiday album, “Bleak Midwinter,” explores various production styles — Beach Boys in their own “Star-Crossed Christmas,” chamber-pop piano and cello in their “If We Listen,” booming drums and arena-scale reverberations in the English carol “In the Bleak Midwinter,” electronic percussion with big-band horns in “Please Come Home for Christmas.” Becky Bliss’s voice can be breathy and confiding, but she also has reserves of power when production drama ramps up. PARELESFuerza Régida, ‘Navidad con la Régida’Over the last two years, Fuerza Régida has emerged as one of the leading trap corridos bands, blending nimble musicianship and attitudinal singing. Holiday music is perhaps too plainly joyful a medium for the group, but on “Navidad con la Régida” it proves game, whether it’s the chipper tuba on “Feliz Navidad” or the brassy singing on “Ven a Mi Casa Esta Navidad.” But the album closer is closer to home: a heart-rending cover of the unerringly mournful “Cada Diciembre” by Los Plebes del Rancho de Ariel Camacho, on which the frontman Jesús Ortiz sounds almost dizzy with sadness. JON CARAMANICAChilly Gonzales, ‘A Very Chilly Christmas’The keyboardist and producer Chilly Gonzales mostly offers familiar songs, from “Good King Wenceslas” to “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” as restrained instrumentals, usually piano solos. He has fun with reharmonizations, sometimes switching major keys to minor ones, as he does in “Jingle Bells” and “Auld Lang Syne”: every so often, additional instruments twinkle into the mix. The standout tracks have guest vocalists: Feist tiptoeing through a new song she wrote with Gonzales, “The Banister Bough,” and Jarvis Cocker and Feist sharing a fondly observant song by David Berman, “Snow Is Falling in Manhattan.” PARELESGoo Goo Dolls, ‘It’s Christmas All Over’Goo Goo Dolls cling to the earnestness of classic rock, but also step outside it, on their Christmas album. One of the two originals, “This Is Christmas,” splits the difference between Simon & Garfunkel and Billy Joel, with a waltz that praises “Not the things that you buy but the love that you bring.” The other, “You Ain’t Getting Nothing,” looks back to Cab Calloway, with horns, a swinging bass line and wry lyrics: “You think the season’s merry but you better think twice.” They also resurface Tom Petty’s “Christmas All Over Again” and a swinging Louis Prima obscurity, “Shake Hands with Santa Claus.” It’s a music fan’s album, cognizant of a long past. PARELESCory Henry, ‘Christmas With You’Cory Henry has shake-your-head-in-disbelief-level talent, and on this self-produced EP he mixes holiday-centric originals with classic carols taken in a gospel-pop style that’s recognizable if you know his work with the Funk Apostles. At an NPR holiday concert held earlier this month at the Kennedy Center in coronavirus-conscious fashion, Henry sat alone at a grand piano and played a short set including Stevie Wonder’s “Someday at Christmas,” an anthemic social justice plea, as well as two of the seven songs included on the EP. RUSSONELLOJoJo, ‘December Baby’After many years stuck in the purgatory of a bad record contract, the 29-year-old singer JoJo is making up for lost time: “December Baby” is her second release of 2020, following the confessional R&B of “Good to Know.” A mix of old classics, sleek originals, and personality-driven interstitials (“does anybody carol anymore?”), the modern-yet-tasteful album showcases JoJo’s silky voice and intuitive phrasings. “Bought a last-minute plane ticket so I could see you not just through a FaceTime,” she sings on “Coming Home,” a dreamy new song that certainly conjures the Ghost of Christmas Present. But “December Baby” is at its best when JoJo updates familiar songs like “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” and “Silent Night” with her signature sass and pop-R&B cool. LINDSAY ZOLADZLove Renaissance, ‘Home for the Holidays’The pair of standout songs on this compilation from the Atlanta-based LVRN (Love Renaissance) imprint couldn’t be more different. The wondrous, wise R&B melancholic Summer Walker leans into a damp, deliberate version of “Santa Baby.” And on “12 Days of Bhristmas,” the charismatic female rapper OMB Bloodbath tackles the first half of the calendar, crashing a car and hitting the club and the mall, while Westside Boogie closes out with chaos, including a detour on day 10: “Don’t ask me ’bout the 10th day/got too drunk inside the daytime.” CARAMANICALeslie Odom Jr., ‘The Christmas Album’Even the Leslie Odom Jr. albums that aren’t about the holidays almost feel like they are. On the heels of his breakthrough role playing Aaron Burr in “Hamilton,” Odom brought that Broadway ebullience into the studio in 2016 with a self-titled debut album. But it was “Simply Christmas,” released later that year, that sent him up the Billboard charts, establishing a niche beyond his stage persona. Two releases later, “The Christmas Album” mixes traditional gems (“Little Drummer Boy,” “O Holy Night”) with contemporary classics (George Michael’s “Last Christmas,” Sara Bareilles’s “Winter Song”) and a couple of his own tunes (the jingle-jangly, synth-bass-driven “Snow” and the power ballad “Heaven and Earth”). RUSSONELLODolly Parton, ‘A Holly Dolly Christmas’Yes, Dolly Parton admits on a hilariously hammy spoken-word bridge of the opening track, the idea for the title predated this album. “Holly Dolly” is just Parton’s second solo-billed holiday album, and her first since “Home