The SEC Forum at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

What kind of Christmas music do you find yourself listening to this time of year?  (If you listen to Christmas music.) 

I like a mix of older "classics" by folks like Bing Crosby and Sinatra, and newer stuff that features a fair bit of new originals. 

On the new stuff that would be considered outside of the "timeless standards," I find myself year after year gravitating to Michael McDonald's album "In The Spirit" and Bryan Duncan's "Christmas is Jesus" album.  Those just hit a lot of sweet spots for what kind of music I like. 

There are a lot of others, of course.  I notice that a lot of the stuff I have that falls outside the timeless standards have a definite jazz bent to them, if not outrightly in the jazz genre.  I don't know if that means I favor jazz or if Christmas music lends itself to jazzing up.  Outside of Christmas music, I don't listen to much jazz and don't overly care for it. 

Classics or nothing.


XM 71

Got lotsa genres depending on the mood:

Same here.
I'll listen to almost any style of Christmas music.  I tend toward the standards/classics with singers like Bing Crosby and Andy Williams.  I also like the crooners' versions of those, favorites are Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Tony Bennett, Bob Goulet, etc.  And of course the ladies like Eartha Kitt, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald.

I agree that Christmas music lends itself to jazz quite well, quite a few jazzy Christmas tunes I enjoy.

But I also like more recent modern stuff.  Pop and rock hits from the 80s like U2, George Michael, Bryan Adams.  And synth stuff from the 90s/2000s like Manneheim Steamroller.

And then full on orchestral music, most notably Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite, and Beethoven's 9th Symphony which is commonly associated with both Christmas and Easter due to the lyrics from Ode To Joy.  But plenty of others there as well.

Basically I like it all. 

The Nutcracker!  I always forget about that and I so rarely hear anything from it on the radio, but it definitely should be considered a must-listen at Christmas. 

So now I think I'll go listen to it

You can combine your affinity for Christmas jazz music at the same time, check out Duke Ellington's version of Nutrcacker Suite.  It's pretty great.

I try not to keep up with transfers, portal-adds, portal-defections, signees, etc., because what's the point anymore.  But I can't keep all the news out and I heard about LSU picking up a couple of Florida kids, players the insane people who still follow recruiting seem to feel pretty positively about. 

It's an odd world, when you have a spot at Florida and would leave for LSU (insert any similar programs there).  In their particular case, they just whupped LSU on the field, so ostensibly they may not even be leaving for a team in better shape. 

If you can beat 'em, join 'em, I guess.  

I wish they would not open the portal until after bowl and playoff season

I try not to keep up with transfers, portal-adds, portal-defections, signees, etc., because what's the point anymore.  But I can't keep all the news out and I heard about LSU picking up a couple of Florida kids, players the insane people who still follow recruiting seem to feel pretty positively about. 

It's an odd world, when you have a spot at Florida and would leave for LSU (insert any similar programs there).  In their particular case, they just whupped LSU on the field, so ostensibly they may not even be leaving for a team in better shape. 

If you can beat 'em, join 'em, I guess. 

Pyburn is a high-motor DE good against the run.  Not sure why he left.  Not a long, twitchy edge guy at all.  He's easy to root for, but idk what his plan is.  I'm worried he wants to be something he's not (elite edge pass-rusher).

It leads to a related question that interests me.  I wonder how some of our old defenses which were elite for their time would look in today's game.  Our 2003 team allowed 67 rush ypg--good even for that time--but they didn't live in a world of RPO's.  iirc--and I might not--I don't think QBs in general were nearly as mobile back then, or if they were, it wasn't such a baked-in part of their offense.  For LSU, every year's defense had it's own flavor in those days, but the evolution could maybe be benchmarked as follows:  2003 was the culture change, where everyone played with their hair on fire all game.  2007 (when healthy) was built to stop the more traditional offenses we saw at that time, but struggled with the incoming spread-option Urban Meyer was introducing to the conference.  2011 was the culmination of Chavis' answer to that, built to choke spread-option teams.  2016 was still in that mold, but more geared to combat the emerging RPO trend. 

There's just a lot of firepower in offenses today, and the QBs on average, imo, have improved significantly in the college game over the last 20 years.  Those old defenses I mentioned were great, along with several Florida, USC, Oklahoma, etc. defenses we could talk about.  I still think an offense like LSU's 2019 or 2023 squad would hit 30+ on them, no matter how miserable the defense made them and how hard they would've had to work for it.  I'm not sure LSU should expect a defense with that kind of production anymore, even if the talent were comparable.  Alabama routinely fields offenses that are just going to score, no matter what defense is out there.  That UGA team we ran into in ATL in 2022 had two TEs that were matchup nightmares and a scheme that made the defense wrong no matter how they chose to defend a play. 

Predictably, the crux of our best defenses was the line, particularly the 2003 team.  The reason why no plays worked on that team is because every play was dead before it started.  I don't know that you can live off that anymore.  The best O-lines are much more impressive than they used to be, I think, and they give crazy-good QBs and receivers enough time to run a play. 


It's interesting to think about, but my hunch is none of those defenses I remember fondly would look as good now as they did then.  Who knows.