Shakin' Stevens - Merry Christmas Everyone

December 17, 2012 Critic Jonni 0 Comments

Shakin' Stevens, real name Michael Barratt, is another singer who has quite not made my blog yet. He has a total of four UK number ones, and is currently still going. He was originally in a band called Shakin' Stevens and the Sunsets. I know him for this song alone, and this song has to be one of my favourite Christmas songs ever sung, it's cheerful and I just can't help singing a long to it.

"Merry Christmas Everyone" was written by Bob Heatlie. It was originally meant to be released in 1984, but it was held back a year to prevent it from clashing with Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas Time?", which was a good call, because in 1985 this soared to the top spot. Recently, since downloads has been included in the charts, this song has managed to chart in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 with chart numbers being 22, 36, 49, 73 and 42 respectively. This year (2012), it shall be charting once again, but will it chart higher than last year, or will this slowly dissipate?

This music video is probably one of the oldest I have reviewed, and it slowly doesn't make sense. It's all about fun but a possible narrative that hooks me right from the start, disappears, making the focus on Shakin' Stevens, and even though the video does relate to the song, I just feel that we're given an insight into a narrative that never has an ending.

This leaves me disappointed. We follow this person's journey to Tomteland, and then we never see this person again or we do but only in the background.

Focus shifts on to Shakin' Stevens and attempts to make a direct link with the song, which is done pretty well, and I have fallen in love with the snowman, I want one. But it's missing the narrative it began with, and that is key in this video. Either you put it in and finish it, or you leave it out.

Overall a great song, and I have to admit, it is one of my favourites. The music video is good to an extent, but it misleads the viewer by starting a narrative without finishing it. I like the inclusion of snow, and the snowman, and of course seeing Santa Claus, what Christmas music video would be complete without him? But this is still missing a lot.