The Spin-ter Wonderland season is upon us! Get ready for a head-to-head bracket elimination of your favorite holiday hits with our annual NAUGHTY OR NICE Competition! We've selected fourteen songs by artists we've covered on the podcast in the last year and pitted them against one another to determine who comes out on top, based on YOUR VOTES! From Frank Sinatra's crooning Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas to Lady Gaga's Christmas Tree, we've got a blend of new tunes and familiar favorites in the running this year. The Beach Boys' Little Saint Nick is also looking for redemption after underperforming a few years back. Will Fall Out Boy's Yule Shoot Your Eye Out remain our champion??

James & Connor are back to talk about their holiday traditions, previous Naughty Or Nice contests (including the tragic and complicated elimination of Wham! and Last Christmas a year ago). We'll play memory games about Connor's scores and units, learn about each of these seasonal staples, and compete against each other with our own brackets to break a years-long tie. Then we'll end the episode with a new memory game that might end up with James on the naughty list after all!

Thank you for another great year! Which of these holiday songs were your favorites? Would your bracket have matched the final score? Are there any artists we've covered with more deserving Christmas classics? Let us know on social media, and follow us into 2026 next week wherever you get your podcasts!

Check out this episode's playlists!

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7HbbcFipapfg9h2BLUxGeR?si=2da8e2471a844871

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tJtsKngXJU&list=PLYumnChiw_I_gaLMEZ0UiHzFwkN22kQu-

Thanks for listening!

Keep Spinning at www.SpinItPod.com!

0:00 Intro

2:47 Tales Of The Glories Of Naughty Or Nice Long, Long Ago

6:29 Have We Been Naughty Or Nice?

11:33 The NoN 2025 Bracket

18:02 Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas (Sinatra) vs. You're A Mean One, Mr. Grinch (Tyler, The Creator)

25:40 Another Lonely Christmas (Prince) vs. Not Another Christmas Song (Blink-182)

33:20 Cherry Tree Carol (Wiggles feat. Hozier) vs. Christmas Tree (Lady Gaga)

41:45 We All Need Christmas (Def Leppard) vs. Little Saint Nick (The Beach Boys)

49:46 Together Again And A Very Merry Christmas (Randy Newman) vs. The Christmas Song (Olivia Dean)

57:10 Alone On Christmas With You (Cody Fry) vs. 8 Days Of Christmas (Destiny's Child)

1:04:11 A Nonsense Christmas (Sabrina Carpenter) vs. Winter (The Rolling Stones)

1:10:38 Round 2.1

1:12:19 Round 2.2

1:14:15 Round 2.3

1:16:16 Round 2.4 Featuring Yule Shoot Your Eye Out (Fall Out Boy)

1:19:28 Round 3.1

1:20:50 Round 3.2

1:22:56 Round 4: The Finale

1:24:30 One Last Experiment

1:29:33 Final Bracket Recap

1:30:28 One More Game For Connor

1:46:58 Final Spin

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We're heading to the Land Of Sweets this week and reviewing The Nutcracker ballet, an annual seasonal staple around the globe! The 1892 ballet proved to be Pyotr Tchaikovsky's swansong, serving as a capstone on a composing career that brought Russian music to western audiences. Today, the ballet brings in more than $50 million in annual ticket sales to support dance companies and education... but what made it so popular in the first place? Sure, it features iconic songs like the March, the Russian Dance, and the Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairy, but the remarkable history of The Nutcracker goes deeper than we realized!

James & Connor are talking holiday traditions! We look at the ballet's striking stats, meet Connor's (actual) 5'11" nutcracker Nick and the world's LARGEST functional nutcracker, and talk about some idiosyncrasies between different adaptations of the ballet. We'll explore Tchaikovsky's legendary career, from the 1812 Overture to Swan Lake. The Mixtaper has lost his head with some 19th-century Fact Or Spin tidbits about superstitions, giant bees, and grand theft Celesta during the Waltz Of The Dastard. Then we learn what sugar plums actually are and share our thoughts on the plot, characters, and music that make up this Christmas classic!

Have you seen The Nutcracker live? What's your favorite version of the ending? Have you ever had a sugar plum?! And... how do you decorate your tree? Let us know in the comments or on any of our social media! See you next week for our own tradition-- the annual Naughty Or Nice competition!

Keep Spinning at www.SpinItPod.com!

Thanks for listening!

0:00 Intro

8:27 Modern Nutcracker Statistics

12:09 About Pyotr Tchaikovsky

18:19 About The Nutcracker

21:45 Why Did The Ballet Get So Famous?

26:58 Fact Or Spin

33:21 Tchaikovsky Was Afraid Of Losing His Head

37:31 He Was A Musical Secret Agent

42:47 The Original Ballet Avoided 13 Of Everything

47:01 The Original Nutcracker Was Quite The Buzz

53:53 Breaking Down The Ballet

54:15 What Are Sugarplums?

56:23 The Plot: Act I

59:06 The Plot: Act II

1:01:17 The Music

1:03:51 The Suite

1:10:52 The Dance Of The Sugarplum Fairy

1:12:23 Decorating The Christmas Tree

1:15:49 Full Ballet Vs. Suite?

1:16:50 Final Spin

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It's All Blues this week as we review and rank Kind Of Blue, the revolutionary instrumental modal jazz album by the legendary Miles Davis! Davis and his sextet (full of icons like John Coltrane and Julian "Cannonball" Adderley) abandoned the idea of chord progressions and studied scales, with minimal rehearsal. The result is a five-track improvised album that "changed the language of music." Its songs have become staples in the jazz canon, to the point that a certain chord is named the So What chord because it's so recognizable from this album. We'll talk about Miles' storied life and fluctuating career that led to his 1959 masterpiece... and then figure out why he later dismissed it as "warmed-over turkey."

James and Jazzy Connor talk about bearing Davis' torch into the future! As our resident trumpeter, Connor is quite familiar with Miles Davis. We learn how puffed up he can get. The Mixtaper is freestyling Fact Or Spin with tales about a vow of silence, a mysterious good Samaritan, and a Presidential Mix-Up that ended up Kinda Red. Then, get ready for a five-course meal as we examine the album track by track. Whether you're a decadent soup or an arugula dressed in regret, there's something on this album for every appetite.

How's this jazz album sit with you? Are there other foods you'd put in your five-course meal? Let us know if hard bop and modal jazz is music to your ears in the comments or on social media, and be sure to give us a follow! It's all no charge-- there are no Freddie Freeloaders here!

Keep Spinning at www.SpinItPod.com!

Thanks for listening!

0:00 Intro

4:01 About Miles Davis

16:34 About Kind Of Blue

28:18 Awards & Accolades

29:19 Fact Or Spin

30:52 He Took A Year-Long Vow Of Silence

35:05 He Had A Presidential Mix-Up

38:49 He Was Saved By A Famous Good Samaritan

45:34 Albino Loco Punched Him In The Face

50:25 Album Art

51:23 So What

57:01 Freddie Freeloader

1:00:41 Blue In Green

1:05:03 All Blues

1:09:18 Flamenco Sketches

1:12:37 Final Spin

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