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.
Letters to Cleo
Kishi Bashi and The Carpenters' "Merry Christmas Darling"
Debbie Davis
Josh Rouse
An Encore Presentation of The Minus 5
Isaac Hanson of Hanson
Christmas Compilations with Joe Adragna of The Junior League
The 12 Songs of Christmas with Nelson
"A Charlie Brown Christmas" with The Ornaments and Joel Dinerstein
Erin McKeown
An Encore Presentation with Thomas Lauderdale of Pink Martini
JD McPherson
The All-Christmas Radio Format
Los Lobos' Steve Berlin
Paul McCartney's "Wonderful Christmastime"
An Encore Presentation with Jimbo Mathus of the Squrrel Nut Zippers
Can Christmas Songs Be Cool?
Jon Langford
Chuck Mead
Tav Falco of Panther Burns
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