I guess they know how it feels in Florida.
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[5.78]
Juana Giaimo: In the Southern hemisphere we don’t want cozy Christmas songs about staying home watching the snow fall anymore. We’ve had enough, and “100 Degrees” is a summer pop explosion that hopefully will spdread to the whole world. I’ll be waiting you here by the pool with my sunglasses on.
[8]
Megan Harrington: You ever get Christmas-themed gifts on Christmas? Sure you do — it’s a classic clown relative move. What does anyone want with a pair of socks they can only, in good conscience, wear for another eight or twelve hours? In that spirit, Christmas songs are annually rendered meaningless at the height of their appropriateness — Christmas Day is Day One of turn that fucking off when it comes to carols and sing-a-longs and Elvis Presley Xmas. “100 Degrees” is Christmas for not-Christmastime. Are you hitting the dancefloor on the Lord’s multi-thousandth birthday? Doubtful because even dancefloor operators get one day a year off. If you want Disco Christmas, celebrate in July.
[7]
Alfred Soto: Fifteen years ago, Kylie Minogue’s glistening neo-disco — fleet without a trace of funk — anticipated the dance pop boom. Now she’s riding a dull rhythm guitar skitter that mimicks the progression in Donna Summer’s “On the Radio.”
[4]
Micha Cavaseno: To my knowledge, Christmas Disco Ballad is a remarkably undermined realm of possibility (though any opportunities to be #Actuallied out the frame are both welcome and encouraged). The fact that Kylie and her sister would be the ones to bring this notion to my eyes is… not entirely surprising, but like those weird finger foods from the aunt who eats vegetables on a monthly basis that show up at the Christmas party, not exactly what you think you need to be festive. To the credit of the Aunties Minogue, their performances are right on the nose and neither become too jokey or too stodgy. But the song is a bit bewildering to dig into, and the arrangement doesn’t pop off as particularly cheerful (or festive for that matter). Still, the thought that counts!
[3]
Thomas Inskeep: Disco-soaked holiday cheer from the Minogue sisters is a good idea any time of year.
[7]
Brad Shoup: There’s a near-even chance this started off with “disco” in place of “Christmas.” In any event, I’m glad some disco remains: the chorus doesn’t smolder — that’s not her bag — but it’s some refreshing vapor, with a nearly great bass line and the effortless ecstasy of the Minogues.
[6]
Katherine St Asaph: Dannii Minogue’s “I Begin to Wonder” is the “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” the critics and zeitgeist forgot, and the disco Christmas ball genre contains such ungrinchaboutable classics as “Xmas on the Dance Floor” and the sadly absent-from-the-cloud “No Cure for the Common Christmas.” So you’d think this would be better.
[5]
Will Adams: I appreciate the focus on how temperature itself plays a role in common constructions of Christmas, namely how for much of the world, the holiday doesn’t necessarily equal cold. But really, this is just audio fan service (“It’s Kylie AND Dannii! It’s Christmas disco!”) that, like most modern Christmas music, doesn’t have much of interest to say.
[4]
Anthony Easton: Oh, this is what the rest of the commonwealth means when they say “camp as Christmas”.
[8]