You know, I always kind of respected Hanson when they broke out, when was that, the late 90s? I’m a sucker for good pop music, and those three young brothers definitely had an ear for a strong hooks and catchy melodies. Plus they were an actual band, right? They weren’t a bunch of puffed-up prettyboys assembled by some creepy overweight megaproducer out of Orlando, propped up by a bunch of stylists and fed lines by corporate-approved publicists, lip-synching and gyrating and spending more time with their choreography staff than ever sitting down with a guitar or piano and writing an actual SONG, god forbid…

OK I’ll stop now. Old man raging at cloud again…

Anyway, they were boys, they were a band, but they were never no limp-noodle “boy band” and for that I respected them. Plus “Mmm-Bop” was like THE major earworm of 1997, but for good reasons. It was a catchy single. But moving on… their 1997 cover of the classic Chuck Berry-popularized tune Run Rudolph Run has all the earmarks of a great rockin’ Christmas song. It’s got a killer uptempo beat, soulful vocals, a singalong chorus, and all that homage to Berry’s R&B swing.

As often said around these parts: we don’t believe in “guilty” pleasures. This is a buttkickin’ song, period.