Blog Archive for January 2026

Album Of The Day: Desire by Bob Dylan

Album Art of Bob Dylan's Desire album - A young man with a short beard and mustache is shown from a profile, mostly hidden under a large grey brimmed hat and a colorful coat with a fur hood. He's looking off to the right and smiling, and there seems to be trees behind him. Around the border of the photo is a black outline and a gray background, and printed in the top right of the photo is the artist's name and the album title in gray with a white, black then gray again border around the text.

Released 50 years ago today, this is the 17th studio album by Bob Dylan, and honestly, it's only the second time I've ever listened to the album. So I'm not that familiar with the songs, except for maybe "Hurricane" which I've heard a few times more. But I like the album. It's classic rock with a full band and a bit of country elements too, it sounds to me. I do love epic songs, and 6 of the album's 9 tracks are over 5½ minutes, with "Joey" being an epic life story over 11 minutes long. "Romance In Durango" definitely has a bit of a Latin vibe, though it may be a bit cliché. The "Rolling Thunder Revue" tour that he went on before and after this album's release was apparently quite the show, included songs from this album, included many guest musicians as well as his band and was chronicled in a 2019 Martin Scorsese documentary. It's a pretty good album from Bob Dylan though it's not my favorite after just a few listens.

Release Year: 1976
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Album Of The Day: Christmas Hymns by Hangnail

Album Art of Hangnail's Christmas Hymns EP - The background is a beige paper look, with a decorative black border. In the middle, a painting of a snowy Christmas scene; some sort of visitors arriving on a snowy street on horseback to a house that looks to be from the 1800s or 1900s in some sort of city. The moon is above the buildings and behind a bare tree. Below the photo, written in a golden color calligraphy font, is the EP title and below that in a green, larger serif font is the band's name.

Released 5 years ago this past December, this an EP of Christmas covers by pop-punk band Hangnail. The band was active from 1993-2003 or so, and came back and released this top-notch EP nearly 20 years later. They provide guitar-heavy punk rock versions of some Christmas carol classics like "O Come All Ye Faithful" and "O Holy Night" as well as the maybe lesser-known "I Wonder As I Wander". Also included is the '90s Christmas song by David Meece, "One Small Child". Their arrangements are great and it's great to get new pop-punk versions of these songs with excellent harmonies and instrumentation.

Release Year: 2020
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Album Of The Day
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Album Of The Day: A Very She & Him Christmas by She & Him

Album Art of She And Him's A Very She And Him Christmas album - The bottom four fifths is a photo of a white man and white woman from the chest up wearing black suits and white-colored shirts beneath. They are in front of a red curtain and seem to be looking at something to the left of frame with some awe or surprise. The man has a bowtie and is wearing sunglasses. At the top in a golden white background it has written 'A Very She And Him Christmas', with the band name much larger and in green and red with a grey ampersand. In the top right, smaller items say 'A Holiday Recording' and the Merge Records logo is also there too.

Released 14 years ago this season, this is the first Christmas album from She & Him, the duo of Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward. Zooey Deschanel is most well-known as an actor, but is also a talented musician that plays piano and ukelele on some songs and does sing lead on most songs. M. Ward plays guitar and organ, produced the album, and sings on a few songs. The result is an album of Christmas standards that is well-made, not over-produced, and has a timeless quality to it. I'll admit that I probably need to do some research on modern Christmas classics because I was not familiar with the two tracks penned by Brian Wilson (The Beach Boys) on this album, but they are good celebration of the American, secular Christmas spirit along with more well-known songs like "Sleigh Bells" and "I'll Be Home For Christmas". It's a fun, fairly recent recording of Christmas cheer from a talented duo of musicians.

Release Year: 2011
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Album Of The Day
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Album Of The Day: Christmas by Jill Phillips & Andy Gullahorn

Album Art of Jill Phillips and Andy Gullahorn's Christmas album - Some sort of drawing of golden white trees and a white ground on a background of a blue sky is the main focus. In the middle, in black text with a small shadow it has printed the album title in large text with the artist names in much smaller text.

