Tis the season for bad music.

I dislike Christmas music. What other time of year could I be inundated everywhere I go with Ann Murray, Kenny Loggins, and Barry Manilow back-to-back? I wouldn't listen to Bing Crosby in July, why would I want to hear him now? These people who recorded those classic Christmas songs were the Britney Spearses of their time. Someday, some December a decade from now, we'll be sitting around the old Yule log roasting chestnuts and thinking how Christmas just wouldn't be the same without that one Josh Grobin song. Sick.

And just so I'm not a total Scrooge, I'm going to plug a really great Christmas album. It's called "Light of the Stable" and it's by the legendary Emmylou Harris. This is an artfully crafted album that even has Neil Young (hot!) singing harmonies on the title track. "Light of the Stable" offers an authentic union of the Nashville-style country of the time (1979), excellent songcraft, and hint of traditional bluegrass..... and I don't mean the cookie-cutter supper-annoying watered-down bluegrass we're getting these days, I mean slow, beautiful songcraft on traditional instruments. Some Christmas classics, some originals, some rare old songs. Like one of my favorites: "Cherry Tree" which is a psychadelic impressionistic interpretation of Joseph and Mary's conversation about fidelity. I remember my parents singing it when I was just a little Gidlund.

So next time you are exposed to a music block consisting of Michael Bolton, James Blunt, and some girl who "almost won American Idol" singing songs about figgy pudding and sleigh rides and you start to shout (right there in the shopping mall), "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!", just go remedy the situation by picking up Emmylou's "Light of the Stable".