Capitol Records tried to cash in on the '90s lounge revival with its "Ultra-Lounge" series--albums that pulled tracks from the label's vaults that fell under some of the umbrellas that came to associated with lounge including crooners, mambos, space-age sounds, and tiki bar music. In 1996, it released Christmas Cocktails, with series compiler Brad Benedict pulling together holidays songs from those genres.
It was so successful that Capitol released Christmas Cocktails Vol. 2 in 1997, then Christmas Cocktails Vol. 3 much later in 2012 with a different, more pedestrian creative team. By that point, Benedict and the Ultra-Lounge creative team had gone on to Shout Factory Records for the "Wonderland" series, three similar compilations of Christmas music that had different label libraries to draw from.
Christmas Cocktails was influential at the time and is still fondly remembered, so this week I'm discussing it with the King of Jingaling, Brad Ross MacLeod from one of the OG Christmas mp3 blogs, falalalalala.com.
We talk about his site, lounge, reissues, nostalgia, the contemporary music that bridged these songs from the late 1950s and early '60s with the music of the '90s when the first two volumes came out.
Along the way, we talk about Peggy Lee, who I discussed in an episode with her granddaughter Holly Foster-Wells in 2021.
"Joyeux Noël, Bon Chrismeusse" from Lafayette with Chas Justus
Peggy Lee with Holly Foster-Wells
Amy Grant's "A Christmas Album" and Patrick Droney
"Do They Know It's Christmas" with Michaelangelo Matos and Flaming Lips' Steven Drozd
George Winston, The Bird and The Bee, The Myrrhderers, and Mento Buru
Calexico, Grant-Lee Phillips, and Peggy Lee
Big Freedia and Kelly Finnigan
Judith Owen and Harry Shearer, and Office Romance
Jim Brickman and the Return of Trans-Siberian Orchestra
Steven Drozd of The Flaming Lips
"Just Like Christmas" with Low
The Goo Goo Dolls and Tori Kelly
"Mele Kalikimaka" with Ana Cristina Cash
Janie Fricke
The Beatles' Christmas Recordings with Jonathan and Julia Pretus of "Ranking the Beatles"
Rhonda Vincent, and Carrie Underwood's "The Gift"
Mega Ran
Christmas Music on the Billboard Charts with Chris Molanphy
"A Jazzy Little Christmas" with Ernie Haase and Signature Sound
"Hard Candy Christmas," with Alexandra Scott
Join Podbean Ads Marketplace and connect with engaged listeners.
Advertise Today
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
The Marty Ray Project: Chats
What’s the Res?
It’s All An Act
The Count of Monte Cristo
The Turn of the Screw
The Magnus Archives
The Moth