Review of Kelly Clarkson, Conan Gray

It’s time for one of our favorite annual traditions here at Switched on Pop — evaluating this season’s musical offerings. Every year, artists give out small nuggets of gold (or coal). That’s what you can count on every December: an endless supply of new gift-wrapping music that will probably never be listened to because Mariah Carey exists. Ahead, we review four recent tracks, ranked on a scale of zero to five sled bells.

Charlie Harding: We start with a perennial Christmas contender, Kelly Clarkson. “You for Christmas” is produced and written together with some heavy hitters: Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt. When you spin the chorus, you’ll hear exactly the kind of vibe she’s going for. It has everything: Motown production, lots of chromatics, endless sleigh bells, huge vocals. I love it here.

Nate Sloan: You are such a pushover. All it took was ten seconds of recurring Motown harmonies for you to love this. But I don’t disagree.

CH: The syncopated lead. She really knocks this song out of the park. I am stunned. I’m not usually into holiday music.

NS: You jump in your seat right now.

CH: I love that headline: Ah, da, da, da, da, da, da. Oh, that’s so good. Who is she alluding to here? Supremes?

NS: It feels Supremes-y – a lot of these Christmas songs do. Or they refer to Darlene Love’s “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home).”

CH: To make a good holiday song, it must refer to the period when classic pop merged with rock and roll and R&B. And this song is in that time frame. Musically, it makes sense that we work with Mark Ronson, who is the producer of Yesteryear Nostalgia, and Kelly Clarkson has got the vocal chops to handle it.

NS: She’s proven her holiday bona fides before with her song “Under the tree.”

CH: I think the new one is better.

SLEDGE BELLS: 5/5

NS: Your quizzical expression tells me you’re wondering how the song is even connected to the holiday.

CH: Yeah, it’s kind of a nice LA folk-pop song. Kind of reminds me of the new Shawn Mendes record. I actually think it’s really great. I like it very much. But, yeah, I don’t get vacation qualities. I mean, maybe sitting next to a fire and playing a piano solo, but it lacks all the necessary qualities to be the retro holiday thing I so admire about the last song.

NS: It is definitely a different attitude. It’s the experience of coming home for the holidays and revisiting some memories that you may have tried to avoid and confronting them head on. I find it refreshing. I haven’t really heard that approach to the holiday before, and it’s written with some real all-stars in the pop world: Dan Nigro — who we know from his work with Olivia Rodrigo and Chappell Roan — and Ethan Gruska.

CH: Ah! That’s why I heard the Shawn Mendes record, because Gruska also worked on that record. By the way, he is one of the most amazing producers working in pop music right now.

NS: Unfortunately, you get a bit of Lumineers in the chorus.

CH: Hello! Hello! I think this song has more in common with “Lover” by Taylor Swift. So I’m not sure if I’m giving anyone sleigh bells yet, even though I really like this song.

SLEDGE BELLS: 0/5

CH: You give us some more hidden holiday music here. I like Orville Peck. I made sure to go out of my way to see his set at Newport Folk last summer – he blew everyone away, especially with his song “Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond of Each Other,” a duet he does with Willie Nelson.

I love this holiday song. I’m getting a lot of the nostalgic vibe, although I’m yet to hear overt Christmas hints.

NS: It has literal sleigh bells.

CH: We have literal sleigh bells and we have a kind of Nashville, big orchestrated sound that reminds me of Patsy Cline. I noticed that the song is in 6/8. Something about that count feels holiday-like. Do you have a grand theory as to why?

NS: All I can think of is that back in the 19th century, many of the Christmas carols that we still know today were written in triple meter or compound meter: “O Holy Night, “Silent Night, “O Tannenbaum. ” So perhaps when we hear the triple meter today, we are reminded of the old Christmas days.

SLEDGE BELLS: 4/5

CH: Okay, it’s as smooth as a perfectly wrapped present. I feel like Dan and Shay play into the story of “All I Want for Christmas Is You” – I want to unwrap you, you are the present.

NS: I was fascinated by how this duo was once able to introduce an EDM-style post-chorus pop drop into a traditional country song. We get a similar effect in “Take Me Home for Christmas.”

CH: What is the word for this genre?

NS: It has to be Funktree, unfortunately.

CH: I like it. I love a Telecaster guitar. I love twang. This doesn’t try to do anything more than exactly what it is. I think it’s a great little novelty, like a perfect Christmas present, where you are, oh, it’s lovely. But I’ll forget about it next year.

SLEDGE BELLS: 3.5/10

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