Released 15 years ago this Christmas season, this is the first album where Jill Phillips and her husband Andy Gullahorn share the main artist credit, though they have definitely had helped in many ways on their solo albums before and since. It's a beautiful album of Christmas carols, standards and even some originals are performed in their acoustic pop style. I love some old texts or songs I'm less familiar with showing up here like "Nations That Long In Darkness Walked" is some old text given a new melody here, and "Some Children See Him" is another song that I do not often hear. Original songs include "I Will Find A Way" and "You Came Down" and they are good reflections on the Christmas season and life. I can't help but laugh on their version of the classic duet "Baby It's Cold Outside", as the Gullahorns rework the lyrics to be about a husband and wife having a Christmas argument and the wife locking her husband out of the house, complete with beautiful harmonies and hilarious lines. Of course there's favorites like "O Holy Night" and "The First Noel" too, plus a few others we sometimes sing at church around Christmas like "Once In Royal David's City". There's even a recording of their kids singing "We Wish You A Merry Christmas" at the end with incorrect lyrics called "Piggy Pudding". This year, the album was released for the first time on vinyl as well and I included the new cover artwork as well as the old CD artwork.

Release Year: 2010
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Album Art of Jill Phillips and Andy Gullahorn's Christmas album, the 2025 vinyl version - A drawing of a wintery scene, a wooded are with a small church in the middle. It's snowing and large, red moon is on the right side behind the clearing where the church is. In the foreground there is a lamp post and an icy pond with two people ice skating on it. They are holding hands and wearing jackets, hats and mittens. Below them, it has the album title printed in a fancy white script and their names printed small in white below it.

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Album Of The Day
Music

Album Of The Day: Songs For Christmas by Sufjan Stevens

Album Art of Sufjan Stevens's Songs For Christmas collection - A drawing in colored pencil or something like it of a blue wall, a brown floor, and in the middle of the wall a green Christmas tree is sitting on a metal stand. There's a glowing, large star on top and the only decoration on the tree is a colored light on the end of each branch. On each side of the star in a flowing cursive font is the artist's name in white with a red border and drop shadow. At the bottom, under the tree, it says 'song for' in small black text, then 'Christmas' in large white text with a green border and drop shadow. Below that in small, black print is 'singalong' and 'in stereo hi-fi'.

My last few Albums Of The Day were just EPs, very short releases. But today, I'm making up for it by featuring a collection of 42 tracks totaling just over 2 hours. From 2001 to 2006, Sufjan Stevens did what you might expect any music professional would do; instead of buying a gift at the store for his friends, he recorded and sometimes wrote a song for them. And he didn't just give them the song, but he also gave us this collection of tracks he recorded from 2001 through 2006. It comes on 5 CDs, each disc containing 7-11 tracks, and includes a booklet with lots of artwork and even a bunch of stickers so you can decorate your copy as you see fit. Some songs are just brief instrumentals even shorter than a minute, while others are full-length songs with lush instrumentation. Much of it, like the Sufjan Stevens non-Christmas releases of the era, are banjo-heavy or keyboard-based versions of classic carols, sometimes instrumental and other times with vocals. Many songs are a bit sad in tone, and a number of the original songs reference personal hardships and relationship problems over the holidays. Although they are not really Christmas-related, a number of versions of hymns like "Holy, Holy, Holy" and "Amazing Grace" are included as well. There's a nearly 7-minute version of "What Child Is This" (called "What Child Is This Anyway?") that is very somber and creepy, and "Hey Guys! It's Christmas Time!" features lots of distorted electric guitar. It's an expansive collection of Christmas material that is certainly not a cohesive album and is of varying styles and quality, but it's an opportunity to celebrate the Christmas season while listening to an artist's experiments of sorts, which is pretty fun and interesting to me. If you've got some favorites or a playlist of favorites from this collection, I'd love to hear it.

Release Year: 2006
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Album Of The Day
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