18: Christmas Portrait

Support the Official Release

You can listen to Carpenters’ Christmas Portrait on:

• Apple Music
• Spotify

Or purchase Christmas Portrait on:

• Amazon Music

Links

• Carpenters’ “Superstar”, featured in this classic car ride karaoke scene from Tommy Boy.
• Episode 3: “The Christmas Draft”, where Marc drafts “Merry Christmas Darling” & discusses at length with Michael & Aimee. Check it out for a more thorough discussion on the track.
• Brian Wilson & The Beach Boys
  • Brian Wilson (self-titled, 1988). Certain segments and tracks on this record strongly resemble Richard’s on tracks like “It Came Upon A Midnight Clear”.
  • That’s Why God Made the Radio (2012), which Michael felt too strongly resembled Richard’s vocal style (and not in a good way).
• We listened to Christmas Portrait (Special Edition) from 1984, which is a compilation of select tracks from…
  • Christmas Portrait (original 1978 release)
  • An Old-Fashioned Christmas (1984)
• Karen’s voice type is contralto, which is a somewhat rare vocal range you might recognize from artists like…
  • Niko
  • Beach House’s Victoria Legrand
• May Crowning, you know, where songs like “Ave Maria” actually belong.
• “Is ‘Ave Maria’ really a Christmas song?” by Marc Minter, a senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Diana, TX. The correct answer is, “it’s not.”
• Michael’s “A Christmas Song” judgements
  • S Tier: Nat “King” Cole
  • So close! Amy Grant (see Episode 3 for the context behind Michael’s “branded by an iron” joke)
  • Honorable Mention: Bing Crosby
  • Clunker: Christina Aguilera
  • Surprisingly Good, But Blows It: Shawn Mendes
  • Just No: Pentatonix
  • Self Important Rubbish: Michael Bublé
• More on the history behind Merry Christmas Darling
• The app Michael mentioned is Marvis Pro, one of the finest music players available today
• “It’s Over 9000!”
• HBO’s The Last of Us Trailer (Marc was confusing it with the HBO 2023 Lineup trailer)

♫︎