If Sucker Punch had taken place during the Christmas season, one could very easily imagine this video as being a scene in the film. It just needs a giant ninja and Scott Glenn offering up words of pithy wisdom.
That said, what this song and this video do so well and what I love about them is that it provides a whole new spin to a very familiar song. Does the Grinch now own a casino or an Old West saloon? Is the Grinch now a gangster? And what exactly is the Grinch’s relationship with Sabrina Carpenter? This video leaves us with much to ponder during the holiday season.
This video was directed by Joshua Schultz, who has also directed videos for Juliet Simms and Haley Reinhart. According to the imdb, he’s currently in pre-production for a film called The Fog.
Happy Holidays! Trust Linsdey Stirling to elevate one of the worst Christmas songs ever written with an energetic performance and an entertaining music video.
(I should admit that I have a personal bias against Santa Baby, one that goes back to my dancing days. Let’s just say that falling flat on your ass in front of a huge crowd of people while dressed like one of Santa’s helpers and while Santa Baby plays in the background is not necessarily one of my happiest holiday memories.)
(Originally, I was going to list my picks for the best in SyFy today. However, I need one more day to work on that so look for that tomorrow! For now, here are my favorite songs of 2017!)
Every January, I list my favorite songs of the previous year and, every January, I include the same disclaimer. My favorite songs are not necessarily the favorite songs of any of the other writers here at the Shattered Lens. We are a large and diverse group of people and, as such, we all have our own individual tastes.
If you ever visited the TSL Bunker, you would be shocked by the different music coming out of each office. You would hear everything from opera to death metal to the best of Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. And then, of course, you would reach my office and you would discover that my taste in music pretty much runs the gamut from EDM to More EDM.
Now, usually, I do try to listen to a variety of music. You can go to my Song of the Day site — Lisa Marie’s Song of the Day — and see that I do occasionally listen to other types of music. But, I have to be honest. 2017 was not a year that inspired me to really leave me comfort zone. If anything, music provided me with some much needed consistency in an otherwise chaotic year. 2017 was a year that made me want to dance until it was all over and, for the most part, my favorite songs of the year reflect that fact.
Before I list my songs, I should make something else very clear. These are my favorite songs of 2017. I’m not saying that they’re necessarily the best songs of 2017. I’ll leave that debate for others. Instead, there are the songs that I found myself listening to over and over again. These are the songs made me dance. These are the songs that made me sing. A few of these songs relaxed me when I needed to be relaxed. These are songs that I liked.
You might like them.
Or you might not.
That’s the beautiful thing about art. Everyone experiences it in their own individual way.
Here are my favorite songs of 2017:
14. Shutdown by Joywave
13. Love So Soft by Kelly Clarkson
12. Rainmaker by Sleigh Bells
11. I feel It Coming by The Weeknd featuring Daft Punk
(Technically, this is a 2016 song but I listened to it a lot in 2017 and this is my list so fuck it, I’m including it.)
10. Alone by Alan Walker
9. Byte by Martin Garrix & Brooks
8. You Could Be by R3HAB featuring Khrebto
7. Mirage by Lindey Stirling featuring Raja Kumari
6. Rich Boy by Galantis
5. What About Us by P!nk
4. First Time by Kygo & Ellie Goulding
3. Escape Reality Tonight by Paul van Dyk & Emanuele Braveri ft. Rebecca Louise Burch
2. Look What You Made Me Do by Taylor Swift
It Ain’t Me by Kygo, featuring Selena Gomez
For tomorrow’s look back at 2017, I will (finally) share my picks for the best of the SyFy Network!
There’s no big reason behind why I picked this video for today’s music video of the day. This song just makes me happy and it’s a fun video. If you don’t like the music, you can concentrate on the dancing. If you don’t like the dancing, you can look at the mountains. If you don’t care about mountains, you can try to read all the graffiti behind Lindsey. Seriously, this video has something for everyone.
My look back at the previous year continues with 10 of my favorite non-fiction books of 2016! Now, it should be noted that, because this is an entertainment-related website, I’m only listing my favorite entertainment-related books. There was a lot of good nonfiction published last year but the majority of it had nothing to do with either the movies or television so who cares?
Anyway, all of these are wonderful and well-worth the money!
The Godfather Notebook by Francis Ford Coppola
TV: The Book by Matt Zoller Seitz and Alan Sepinwall
The Only Pirate at the Party by Lindsey Stirling
Natalie Wood: Reflections on a Legendary Life by Manoah Bowman
The Purple Diaries: Mary Astor and the Most Sensational Hollywood Scandal of the 1930s by Joseph Egan
In Search of Lost Films by Phil Hall
Down from the Attic: Rare Thrillers of the Silent Era through the 1950s by John T. Soister and Henry Nicolella
Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin
The Curse of Beauty: The Scandalous & Tragic Life of Audrey Munson, America’s First Supermodel by James Bone
A Thousand Cuts: The Bizarre Underground World of Collectors and Dealers Who Saved the Movies by Dennis Bartok and Jeff Joseph
Finally, I have to give an honorable mention to two books that were published in 2015 but which I didn’t read until 2016. These two books were definitely my favorite non-fiction reads in 2016 and there’s no way that I couldn’t mention them. Troy Howarth’s So Deadly, So Perverse and So Deadly, So Perverse Volume 2 contain everything you could possibly want to know about the giallo genre!
Tomorrow, my look back at 2016 continues with my favorite novels of the year!
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