The WATMM Christmas Album

I made a probe for interest in General Banter, and it seems like there's a lot of interest. So let's make a Christmas Album!

The deadline for tracks is December 10th.

Send the tracks to me by private message.

If a special kind of mastering is important for the sound you're going for, by all means use it. But otherwise try to keep the mixes reasonably uncompressed, so that I can adjust the levels and make them sound consistent. Of if someone like Zephyr Nova wants to do it, they're more than welcome, seeing as I don't have a lot of experience.

In the Christmas spirit, all submissions are welcome. This isn't a competition. But let's try to make the best tracks we can people.

Style Guidelines: The general idea here is to take classic Christmas tunes, and redo them in different styles. For example: A breakcore version of Silent Night, or a Dubstep version of Frosty the Snowman. Since this is watmm, I imagine that most of the styles will be electronic, but really anything goes. Feel free to do a gangster rap version of Hark the Herald.

If you'd rather do a Christmassy original composition, that's cool, but I think it would be best if the majority of submissions are covers of Christmas carols.

Naming Guidelines: I'd like to encourage everyone to name their track in one of two ways. The first is to take the name of the carol you're covering, and then add a bracketed extension. So like "Silent Night (Breakcore Mix)" or "Frosty the Snowman (Muddy Slush Revision)". The Second is to make a parody of the original name. So, for example, if you're doing a gangster rap of Hark the Herald, you might want to call it "Hark the Motherfuckin' Herald" or something like that. If we try to stick to these two naming conventions, then the original name will be recognizable, but there's still room for originality. But if you're dead set on not doing this that's cool.

Some time shortly after the deadline I'll make a soundcloud with all the tracks. If people want, we could put an optional donation thing, and the donations could go to watmm.

If anyone has a great idea for the cover art, post it here.

Okay WATMM, let's get festive!

Don't forget that it's up here at the top of the page folks. Maybe i should have added a neon border.

Who's doing what.

Away in a Manger - Root5

Carol of the Bells - Sprigg

Silent Night - Zephyr Nova

Sleigh Ride - ganus, Bewarethefriendlyfoil (andy williams version)

White Christmas - ghOsty

little drummer boy - sup

Coventry Carol - goiter sanchez

O Come All Ye Faithful - Springymajig

Last Christmas - psn

frosty the snowman - feltcher

Hark! the Herald Angles Sing - hautlle

Vince Guaraldi's "Skating" from A Charlie Brown Christmas - vamos scorcho

Greensleeves - wahrk

O come, O come, Emmanuel - sheatheman

Let it Snow - chimera slot mom

Good King Wenceslas - slightlydrybeans

Wonderful Christmas Time - kokeboka

do they know it's christmas - margaret thatcher

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas - Zephyr Nova

A Charlie Brown Christmas - goffer

What if everyone chooses the same 3 songs and we end up with 12 Jingle Bells covers?

I'll pick an obscure underground Christmas Carol you've probably never heard of

*downloads Jingle Bells sheet music*

People call out what pieces they are doing, first in calls dibs. I mean there are a lot of christmas songs, a lotta lot. Maybe, a second person could do one, but why would you want to do one that's already been taken anyway.

Also, if you are going to call it, you actually need to work on and produce a song, so if you've given up after a week or so, put the song back in the hat.

The reason why I didn't put any limits on how many times a carol could be covered, is that some carols, like Carol of the Bells, are really good and will naturally attract more interest.

But please don't everyone do the same one. As delet points out, there are lots of them out there. Let's call out what we intend to do, and try to self regulate this.

I plan on doing a general idmish cover of Away in a Manger.

And we can be creative. You can do a movement of Handel's Messiah, or you could do some Hanuka thing if you want.

  On 10/11/2011 at 1:46 AM, Root5 said:

The reason why I didn't put any limits on how many times a carol could be covered, is that some carols, like Carol of the Bells, are really good and will naturally attract more interest.

True that, plus i don't want to dictate anything, just adding suggestions for the consideration of the group consensus.

I've started a list of who/what @ the top of the page. If you want to change, just moan about it in this thread and it'll be altered. It's really just to indicate to everyone else what is already taken to help in their song decidening.

  On 10/11/2011 at 1:54 AM, delet... said:

I've started a list of who/what @ the top of the page. If you want to change, just moan about it in this thread and it'll be altered. It's really just to indicate to everyone else what is already taken to help in their song decidening.

That's cool with me. Thanks.

I wasn't actually planning on doing Jingle Bells but maaaaayyyyyyybbbbbbeeeeee

nah probably not

fikst,.

