Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas

I am publishing my annual year end playlist as a holiday gift to the AVC community.

I did 21 songs last year but 2017 was a great year for music, so I thought I would double that to 42.

And then I threw in Man’s Not Hot at the end for kicks.

It starts with a great Chance The Rapper holiday song and goes on from there. It’s hip hop in the beginning, moves to electronic, indie, folk, and R&B in the middle, and finishes with the big hip hop songs on SoundCloud this year.

There are a few SoundCloud Go+ tracks on it and if you aren’t a subscriber, you will get 30 second previews. I’m sorry about that but most of the songs are free and clear.

Happy Holidays Everyone

#My Music

Comments (Archived):

  1. William Mougayar

    Couldn’t help noticing the one from Secretly Canadian, who is “an American independent record label based in Bloomington, Indiana with offices in Brooklyn, London, Austin, Los Angeles and Paris.”Nothing Canadian about that. Makes total sense for their name choice 🙂

  2. Tom Labus

    This is always a great post with a lot of great new tunes. Thanks for posting, Fred.Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everybody here at AVC.

  3. Vendita Auto

    Thanks, always good to hear some new sounds, I cannot shake off the Atomic Blond soundtrack.

  4. awaldstein

    Back at ya Fred and my best to the family!

  5. Vasudev Ram

    Happy holiday to all at AVC.

  6. Girish Mehta

    Merry Christmas AVC. Wishing all a peaceful and joyful time.

  7. jason wright

    I was hoping for a ‘Revue Mirror’, to see you sing and dance your way through the highlights of 2017.

  8. henry zhu

    Great stuff AVC. Thanks for sharing the very handy playlist for today.

    1. Thomas Huynh

      “Peace on Earth.” Interestingly enough I blogged about just that idea here: https://www.sonshi.com/sun-

      1. JLM

        .@thomashuynhOne could spend a lifetime studying Sun Tsu. Thank you.As a young Army officer I studied the Griffith translation on the sides of mountains in ROK.Thanks for the contact.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

        1. Thomas Huynh

          Griffith is a solid translation, and includes a wonderful discussion on Sun Tzu’s influence in Japan where he mentions Sonshi.

  9. Ryan Brohman

    Look forward to this list each year. Thanks and Merry Christmas!Can anyone remind me, is there a way to push this to a Spotify playlist? Thanks

  10. Donna Brewington White

    Merry Christmas!Happy Holidays!Hugs AVC!Thanks, once again, Fred, for another mind stretching playlist.

  11. george

    Sweet Gift and Thanks for all You and Others give over the year!Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to All!

  12. sigmaalgebra

    Especially for Christmas, athttps://www.youtube.com/wat…there isKatia Ricciarelli, Schubert, “Mille cherubini in coro”.Athttps://www.youtube.com/wat…is an astounding Mariinsky Theatre performance of “The Nutcracker”.Some especially good Pavarotti for Christmas, a long program at MontrĂ©al, is athttps://www.youtube.com/wat…Some Bach, orchestra and chorus, via Stokowski is athttps://www.youtube.com/wat…Yup, a chorus helps!

  13. Thomas Huynh

    Merry Christmas to you Fred. I’ve been enjoying your blog for many years.

  14. Why not bend the rules?

    Nice to see that you added a disclaimer about being an investor in Soundcloud….. oh wait, um, well, yeah. I mean truth, lies, what’s the difference? What does it matter?While you are at it, why not simply call that so-called temple you occasionally attend a church and be done with already? A Jew a Goy, a Christian a Jew. What’s the difference. They are merely labels. Right? We are all just people. Right?Happy Christmas, Merry Chanukah, we are the SAME. We are all EQUAL. Yes! Um…. No. Not at all.********http://www.chabad.org/holid…In the second century BCE, the Holy Land was ruled by the Seleucids (Syrian-Greeks), who tried to force the people of Israel to accept Greek culture and beliefs instead of mitzvah observance and belief in G‑d.********The modern version of trying to force the people of Israel to accept Greek culture and beliefs instead of mitzvah observance and belief in G‑d is called the Haskalah https://en.wikipedia.org/wi…”Liberal Jew” is not an oxymoron but rather an pathway to assimilation. Your wife and children are apparently Jewish. But you almost certainly are not according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wi…See. Jews have L-A-W-S which are interpreted by great rabbis. Yet those laws are not relative. They are absolute.Your remarkably flexible approach to the truth, well, um, er, well… results in lies. Little lies and big lies. But lots of lies.I was starting to think of you as Fred “P.T. Barnum” Wilson but then I did a little Wikipedia-research and realized even P.T. Barnum would probably be contemptuous of you shilling for Bitcoin.https://en.wikipedia.org/wi…“Often referred to as the “Prince of Humbugs,” Barnum saw nothing wrong in entertainers or vendors using hype (or “humbug,” as he termed it) in promotional material, as long as the public was getting value for money. However, he was contemptuous of those who made money through fraudulent deceptions
.”What about peace on the enitre earth all at once? That will come when the Third Temple is built https://en.wikipedia.org/wi… until then there cannot be peace on the enitre earth all at once.Christians and Muslims have done great work in at least nominally converting roughly 1/2 of the world’s population to something more-or-less like Noahidism https://en.wikipedia.org/wi…. That is something we should thank G-d for. Jews bring the light but Christians and Muslims are the ones who “get their hands dirty” out in the trenches converting one person at a time away from abject and wicked paganism and towards Noahidism.

