Episodes

CROSSOVER! Ranking The Beatles Christmas Fan Club Releases with 12 Songs of Christmas Podcast

Every holiday season from 1963-1969, members of the Official Beatles Fan Club would receive a special present from the Fab Four: a limited edition, fan-club-only flexidisc record, made just for them. What started out as a brilliant turn of PR, scripted to strengthen the appeal and bond between band and fan turned into an outlet for the boys to create whimsey and weirdness without consideration of commerciality. As they got turned on, so did the Christmas records. Bringing in elements of their beloved Goon Shows, pantomime and theatre, avant garde sound collages, the band turned in increasingly creative, then increasingly distant records every year, providing a fascinating glimpse into their trajectory throughout their career.

To discuss this curio in the catalog, we teamed up for this crossover episode with Christmas music fanatic, previous guest, and host of the 12 Songs of Christmas Podcast, Alex Rawls. For several years now, in addition to his regular music website, My Spilt Milk, he devotes the end of the year to discussing Christmas music old and new, it’s place in the zeitgeist and the relationship we have it. It’s a fantastic podcast we highly recommend subscribing to.

If you want to dive deeper into the Beatles Christmas discs, they’re pretty easy to find on Youtube. They reissued them in a 7″ boxset in 2017, which can still be purchased should you love them and decide to add them to your collection.

Also featured in this episode is The Breton Sound’s cover of “Wonderful Christmastime,” which you can stream on all streaming sites, or download on iTunes if you really want it, and The Fab Four’s “Tomorrow Never Knows”-ish cover of “Jingle Bells,” which is absolutely a blast. They have a Christmas album called HARK!, all holiday songs done in Beatles-style, and it’s a hoot. Highly recommend.

Be sure to follow along, leave your comments, and join in on the discussion on the rankings at Facebook (facebook.com/rankingthebeatles) and on Instagram @rankingthebeatles. Enjoying the show and want to show your support? Check out https://anchor.fm/rankingthebeatles/support!

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Reviews

Judge Timbers

Ranking the songs of the Beatles? What could possibly go wrong? But somehow this podcast gets it just right thanks to the wit and charm of the co-hosts and their guests. The listener quickly discovers the rankings are used not to incite heated arguments but rather as a starting point to spark a positive deep dive into every Beatle song. Put simply, Ranking The Beatles is a welcome addition to the Beatle podcast universe.

spazaru

Required listening if you like The Beatles at all. Great guests every week and Jonathan and Julia are fun and genuinely funny (even the tired Mike Love jokes). I listen every Tuesday morning as soon as I wake up. One week around Christmas they took the week off so I just slept the whole week until there was a new episode. It was worth the wait.

finfan64

Nice to see a truly excellent new Beatles podcast. This one is hosted by a very appealing young couple, who along with their well selected guests, have a winning combination of professional musical knowledge and the enthusiasm of fans. It’s an interesting format that by definition promises to only get better as it goes along. If they can make the “Only a Northern Song” episode good then they’re unstoppable

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