for Christmas,” a collection of 10 traditional covers from 1990. The new LP features six of her own compositions: “Christmas on the Square” is a warm, rollicking bluegrass number; “Cuddle Up, Cozy Down Christmas” is a characteristically randy duet with a very game Michael Bublé. Aside from Jimmy Fallon on “All I Want for Christmas,” the other guests make the most of their appearances: Miley and Billy Ray Cyrus; Dolly’s brother Randy Parton; and, most effectively, Willie Nelson, joining with Parton to sing his own stirring 1963 holiday tear-jerker, “Pretty Paper.” ZOLADZJordin Sparks, ‘Cider & Hennessy’One of the year’s unique holiday albums, Jordin Sparks’s “Cider & Hennessy” is full of Christmas originals that temper tradition with modern twists. The title track is up-tempo R&B about a mother letting her hair down after a long December day, and “Trapmas Medley” smears Maybach and Birkin dreams over rat-tat-tat percussion. But the most radical song might be the most traditional: “A Baby Changes Everything,” a tender track about the trials of a teen mother (who just happens to be Mary, mother of Jesus). CARAMANICAMaddie & Tae, ‘We Need Christmas’Maddie & Tae, the spirited duo best known for “Girl in a Country Song,” bring their twangy, angelic harmonies to four standards and two new songs on their festive EP “We Need Christmas.” The originals are a mixed bag: The mawkish “We Need Christmas” contorts itself to be timely (any song that contains the lyric “now more than ever” is probably gunning a little too hard for commercial placement), but “Merry Married Christmas” is a genuinely sweet ode to a newlywed couple’s first holiday season together. The highlight is their cover of Darlene Love’s “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home),” which slows the tempo and draws fresh emotion from a familiar tune. ZOLADZMat and Savanna Shaw, ‘Merry Little Christmas’Can I interest you in some Wholesome Content™? Savanna Shaw and her father, Mat, became a quarantine-era YouTube success story for their acoustic duets of religious-esque songs that were pinpoint precise, verging on stern. Things are moving fast — this Christmas EP is their second release in the last three months, all sung in the mode of Bocelli and Groban. Their rendition of “Mary, Did You Know?” is poignant and elegantly spacious, almost nervy in its conviction, and “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” has an unlikely echo of Extreme’s “More Than Words.” Throughout, Savanna sings with airy sweep, and Mat booms like a drill sergeant — on “Thankful,” father and daughter harmonize into billowy bliss. CARAMANICATinashe, ‘Comfort & Joy’Tinashe treats familiar Christmas songs the way hip-hop producers treat samples: as springboards for commentary, moods, tangents, associations, sonic transformations. While the track list for “Comfort & Joy” looks familiar — from “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” to “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” — Tinashe ricochets off the familiar material, adding verbal responses or surreally warping arrangements, using synthetic rhythms and her gravity-defying voice to change and challenge expectations. PARELESMeghan Trainor, ‘A Very Trainor Christmas’Doesn’t every Meghan Trainor song already sound like a Christmas song? So it should be no surprise that her originals here — the frisky “Naughty List,” the swinging “I Believe in Santa” — could have easily fit in on her other, yuletide-free albums. Mischievous misbehavior, hope beyond hope, belief in the impossible: Trainor, one of pop’s least self-conscious stars, focuses on them the other 364 days, too. CARAMANICACarrie Underwood, ‘My Gift’The first holiday album from country music’s reigning vocal assassin comes full of promise. Bombastic ballads, bring ’em on! Hardcore hymns, thou shalt be exalted! And yet “My Gift” is … placid, light on melodrama. Restrained. Nice. Underwood duets with her son Isaiah, who is 5. And for most of the rest of the album she sings gently enough that he might be able to sing along. Bummer. CARAMANICAVarious Artists, ‘Eterna Navidad Celebremos’In 1986, stars of Latin pop, mostly Mexican, recorded “Eterna Navidad,” a collection of Christmas songs in Spanish that became a hit across Latin America. “Eterna Navidad Celebremos” revisits its track list and adds a few — including John Lennon’s “Happy Xmas (War Is Over),” translated as “Llegó Navidad” and sung by Manuel Carrasco, from Spain — performed by a newer assortment of stars. The lineup features Juanes (with a hard-rock version of “Little Drummer Boy”) and the rapper Pitizion from Colombia along with Mexican performers including Alejandro Fernández, Gloria Trevi, Kurt and Banda el Recodo. While the original album reveled in a contemporary, synthesizer-happy 1980s sound, the new one is more self-conscious and rootsy, placing accordions, acoustic guitars and brasses upfront, even in songs written in the United States or Britain, like “Dulce Navidad” (a version of “Jingle Bells”), “Blanca Navidad” (“White Christmas”), “Diciembre” (Wham!’s “Last Christmas”) and “Rodolfo El Reno” (“Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer”), which gets turned into a cheerful cumbia by Los Tigres del Norte. Throughout the album, the voices — scratchy, husky, chirpy, floating — are vividly committed. Time will tell if, in 34 years, this album will sound as dated as “Eterna Navidad” does now. PARELESAdvertisementContinue reading the main story More