    1. sigmaalgebra

      Gads, from what library did you checkout your book on religion? By all means, f’get about that book and return it ASAP.Look, as far as I can tell, there really is a universe here. E.g., I have a chair, table, and computer, and they seem plenty real to me. I guarantee you, I didn’t create the universe: If I had, I’m sure I’d remember doing it.For who created the universe, how, and why, I’d like to know. So far science has given us a lot of evidence that the full answer will be darned complicated. E.g., the struggle so far with string theory seems to be that we can’t even imagine building blocks with properties that would result in what we observe.So, for the creation of the universe, we don’t know. For an answer, as far as we can tell, at best, anything in any of the well known religions is a long way from reality, even if we do interpretations with allegories, etc.Sure, maybe years ago, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, many people looked to religion as the source of the answers for the questions about the universe; and, no doubt around the world, many people in more primitive cultures still do that.But, still, even in the most developed countries and cultures, religion plays a big part.Well, what is the cause of that big part? Answers to how the universe was created? Nope — no longer that.So, what the heck is the cause, role, motivation, support for religion? Well, it’s from part of the nature of humans.Humans are heavily fearful and emotional and for feeling better in their emotions in the face of their fears in part are eager to be devoted to groups and, in particular, groups based on religion. Also for each group there is a hope that the norms of the group will be a good contribution to a beneficial culture.So, here religion is about people and their fears, emotions, and hopes for beneficial culture and not about the creation of the universe, is about what people want or long for, not about explaining the universe.Bluntly, religion doesn’t have much to do with the universe and, instead, is nearly all about the nature of humans and, in particular, their emotions, longings, as I outlined.E.g., athttp://avc.com/2017/12/happ…in this thread I posted URLs of YouTube videos of some excellent performances of some classic Christmas music. I assure you, (A) at Christmas such music does a lot of good for a lot of Christians and (B) that music has absolutely nothing to do with astrophysics.The benefits from such music is a lot of what religion is about, and at its best it does a lot of people a lot of good.But religion has too often had some big downsides. Sure, maybe the alternatives were even worse; likely we can’t always be sure.But successful religions built large groups of devoted people. Such a group, then, has power, in particular political power. When there are two or more such groups close geographically, there can be conflicts including violent ones. E.g., due to religious wars, off and on for hundreds of years the rivers of Europe ran red with blood.Now much of Islam wants to kill all the “infidels”. But that’s not all: Islam has two main branches, Sunni and Shiite, and each regards the other as among the infidels to be killed. They also want to kill all the Christians and Jews.So, there can be some downsides to religion.But here’s my message to you: Religion is about people, their emotions and longings as I outlined. Some of the best parts, e.g., the music I posted, are terrific. Then, leave religion at that.For the bad parts, try to hold down on those, go ahead and accept that those who do or don’t like Christian Christmas music are no threat to anyone else.For the people screaming about infidels, try to get them to grow up into the 21st century, calm down, and become civilized and otherwise defend against any of their violence.Simple.Well, there’s a current example: Now at Breitbart is a series of articles on the 165 or some such best movies. There I happened to see mentioned “How Green Was My Valley”. Right, directed by John Ford and Best Picture of 1941 — beat “Citizen Kane”.Well, athttps://www.youtube.com/wat…is the full movie.I just watched it, all of it.Right away I noticed that as a child I’d seen the movie likely more than once. Sure, at the time I thought that the movie was about failings in mining engineering, business, and economics.Naw. The movie was about human emotions and in particular about family dynamics as a family faced various challenges. Commonly families face challenges, maybe from failings in mining engineering, but otherwise much more.So, what was it about family dynamics? Well, maybe I mentioned thathumans are heavily fearful and emotional and for feeling better in their emotions in the face of their fears in part are eager to be devoted to groups …. Sure, the most important such group is the family. And THAT’S what the movie was really about.And I mentioned longing for beneficial culture: So, sure, in that movie the image of women was idealistic: They were nearly always wearing long, full, spotlessly clean, bright white aprons. The imagery was easy to see: They were angelic. Then they were to be trusted, cherished, protected.And the fears and emotions that drive devotion to the family, as well illustrated in that movie, also drive devotion to religion.Now you understand religion and can calm down.

      1. Penetrating the vast darkness

        >> Gads, from what library did you checkout your book on religion? By all means, f’get about that book and return it ASAP.It’s not a codex available in a lending library; it’s a scroll that can be found in synagogues around the world. It is called the Torah. The Ancient Greeks, some of whom were brilliant yet pagan idolaters nonetheless, wanted us to forget the Torah too! We celebrate overcoming the Ancient Greek’s attempt to make Jews forget the Torah during the holiday of Hanukkah.https://en.wikipedia.org/wi…and**********Modern History Sourcebook:Mark Twain:Concerning The Jews, Harper’s Magazine, March, 1898https://sourcebooks.fordham…He has made a marvellous fight in this world, in all the ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself, and be excused for it. The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished.The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?**********It is not secret at all. Those Jews who learn Torah and perform Mitzvot (commandments) endure; the rest gradually disappear.

  15. bsoist

    Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah!We were out for some sushi last night and I told the family “Hey, let’s see if Fred finished his list in time for Christmas.”We are looking forward to hearing it today.

  16. Jeremy Shatan

    Merry Christmas, happy holidays and here’s to the best for all of us in 2018! Nice list, Fred – my Top 25 albums also featured Spoon and you can see what else here: http://anearful.blogspot.co…. Or just listen, but you have to use Spotify 😉 https://open.spotify.com/us

  17. kirklove

    Got a little nervous. Didn’t seen Spoon at first.