Studio 360 redesigns Christmas. Why limit the holiday to Victorian sleigh rides and inflatable lawn Santas? We commissioned one of the country's most creative design firms to imagine a contemporary, 21st-century Christmas. Indie rock legend Robyn Hitchcock improvises a gory Christmas tune, and Kurt Andersen talks with country diva Dolly Parton, who was just honored for lifetime achievement at the Kennedy Center. And the guy who wrote the New Wave holiday classic "Christmas Wrapping" tells us how the song changed his life (hint: it has a happy ending).
X-Mas Redesign
(Pentagram)
Redesigning Christmas
Studio 360 commissioned Pentagram, one of the country's leading design firms, to give Christmas a makeover. They came up with a new typeface, color scheme, fir tree surrogate, and a radical proposal to channel the rampant commercialism to good ends. Pentagram partner ...
A Robyn Hitchcock Holiday
Singer-songwriter Robyn Hitchcock leans toward the surrealistic. Robyn was in the studio recently with his band The Venus 3, and we asked them for a Christmas song. They put one together on the spot, and it has a strange holiday spirit all its own.
Dolly Parton
It's hard not to love Dolly Parton. The songwriter, singer, actress, and icon of country music has been charming fans for years. The Kennedy Center in Washington just recognized her with a lifetime achievement award, and the ceremony will be broadcast on CBS this week. Kurt spoke ...
Unsilent Night
It's become a new holiday tradition: every year in New York (and a growing number of cities around the globe), crowds gather and hold boomboxes all cued up to the same song. That song is an ambient techno Christmas piece called "Unsilent Night," by the composer Phil ...
Guitar Hero
One of this shopping season's big hits is called Guitar Hero 2. Like the new Nintendo Wii, Guitar Hero isn't all thumbs - you play it using real body movements. It's controlled by a miniature, plastic version of a Gibson guitar, and you have to strum in time and hit ...
Bebe Bleue
You've heard it in the mall this season -- the 1981 song "Christmas Wrapping," by the Waitresses. Bandleader Chris Butler wrote the song as a goof, and it never went away: the Waitresses had a New Wave classic on their hands. But after their surprise hit, Butler's ...





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