Far Out There Christmas Soundtrack: Avatar

Since this year has wound up being all about Avatar, or at least this December has, it’s only right to kick things off with everybody’s favorite indestructible repository of knowledge. When I first put together Avatar’s soundtrack, I tried to concoct a blend of 70s Disco-Pop, modern JPop, and those kitchy early synth albums from back when the Moog was new and exotic. I don’t think I ever quite managed to pull of the fusion of melodic density and SciFi kitschiness that I was aiming for there, so Avatar’s Christmas playlist is a bit more focused: Chiptunes and other assorted electrical bleeps. Yes, about half of these tunes are sourced from various Chiptune holiday compilations I gathered up back in the days when I was super into this stuff, and they honestly work a lot better than you’d think they would. Rush Coil’s “Joy to the World” kicks things off in prime fashion by showing us what a holiday Mega Man game would probably sound like. It’s a bit on the hyperactive side (and nicely illustrates why don’t really have the energy for most Chiptune music any more) but that makes for a nice powerful opening statement.

Next up, we get a bit of the obligatory 60s synth demo sound in with “Jingle Bells” by Moog Machine (actually engineer Norman Dolh, arranger Alan Foust and keyboardist Kenny Ascher). Compered to some of the other vintage synth music we’ll be hearing, this is one of the spacier tunes, with some extremely odd harmonies and alien chord changes. It honestly reminds me of those really early arcade games where the music was written by the programmers instead of, ya know, actual musicians. How much of that was intentional and how much was just a consequence of how hard early Moogs were to tune is anybody’s guess. But I think that’s just the kind of dense weirdness that somebody who already knows how all music goes would NEED to stay interested.

We’re back to Chiptune land next with “One Small Child” RushJet1. This one’s a lot less hyperactive than “Joy to the World” was. If that song was an action-packed opening stage, then this is an underground level or a night one or something like that. Just not a sewer level, cos it doesn’t suck.

We hop right back to the 60s again with “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town” by Sy Mann (nice name, though synth pioneer Jean-Jacques Perrey was the one doing the heavy lifting). This one sounds a lot more like what anybody would have expected the Moog Machine track to sound like: a kitchy, almost dorky bit of bleeps and bloops with a heavy dose of European Ye-Ye music in the mix. If some school board in 1970 had commissioned an educational film about what Christmas shopping is, this is the music they’d play over stock footage of a busy store.

Then it’s back to Chiptunes yet again with “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” by Sly Fawkes. This is an even more laidback song than the previous Chiptunes outing, with no percussion track whatsoever. It’s already a bit weird to hear the normally lively “Wonderful Time” given such a relaxing arrangement, but coming from the sugar rush of a genre that is Chiptunes, this sedate arrangement is downright unnatural… but in a good way. Again, this is about the only tempo at which I can handle extended doses of Chiptunes anymore, and in a Christmas context especially, I appreciate some music I can just relax to.

Next up, we return to the early age of synth demos with a particularly bloopy rendition of “Deck the Halls” by Douglas Leedy. I know next to nothing about this guy, and apparently nobody else did either, to the point that I’d incorrectly credited this album on iTunes to “Richard Leedy” and went years before I noticed the mistake. Anyway, this is the shortest track on a playlist already full of short tracks, this one not even lasting a full minute, which might be for the best, because the doesn’t sound like Mr Leedy was the best at syncing up the separately recorded tracks that early Moog usage demanded. The last few seconds get a bit… disjointed, but the song’s basically wrapping up at that point, so it still mostly works.

Continuing with the trend of early synthesizer pioneers, we next have “I Like Christmas” by Bruce Haack. Haack had previously provided the bleeps and bloops behind Ebenezer Electric, a album-length retelling of “A Christmas Carol” from which the song “I Like Christmas” originally hails. The version featured here, however, is a later re-recording that replaces the generic children’s choir of the original with an almost indecipherable synthesized talk box. I don’t care how corny they may be, I will always think vocorders are cool and futuristic, so a Christmas song built around that effect makes Avatar’s list.

And if the primitive synthesizer tech on tracks like those aren’t impressing you, we leap ahead to the 80s for “Three Ships” by Jon Anderson from Yes. Well, okay, technically “I Like Christmas” was released in the ‘80s, but it’s nowhere near THIS 80s.  Don’t let the Yes connection fool you into thinking this is going to be a wild and crazy Prog Rock epic, though. Anderson’s 3 Ships album as a whole is a pretty straightforward Synthpop affair, one which didn’t go over very well with critics and fans used to his Rock work. Still, in the right context, a number of the tracks are pleasant enough, and the “Casio trying to sound like a harpsichord” effect of the title track fits in nicely with all the Chiptune and Moog blooping to be found in Avatar’s playlist.

Next up, Sy Mann returns with the one tune that’s not especially obvious to modern listeners: “Christmas Bells.” Appropriately enough for an album that only exists to be a Holiday cash-in on the success of Switched-on Bach (the album is called Switched-On Santa for crying out loud), “Christmas Bells” seems to have originated on the album Tijuana Christmas by The Border Brass… an obvious cash-in on Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass. While this version lacks the jingle bells of the original (kind of a problem, given the name) I think the Moog in general has a more Christmas-y vibe than a trumpet. Unless Santa arrived in your part of the world led by a marching band or something.

The Chiptunes return in probably their most laidback form yet with “Christmas Time Is Here” by an0va.  I like Vince Guaraldi’s Charlie Brown soundtrack in just about any form, even an echo-y NES. Actually, I shouldn't even say that, as “Christmas Time Is Here” follows a much broader definition of “Chiptune” than a lot of works in the genre. While the backing track is, at best, using more tracks than your typical Nintendo cartridge could manage, the second half of the song spices things up with an honest-to-goodness real live Jazz guitar! Sadly, I couldn’t tell you who’s playing it, but it’s a nice addition.

Hey, did I mention I think vocodors (and their more primitive ancestors) are neat yet? Well, just to drive the point home, we next have a quick, WEIRD interpretation of “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer” by radio jingles factor PAMS Productions using the “sonovox” to croak out some robot voices. Again, all I can say is I think they’re neat.

And then we have the one recording I know for a fact everybody has already heard: “Wonderful Christmastime” by Paul McCartney. I’ve said my piece on this song elsewhere, but the short version is: I concede that the song sounds more like a demo than a finished record, but I still like it anyway. And you gotta admit, the waves of synths upon synths definitely fit the space-y theme of Avatar’s playlist so far.

Sy Mann returns get again with a sort of medley of “We Wish You A Merry Christmas” and “Angels We Have Heard On High,” one that’s significantly less kitschy than the previous Moog tunes. Honestly, this one just sounds like straight up church music being played on a particularly unusual pipe organ. I think it’s a nice way to wind things down as we approach the end.

OR IS IT? Because we conclude with Rush Coil again, this time covering “O Christmas Tree.” And once again, it sounds like the soundtrack to an especially festive Mega Man X game. And I do mean the WHOLE soundtrack, as every single verse has a slightly different arrangement, each one enough to be the background loop of a whole level. As we’ve seen elsewhere, Avatar appreciates a LOT of music in her music, so I’ve no doubt all the gimmicky cleverness in this tune would go over very well with her.

And there you have it! Avatar’s Christmas playlist! This is probably the longest one, at least in terms of track number, since so many of the tunes were so short in runtime. I probably won’t be saying anywhere near as much in the other ones… PROBABLY.

Avatar's Christmas YouTube Playlist