The last time we checked in with Germany’s own Mar­tin Miller Ses­sion Band, they dropped a love­ly cov­er of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon album, one that bal­anced all the bits you know by heart with enough of their own iden­ti­ty to make it jump off your YouTube screen.

Now they’re back with a new ses­sion in the age of COVID–hence a few of them wear­ing masks–to run through a tight 26 min­utes of 1980s songs in a med­ley that will have your toes a’tappin’.

Now, the selec­tion does tend toward the rock side, but the Miller Ses­sion band are set up that way, with a sol­id rhythm sec­tion in drum­mer Felix Lehrmann and Ben­ni Jud on bass. Lehrmann cer­tain­ly played *more* drums than the min­i­mal­ist Nick Mason on their Pink Floyd trib­ute–the YouTube com­ments called him out a bit too much on that–but here it’s all good. If any­thing some of the ‘80s hits had a bit too much pro­grammed drums, and they liv­en up the expe­ri­ence. The spe­cial guest this time is Michal Skul­s­ki, play­ing sax on “Sledge­ham­mer”.

Of course, your mileage may vary with this playlist, as there are songs here that I dear­ly love (“Every­body Wants to Rule the World,” “Enjoy the Silence”) and ones that I could live with­out (“The Final Count­down, “Eye of the Tiger”), and that’s all about taste, whether you went to high school in the 1980s, or were born dur­ing it, and your repeat­ed expo­sure ad nau­se­um to these tunes. You might be glad about the bits they leave in, or dis­grun­tled over the sec­tions they leave out (Miller improvs his own solo to the Tears for Fears song, but if you ask me, that orig­i­nal solo by Roland Orz­a­bal and then Neil Tay­lor is one of the best from that entire decade, and ‘80s pop real­ly didn’t *have* gui­tar solos).

But any band that decides to have a go at “Take On Me” bet­ter have those octave jump­ing pipes. Miller, I’m glad to say, does, chan­nel­ing his inner Ron­nie Dio to do so. And Mar­ius Leicht’s organ solo is actu­al­ly an improve­ment on the orig­i­nal.

How­ev­er, I must point out that the finale, Depeche Mode’s “Enjoy the Silence” is not an ‘80s song. As any Mode fan will tell you, the sin­gle came out in ear­ly 1990. (I was *there* mannn, it was a total­ly dif­fer­ent decade!) Still, the Mar­tin Miller Ses­sion Band real­ly get into this one, break­ing the song down and build­ing it back up again for a tremen­dous fin­ish.

It may not be the “ulti­mate” ‘80s med­ley, but is *an* ‘80s med­ley and a damn good one too.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Dis­cov­er Rare 1980s CDs by Lou Reed, Devo & Talk­ing Heads That Com­bined Music with Com­put­er Graph­ics

The Inter­net Archive Hosts 20,000 VHS Record­ings of Pop Cul­ture from the 1980s & 1990s: Enter the VHS Vault

How the Yama­ha DX7 Dig­i­tal Syn­the­siz­er Defined the Sound of 1980s Music

Ted Mills is a free­lance writer on the arts who cur­rent­ly hosts the Notes from the Shed pod­cast and is the pro­duc­er of KCR­W’s Curi­ous Coast. You can also fol­low him on Twit­ter at @tedmills, and/or watch his films here.

It’s been hard out there for Kate Bush fans. Since the genius “Queen of British Pop” retired from tour­ing in 1979, pub­lic appear­ances have been few and far-between. She found the machin­ery of pop-star­dom a hin­drance to her process, and she’s been busy with oth­er things, she says. “Every time I fin­ish an album, I go into visu­al projects…. So I start­ed to veer away from the thing of being a live per­form­ing artist, to one of being a record­ing artist with attached visu­als.”

Fans are not enti­tled to her pres­ence, but Kate Bush was sore­ly missed in the 35 years between her first tour and her 2014 “Before the Dawn” res­i­den­cy at London’’s Ham­mer­smith Apol­lo. Before return­ing to the stage, she kept her­self in the pub­lic eye with elab­o­rate­ly cos­tumed music videos, a for­mat per­fect­ly suit­ed to her the­atri­cal and cin­e­mat­ic ambi­tions. (Asked by an inter­view­er in 1980 what she want­ed to do next, she answered, “Every­thing.”)