I'll do a Mariah Carey cover

Some people made some claims in the other thread.

ghOsty - either dubstep Carol of the Bells or semi-ambient White Christmas

Sprigg - dark ambient-technoish Carol of the Bells

Zephyr Nova - vocoder barbershop Silent Night

ganus - Sleigh Ride

I'm happy to let both ghOsty and Sprigg do Carol of the Bells, since they want to do different styles

i will play the ndc the little drummer boy

rum pum pum!!!

  On 10/11/2011 at 5:33 AM, sup said:

i will play the ndc the little drummer boy

 

rum pum pum!!!

What's "the ndc". I don't understand.

You'll do the little drummer boy, but what style?

  On 10/11/2011 at 5:47 AM, Root5 said:

  On 10/11/2011 at 5:33 AM, sup said:

i will play the ndc the little drummer boy

 

rum pum pum!!!

 

What's "the ndc". I don't understand.

 

You'll do the little drummer boy, but what style?

It stands for new dork cuntstyle.

I'm not a fan of the pervasive nature of Christmas music during November/December, so making this stuff palatable will be a special challenge!

I'd like to do an electronic cover of 'Coventry Carol' which isn't as well known as others, but it has a more emotionally complex melody than most Christmas tunes so my mind is buzzing at the possibilities for this one! Can't wait to hear 'em all!

Whatever I do it'll probably be in the realm of glitchy ambient.

I'm probably gonna do O Come All Ye Faithful.

  On 10/11/2011 at 8:33 AM, Goiter Sanchez said:

I'm not a fan of the pervasive nature of Christmas music during November/December, so making this stuff palatable will be a special challenge!

I'd like to do an electronic cover of 'Coventry Carol' which isn't as well known as others, but it has a more emotionally complex melody than most Christmas tunes so my mind is buzzing at the possibilities for this one! Can't wait to hear 'em all!

I overall agree with you, although I'll admit that there's a certain grandeur in the christian Christmas carols. The ones without god in them (Rudolf and Frosty) are just annoying and lame. (I'm an atheist by the way, this is pure musical preference). My inspiration for this project came from the Cthulu Christmas album (there might be 2 or 3 by now), which is fun to play during the holidays. Here's an example:

[youtubehd]WnG8nOK7nqM[/youtubehd]

Can't wait to hear what you come up with!

  On 10/11/2011 at 8:33 AM, Springymajig said:

Whatever I do it'll probably be in the realm of glitchy ambient.

 

I'm probably gonna do O Come All Ye Faithful.

Awesome! Looking forward to it.

I wanna do Last Christmas.

we don't care about copyright issues right? I might sample some old xmas tunes/vocals and try to fuck them up. I need an excuse to start making music again, and this could be a soft start.

Put me down for frosty the snowman. I had a vague attempt at it last year for my soundcloud page, but I wanna give it a proper go this year.

Oooh, I'd like to call "Hark! the Herald Angles Sing"

Or maybe Jinglebell Rock? lol

  On 10/11/2011 at 10:16 AM, psn said:

I wanna do Last Christmas.

Awesome.

  On 10/11/2011 at 10:49 AM, Gocab said:

we don't care about copyright issues right? I might sample some old xmas tunes/vocals and try to fuck them up. I need an excuse to start making music again, and this could be a soft start.

Yeah, we'll make it free, and not even have the option to download, so copyright shouldn't really be a problem. As long as you fuck them up a decent amount.

  On 10/11/2011 at 1:54 PM, feltcher said:

Put me down for frosty the snowman. I had a vague attempt at it last year for my soundcloud page, but I wanna give it a proper go this year.

Awesome!

  On 10/11/2011 at 2:42 PM, hautlle said:

Oooh, I'd like to call "Hark! the Herald Angles Sing"

 

Or maybe Jinglebell Rock? lol

Oh man, it would be excellent if you did Hark! the Herald. If you do, make sure you're aware of the descant at the end.

So we're seriously going to limit this to soundcloud streaming? that's pretty damn lame to be honest. I mean, as someone who's heavily into cut-up and the like, I know that there are tons of labels who use basically exclusively copyrighted stuff for free or even for money sometimes, and get away with it every single time. If you're worried about it, I can even publish it for download (or a non-profit physical release if you want) when I make my label, making me the person responsible for the legal ramifications of it. It's really not a big deal.

http://www.discogs.c...oe/release/6673

http://www.discogs.c.../release/107217

http://www.discogs.c...y/master/157957

http://www.discogs.c.../release/369873

http://www.discogs.c.../release/582637

http://www.discogs.c.../release/221939

etc.

These all contained large amounts of copyrighted content, no one involved in any of them were taken to court it, and they were all paid releases.