Music: December 2004 Archives

Remember those great Christmas songs of yore? Who can stop humming "City sidewalk steadfast clime" this time of year? Or "Grand hotel pout twice"? Or that all-time classic, "Thumpetty christmas parades"?

Some MIT folks with too much time and computing power on their hands force-fed their system "as much Christmas music as it could handle. When it was done it synthesized these sixteen new timeless classics." The result is "A Singular Christmas". Alas, the songs seem to be Slashdotted right now, but I'm going to check back later. I don't think I can resist the sound of "Cherry misfortune."

Updated to add: still no luck downloading the songs, but perhaps the best part of all is the revised Christmas song lyrics that Slashdot readers have come up with!

But start rapping? Via the J.

Jonathan Gutstadt remembers it as the defining moment. It was the first night of Chanukah in the early 1990s. The Oakland 12-year-old, who had already developed more than a passing interest in hip-hop, saw something that would forever alter his destiny: There, on television, was a white man rapping.

It’s only after a bit of coaxing that Gutstadt admits it was the one-hit wonder Vanilla Ice, who later became the subject of ridicule for too many reasons to mention here. But at the time, the young Gutstadt realized that the genre was not necessarily off-limits to a Jewish boy like him.

“I started dancing in front of the door,” Gutstadt recalled. “And then, I began rapping the prayers. The first rap I ever did was the prayer over lighting the Chanukah candles.”

A sample of his lyrics:

From the center of the lava, hava nagila
I’m a believer from Oakland to Tel Aviva
In a diva unified like an ameoba
Shma to your imas,
Shma to the abbas
Shma to the Doctor J, love the Shabbos
The 7th day, I pray to be jobless
All you Jewish kids better listen to your mamas

He's no Too $hort... but then again, who is, these days?

Anyway, his website, along with two songs, can be found here.