But then there’s the Kate Bush Christ­mas Spe­cial, “titled sim­ply Kate on-screen,” writes Chris­tine Pal­lon. The pro­gram, which “aired on the BBC on Decem­ber 28th, 1979,” fol­lowed on the heels of the Tour of Life, the whirl­wind debut con­cert series that promised, but did not deliv­er, so many more. “The Christ­mas special’s chore­og­ra­phy bor­rows heav­i­ly from that tour. But where she sang live on the Tour of Life, she lip-syncs to pre-record­ed tracks here and incor­po­rates pre-record­ed video seg­ments. As a result, the Christ­mas spe­cial plays out more like a crazy, long­form music video than a tra­di­tion­al stage show.”

Does Kate Bush sing Christ­mas songs? Does she sit on Santa’s lap? Does she mime, arms akim­bo, before the yule log?

Does she lounge on a piano next to a Gold­en Age croon­er?

C’mon…

Okay, she sings one Christ­mas song, “Decem­ber Will Be Mag­ic Again,” an orig­i­nal released as a UK sin­gle that year. The song pays earnest homage to tra­di­tion­al Christ­mas fig­ures like Bing Cros­by, Saint Nick, and Oscar Wilde before Kate turns into some kind of strange San­ta-like being who drops down on “the white city” in a para­chute to “cov­er the lovers.”

Oth­er­wise, the Christ­mas Spe­cial draws on Bush’s first three albums. In addi­tion to her entourage of dancers and back­up lip-syncers, she also invites a spe­cial guest—Peter Gabriel, of course (who might just as well be called the male Kate Bush)—to sing his “Here Comes the Flood” and duet with her on the extreme­ly down­beat “Anoth­er Day.”

Christ­mas spir­it? Who needs it? This is Kate, answer­ing the age-old ques­tion, Pal­lon writes, “what would hap­pen if the BBC gave a Christ­mas spe­cial to an incred­i­bly ambi­tious 21-year-old art rock­er who also smokes a ton of weed?” See the full track­list, with time­stamps, just below. Enjoy, and Hap­py Kate Bush Christ­mas Spe­cial Day!

Kate Bush — Christ­mas Spe­cial Track­list:

(Intro) 00:00
Vio­lin 00:29
(Gymnopédie No.1 — com­posed by Erik Satie) 03:44
Sym­pho­ny In Blue 04:44
Them Heavy Peo­ple 08:20
(Intro for Peter Gabriel) 12:52
Here Comes The Flood (Peter Gabriel) 13:22
Ran Tan Waltz 17:02
Decem­ber Will Be Mag­ic Again 19:43
The Wed­ding List 23:35
Anoth­er Day (with Peter Gabriel) 28:05
Egypt 31:41
The Man With The Child In His Eyes 36:21
Don’t Push Your Foot On The Heart­break 39:24

Relat­ed Con­tent:  

Watch a Tow­er­ing Orches­tral Trib­ute to Kate Bush: A 40th Anniver­sary Cel­e­bra­tion of Her First Sin­gle, “Wuther­ing Heights”

300 Kate Bush Imper­son­ators Pay Trib­ute to Kate Bush’s Icon­ic “Wuther­ing Heights” Video

2009 Kate Bush Doc­u­men­tary Dubs Her “Queen of British Pop”

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

The Ukulele Orches­tra of Great Britain–we’ve fea­tured them here before, play­ing cov­ers of every­thing from David Bowie’s “Heroes,” to Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spir­it,” Talk­ing Heads’ “Psy­cho Killer” and The Who’s “Pin­ball Wiz­ard.” And let’s not for­get their stir­ring per­for­mances of Ennio Morricone’s west­ern theme songs. Now, to help lift you out of the COVID gloom, they’re back with a nov­el take on the Stones’ 1965 clas­sic, “(I Can’t Get No) Sat­is­fac­tion.” Hope you enjoy.

Note: The orches­tra plans to post a new video every Sun­day on their YouTube chan­nel, and a full (pay-per-view) con­cert every month avail­able on their web­site.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

via Laugh­ing Squid

Relat­ed Con­tent

The Ukulele Orches­tra of Great Britain Per­forms Stun­ning Cov­ers of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spir­it,” Talk­ing Heads’ “Psy­cho Killer” & More

Ukulele Orches­tra Per­forms Ennio Morricone’s Icon­ic West­ern Theme Song, “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.” And It’s Pret­ty Bril­liant.

David Bowie’s “Heroes” Delight­ful­ly Per­formed by the Ukulele Orches­tra of Great Britain

Watch the Rolling Stones Play “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” While Social Dis­tanc­ing in Quar­an­tine

Yes, 2020 sucked. But not com­plete­ly, entire­ly and thor­ough­ly. Enjoy this brief sun­ny moment, cour­tesy of Robert Fripp and Toy­ah Will­cox.

