The Bird and The Bee

Twelve Songs of Christmas

Singer Inara George and producer Greg Kurstin are The Bird and the Bee, whose stylish, semi-electronic pop draws influences including a few that came to be lumped--inaccurately, I'd argue--under the "lounge" umbrella. The results are far snappier than that implies, but Kurstin has access to a battalion of retro keyboard sounds at his disposal that, paired with George's cool voice, make every song sound hip and well-dressed.

Last fall, they released Put Up the Lights, their first Christmas album but not their first recording of Christmas music. Roofers banged around above her while George talked about the theory behind their Christmas music and how they made the album during the pandemic.

We also talked about how the album related to their "Interpreting the Masters" series, for which they recorded albums of covers of Hall and Oates and Van Halen. We also talked about how she as a woman related to songs written by David Lee Roth.

This week, I also talk about a Spotify playlist--repository, really--of Japanese Christmas songs that I recently found, and I feature two songs that particularly caught my attention: a cover of "Last Christmas" by Cano Caioli and "Koibito ga Santa Claus" by Seiko Matsuda.