In an earlier comment, Phillip Bush posted a link to a rabbi’s spoof of the Perry ad that got me so outraged yesterday. It was… OK. I give it points for quick turnaround, but as comedy goes, it was lacking.
Kathryn responded with a link to an old Stephen Colbert/Jon Stewart skit, which I said wasn’t nearly as good as SNL’s classic “Hanukkah Harry” bit.
And now, continuing the meme, Stan Dubinsky brings to my attention the latest Hanukkah video by the Maccabeats. It’s a cover of a Matisyahu number. (Watch to the end — Barack Obama makes an appearance! No sign of Rick Perry, though…)
You may or may not remember the Maccabeats for their breakout hit, “Candlelight.” Also about Hanukkah. And also very light-hearted.
The Maccabeats — yet another a cappella hip-hop bubble-gum Yeshiva group. When is the recording industry going to come up with something original, I ask you?
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I was in a concert band in Maine that did a Hanukkah song medley by Barry Manilow’s arranger. One of the bits was a lot like “I took a dreidel;
I made it out of clay…” to the tune of “Looks Like We Made It.” Then I realized that most hanukkah music is fairly comtemporary, and was written by the same people who shaped American popular music in the 20th Century. I see the trend continues.
Salomon Rossi aside, the best early music composers were Catholic or, later, Lutheran, so there is a lot of lovely Advent and Christmas music that never gets played. More’s the pity, when we have to listen to another cover of “Little Drummer Boy” when we could be listening to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoPQ4bAM1S4&feature=related
or this
Or this
or this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR-oUzimkLI (or, for a more modern arrangement, this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yq2my9m0xmM )
And I forgot this old song with a new arrangement:
Disclaimer: My personal feeling is that this is the best recording of this Christmas song. Ever.