If you vis­it their Sun­day Lunch playlist, you can watch them have fun with oth­er clas­sics by Nir­vana, Bowie, Alice Coop­er, The Kinks and more. Enjoy.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Robert Fripp & King Crim­son Per­form a Stir­ring Cov­er of “Heroes,” Short­ly after David Bowie’s Death (2016)

Robert Fripp Releas­es Free Ambi­ent Music to Get You Through the Lock­down: Enjoy “Music for Qui­et Moments”

Derek Jarman’s Jubilee: “It’s the Best Film about Punk” (1978)

From Elvis’ “Blue Christ­mas” to Tom Waits’ “Christ­mas Card from a Hook­er in Min­neapo­lis” to the Pogues’ “Fairy­tale of New York,” the most hon­est Christ­mas songs freely acknowl­edge the holiday’s dark under­bel­ly. There are always those for whom the hol­i­days are times of heart­break, which, as we know, makes for bet­ter song­writ­ing than tin­sel, elves, and stock­ings. Near the top of any list of mis­er­able Christ­mas songs sits Joni Mitchell’s hol­i­day clas­sic “Riv­er,” in which she laments los­ing “the best baby I ever had” over the sea­son.

“Riv­er” is not real­ly a Christ­mas song; it just hap­pens to be set dur­ing the hol­i­days: “It’s com­ing on Christ­mas, they’re cut­ting down trees,” Joni sings, “They’re putting up rein­deer, singing songs of joy and peace.” This tran­quil scene pro­vides a trag­ic foil for the song’s true sub­ject. “Ulti­mate­ly,” writes J. Free­dom du Lac at The Wash­ing­ton Post, “‘Riv­er’ is a bereft song about a bro­ken romance and a woman who des­per­ate­ly wants to escape her heart­break, say­ing repeat­ed­ly: ‘I wish I had a riv­er I could skate away on.’”

Mitchell’s “despair­ing dra­ma” has “long been a pop­u­lar cov­er among musi­cians, hun­dreds of whom have record­ed it for com­mer­cial release.” (Accord­ing to her web­site, it has been record­ed 763 times, sec­ond only to “Both Sides Now” at almost twice that num­ber.) Last year Ellie Goulding’s cov­er rose to No. 1 in Europe. First released on Mitchel­l’s 1971 clas­sic Blue, the song delib­er­ate­ly evokes the hol­i­days with strains of “Jin­gle Bells” in its open­ing bars before descend­ing into its deeply melan­choly melody.

“Riv­er” did not enter mod­ern Christ­mas sin­ga­longs until the 1990s. In the Poly­phon­ic video at the top, “Joni Mitchell and the Melan­choly of Christ­mas,” we begin all the way back in the 1880s, with the first record­ings of “Jin­gle Bells.” The his­to­ry frames Mitchell’s use of the melody, almost a form of sam­pling, as rad­i­cal protest of a tune that has become “syn­ony­mous with Christ­mas joy.” It has been record­ed by vir­tu­al­ly every­one, and was even broad­cast from space in 1965 “when astro­nauts aboard NASA’s Gem­i­ni 6 played it as part of a Christ­mas prank.”

No, says Mitchell, there are real peo­ple with real prob­lems down here, and some­times Christ­mas sucks. There’ll be no dash­ing through the snow: “It don’t snow here / Stays pret­ty green.” The sto­ry behind the song is well-known: Mitchell end­ed her two-year rela­tion­ship with Gra­ham Nash in 1970, then “skat­ed away” to Europe to escape the “crazy scene.” While in Crete, “she sent Nash a telegram to tell him their rela­tion­ship was over,” notes Tom Eames. No one should try to force a hap­py hol­i­day in such times. If you’re crav­ing a lit­tle real­ness with your cheer, con­sid­er adding “Riv­er” to your playlist.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How Joni Mitchell Wrote “Wood­stock,” the Song that Defined the Leg­endary Music Fes­ti­val, Even Though She Wasn’t There (1969)

Watch Joni Mitchell Sing an Immac­u­late Ver­sion of Her Song “Coy­ote,” with Bob Dylan, Roger McGuinn & Gor­don Light­foot (1975)

The Expan­sive Vocal Range of Joni Mitchell: From the Ear­ly to Lat­er Years

The Sto­ry of The Pogues’ “Fairy­tale of New York,” the Boozy Bal­lad That Has Become One of the Most Beloved Christ­mas Songs of All Time

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness