Thursday, December 16, 2004

Sick of Bing yet?

Behold the top two millinerd Christmas albums:

1. Bruce Cockburn's (pronounced koeburn for those not in the know)Christmas album could perhaps best be described as "ethnic Canadian" music, for among other things its inclusion of the first Canadian hymn by Jean de Brebeuf. Bruce remarkably sings it in the Huron language (as Brebeuf intended). Incidentally, if ever there was an example of a deeply indigenous missionary that spreads the Gospel without the requisite culture-smothering... Brebeuf would be it. There are many more (St. Patrick, Matteo Ricci, etc., etc.).

2. Over the Rhine's almost spooky The Darkest Night of the Year is an assortment of reinterpretations (not all of them in my opinion successful) of the classic tunes. The new interpretations are "eerie" enough to remind that what we're dealing with is indeed the Mystery of the Incarnation, with which one can never be completely familiar.

Both B.C. and O.T.R. are Christians, but don't, shall we say, advertise the fact. As I've mentioned before, one certainly doesn't have to be a good person, let alone a Christian to be a phenomenal musician or artist... but especially when writing a Christmas album, it certainly helps.