It’s hard to make the Christmas theme work without the burden of campy fluff that normally accompanies most every holiday harmony this time of year, but while she’s under the radar for a lot of mainstream audiences, Nubia Rose is doing an amazing job of showing us how to make Christmas music right in her new single “I Want Nothing for Christmas.” Through a simplistic relationship between vocals and rhythm, she establishes herself as an old-fashioned crooner here and, more importantly, one who can roll with the casual groove of a contemporary sound just as well as she would something more standard.
URL: https://www.nubiarose.com/
The music video for “I Want Nothing for Christmas” is quite the festive document, but it’s lacking the camp and sugary undertone that a lot of Christmas-style videos have. So much of what we’re seeing in this piece centers on the charm of Rose herself, and she isn’t even presenting her identity beside any of the oft-used props or filler that we’ve all grown quite used to every December. It’s all about the music for her, and that’s obvious just watching this video for her latest – and increasingly well-received – original release.
This beat is lusty and steps up on us before we know what to do with it, but I like that it’s not invasive to the point of displacing the bassline, nor the natural swing of our leading lady’s vocal. She’s going after the rhythm pretty hard here, but she isn’t breaking up the percussion in the name of flexing some melodic muscle. Contrarily, I like the ear for balance she’s employing in this performance, and I would argue that a lot of her peers both in and outside of the pop genre could benefit from trying to adopt a similar perspective when it comes to arranging their own work.
You don’t have to be the biggest Christmas fan to like the vocal stylings of one Nubia Rose this holiday season, and my gut tells me that even the hardest-core Grinch among us will have a difficult time resisting the positive spirit she brings to the table in “I Want Nothing for Christmas.” This is an elegant, thoughtful illustration of her talents that knows how to get our hips swinging along with the music, and if you haven’t listened to it yet this November, I’d recommend giving it a loyal spin before the month has come to an end.
Kim Muncie