Mistletunes

Pop-punkers from New Jersey recruit the guy from the Anderson Council for lead vocals when the regular guy got sick on this 2025 ode to the organic versions of that holiday icon, or at least the condition they're in by this time in the season, anyway. Apparently they recorded this specifically for a Princeton radio station's holiday marathon, which is why it dropped on Christmas Eve. Only available on Bandcamp near as I can tell, but worth a trip over there.

Here's a new original holiday song for 2025 from one of the great soul singers of the 60s and 70s. No Pips attached, but this is a solid soul ballad, old school with orchestration, and while it won't make a lot of the more adventurous playlists, it's worth noting for those who are of more eclectic bents. Streaming and download everywhere.

I'm trying to tread lightly when it comes to questions of authenticity here in the AI era. Nevertheless, Nyka here, advertising herself as an R'nB singer from Houston, throws off a lot of the expected signals for an AI-generated artist. Social media accounts that appear to have only been created during 2025 (there's even a short, if inconclusive, Reddit thread asking whether she's real), six albums and a bunch of singles all dated 2025, at least a few of them with cover art that resembles some AI-generated memes, and, on Apple Music, a list of "similar artists" who have the same sorts of tell-tale aspects to their history. As for the music, it's modern slow-jam R'nB with Christmas-oriented lyrics, like "Mistletoe Kisses," "December Crushes," "Red Velvet Christmas," "Naughty List," "Snowed In," "Gift Wrapped," and "Midnight Sleigh Ride." If you didn't have the information I gave you earlier, you'd accept these songs as playlist candidates without question. As with the Dynalectric Orchestra reviewed here earlier, if Nyka isn't made up out of whole cloth and stray electrons, she and her friends are definitely using AI to bulk up her catalog. If AI isn't an issue for you, this streams and downloads everywhere.

These guys are fronted by author/music critic Elizabeth Nelson and her husband Tim Bracy, and their usual mileu is protest and satire set to solid rock music often featuring members of other groups you might have heard of. For 2025 they dropped this driving rocker that appears to be about poking fun at people's family bios that they enclose with their Christmas cards. Cool stuff, and it should make you curious about their existing discography. Meanwhile, you can stream or download this in the usual places.

I never encountered this singer before, but she's not bad, and this 2025 rocker is a really cool piece that I'm sorry I didn't encounter before now. Starts out slow and poppy, and then the band kicks it into overdrive. Streaming and downloads where you do that business.

Guess we should note when a big rock star drops something Christmas-related, and for 2025 the perpetrator is one of the 90s biggest stars. She starts out all midnight-mass performance, and then the rhythm section kicks in for some rock vibes. Streaming and downloads.

I could find nothing out about this guy other than the fact that he borrowed his name from Kurt Vonnegut. This is a short, less than two-minute rendition of the fabled year-ending song with acoustic guitar and flute but with a mild indie-rock vibe to it. Streaming and downloads everywhere.

This is the first time I've encountered this ongoing series of Christmas compilations by a bunch of New Jersey people led by a fellow named Jon Montague, who helmed the first year's collection before passing away. His friends have continued the series ever since for the benefit of the Arbor Foundation. This is more of a long EP than an album, and it kicks off with Tom Ryan & Friends' "Westward Leaning," a fairly yearning Americana ballad, going into It's a King Thing's "Rockin With Santa Claus," a short but snappy pop rocker, and Mark Martucci's "In the Furs," a midtempo number led by organ and old-school rhythm box. Joy Riding give us "This Ain't a Race," an indie-pop shuffle, Old Souls offer the moody instrumental ballad "Lakota," The 1910 Chainsaw Co. do Tom Petty's "Christmas All Over Again," The Only Ghost In Town offer the acoustic rocker "The Room Is Cold," and Damn the Lions wrap things up with the indie-sounding "Snow Folks," which takes a poke at commercialism, including this site's putative sponsor. The collection only appears on Bandcamp, along with previous editions, but I did find a few of the older albums, along with "Rockin' With Santa Claus," on Amazon.

We've previously noted Alice Cooper's foundation that provides musical education to at-risk youths and their ongoing habit of issuing Christmas music collections based on their annual Christmas concerts. As always, the benefactor's musical past and influences are big influences in what the students come up with, as in Pinup's imaginative deconstruction of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen," Vipera's "O Come O Come Emanuel," Faultline's "What Child Is This," Plum's "Sugar Plum Pudding" that starts out as "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town," and Distorted's "Feliz Navidad," but there are more poppy items like Zayah's "It's Beginning To Look a Lot Like Christmas," Lizzie's "You're a Mean One Mr. Grinch," Dually Noted's "Underneath the Tree," Sammie Jaclyn's "Grown Up Christmas List," and Evelyn Errante's acoustic reading of the traditional "O Holy Night." Mitchael has a poppy rocker in "This Christmas," not the Donny Hathaway song, and Dylan Dean does "O Holy Night" in a more rocked-up arrangement while sneaking in Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah." Some decent playlist candidates here, although the poppier entries have a flavor of "theatre kid" about them. Streaming and downloads wherever you shop. Oh, in case you have trouble searching this out, the artist name in the metadata is "Proof Is in The Pudding." And since I missed it last year, here's the 2024 edition of this series.

This is from the sessions for the Queen II album and is previously unreleased. It's a Brian May song and he revealed its existence on British radio this week. Not strongly Christmasy, but it does have a compatible vibe as it goes on about wintry topics. Apparently the song came from Brian's previous band Smile originally. An expanded version of Queen II is set for release in 2026 and this will be on it, until then it's only on YouTube.

These two hip-hoppers have previously released Christmas collections of tunes going back to 2016, and they're back in 2025 with this five-song EP that dropped Christmas day. All are mid-tempo jams and fairly lively-sounding, my choices here would be "Black Santa" and "Gloria." The rest are "Safe With Me," "I Want What I Want," and "Bless Them All." Like the others, this is only available on Soundcloud.

Austin, TX-based Potter describes himself as a "bedroom wizard," and this 2025 collection does have the feel of a homebrew project. But that's not a bad thing. The description indicates this release was compiled from a lot of different previous projects, and it's mainly his vision of a fairly eclectic selection of covers, like "One More Sleep 'til Christmas" with Julie Wierd, fairly conventional versions of "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas" and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" with Lindsey Mackin, same for "My Favorite Things," a live band version of the "Home Alone" theme, and two songs from the James Bond film "On Her Majesty's Secret Service," the title song plus "We Have All the Time in the World." I wouldn't call this an essential grab for your holiday playlists, but it does reward multiple listenings. Grab this from Bandcamp, no other streaming options available.

Well, I didn't have a Kraftwerk Christmas parody on my bingo card for 2025, or any year really. This is a single that smushes Christmas carols into the Kraftwerk song "Pocket Calculator," and steals some other stuff along the way, including a snippet of "South Park." Flip it over for "Neon Xmas Lights," more of a straight mashup of the Germans with Smokey Robinson, Prince, Luther Vandross, Beastie Boys and "Star Wars Christmas." If you like that, the artist offers a separate tune, "Hanukkah Falls on the Sabbath," which is Jack Black vs Black Sabbath. Get this from Bandcamp, no other streaming option I can discover.

Got tipped to this during Christmas Eve dinner, this is the first chance I've had to put it up. Set to that hippopotamus song, it gets its point across quickly. Too bad I didn't have it for this Christmas so you could playlist it, but those of you who celebrate Orthodox Christmas still have a shot. It started out as a TikTok, but has migrated to YouTube and streaming as well.

My holiday travel plans require me to step away from the screen earlier than normal, so I'd like to once again thank readers and followers of this website for sticking with me as I continue my semi-obsession with this website and its mission of tracking new and obscure Christmas music in the general rock 'n roll multiverse. I continue with mixed feelings given that the mission used to be acquiring songs in physical form back when I started doing this in the 1990s and now it's a question of tracking 1's and 0's across the digital realm. The fact that our main pipelines to music think nothing of choosing the next song for you before you can decide what you want to hear also feels kind of diminishing. On the other hand, building original playlists to share with your friends is easier than ever, so there's that. Merry Christmas and happy holidays, and as always I've managed to find you a small silly gift, below.

Paula is a veteran of the Boston music scene who performed with the Drop Nineteens and Boy Wonder before going solo, and she's popped up on a couple of ancient Christmas compilations in the past. For 2025 she gives us this cool Brill Building-via-synthpop ballad, very dramatic and heartstring-tugging thanks to her little-girl vocal style. Downloads and streaming everywhere.

The Hanukkah band from two decades ago is back with this single providing us with a rocking song based on an old proverb. It's neat and doesn't stick out as a Hanukkah song, if that means anything to you. Streaming and downloads. Should note that the band included this and another song, "Jewish Stars," on a revamped and newly vinylized version of their original Hanukkah Rocks album, but you'll have to go to Bandcamp to get it if you still can. Oh, should note that I completely whiffed back in 2015 when I missed these guys joining up with Matisyahu for the kosher reggae "Outside of December."

Cool Philly band drops a pair of pop-punk covers for 2025, the George Harrison song "Ding Dong Ding Dong," good for Christmas and New Year's playlists both, and Wham's "Last Christmas." Streaming and download everywhere.

These Aussies carry the AC/DC flag forward for 2025 with this tune about a holiday tradition, although the human resources department at your workplace might not approve. But it's a driving rocker that'll wake up your playlists. Streaming and downloads, natch.

UPDATE: This album got a major update for 2025, with the original tunes remixed and remastered and a couple new ones added: "AEt," a thrasher that appears to be a jaundiced look at holiday sugar intake, and the even more intense "Everybody Christmas," which they're promoting as a single. Album cover and link to Amazon are updated at right. END UPDATE. Those of you whose life paths carry you a little too close to the retail sector might well be sick of Christmas already. If that's you, these guys might well be your holiday soundtrack, assuming metal crunch with a side order of laughs is your favored genre. On this 2007 disc, "Holiday Hate" brings the bitch list with its "Consumers gotta BUY" chorus, its declaration that Santa doesn't exist and its complaint that Christmas goodies make us fat. Despite the fact that Santa doesn't exist, he turns out to be a "Jollly Old Sadist" who doesn't come through on the wish lists unless you really wanted a shirt box full of socks. "Jingle Bell Metal" is pretty much as advertised, "Silent Night" is nothing of the kind, though it's only 25 seconds long, "Red Snow" is Rudolph's snuff-horror fantasy, causing Johnny Marks to roll over in his grave no doubt, and how else to cap off the festivities than with "Happy F- New Year."

Some cool punk rock from these guys in 2025 celebrating the holiday at the famed Chicago Cubs ballpark. How that works I'm not sure, I don't think there's much going on there between October and April, but sports fans will certainly go along. Flip it over for "Santa's Coffee," a little less frenetic but no less rocking about giving the jolly elf a pick-me-up before the big night. Streaming and downloads, natch. Should note that this isn't the band's first holiday go-round, plus they have a side project as Ralphie's Red Ryders doing songs exclusively about the movie "A Christmas Story." 

I've been remiss if I believe this Minneapolis guy's Bandcamp blurb about how this 2025 tune is his 20th annual holiday single. Doesn't appear they're all on Bandcamp, but there's a bunch of them there. For now I'll just stick to this year's entry, a bit of white-guy hip-hop about how Christmas can transport you through time, a nice sci-fi way of describing nostalgia. Hop over and grab this, as his holiday releases are charitable outreaches benefitting RAINN and Wigs For Kids. Streaming and downloads, click the cover to get it from Amazon.

It had only recently occurred to me that despite flagging numerous covers of this guy's popular Christmas song "Driving Home For Christmas" from 1986, we never gave it its own dedicated post. Two recent developments reminded me of this shortfall; one, the 2025 release of this compilation of holiday tunes by him, and two, his demise this week at age 74. "Driving" had actually dropped as the B-side of "Hello Friend" but, especially in his native UK and Europe, the record got flipped regularly at the end of the year for this nostalgic slice of yacht rock about holiday travels. This compilation is kind of slight, in that it includes two versions of "Driving" and "Footprints in the Snow," the latter one vocal and one instrumental; the slinky semi-spoken "Joys of Christmas"; the ballads"Smile" and "Winter Song"; and the instrumental reggae goof "Rudolph's Rotor Arm." Streaming and downloads everywhere, of course.

These guys are on a Christmas crusade. For 2025 they've added to their holiday repertoire with this sweet indie-pop-sounding ballad. Doesn't show up on streaming yet, but you can download it free from their website.

The Merkels have historically dropped their annual recording project exactly on Christmas Day in previous years, so I was surprised to see their 2025 release had dropped way back on Dec. 1. Anyway, it's here, an EP full of rock parodies designed to change up the pace of your holiday playlists. If you missed last year's single of "Reindeer Game" (Chris Isaac parody) and "Last Christmas I Told You I Love You," not to worry, they're tacked onto the end of this release, at least on the streaming services. The remaining songs are "For Santa's Girth" (Buffalo Springfield), "One Red Light" (Wallflowers), "Tree" (Radiohead), and "Sittin on the Back of My Sleigh" (Otis Redding). As always, you might note the productions are a touch amateur, but that's part of their charm, I think. Available everywhere including Bandcamp.

Hi folks, I took a day to finish off the 2025 Mistletunes musical Christmas mix. I link to it here, but like all the previous ones it's down there in the sidebar too, at the top for alphabetical reasons. Regular posting will resume, so don't forget that our Amazon affiliation helps defray the costs of running this fine website, so consider using links from this site to jumpstart your shopping trips. Whenever there's an Amazon link to a particular song, it's accessed by clicking on the album cover art of the individual post. Join Amazon Prime, get audiobooks from Audible, or stream Amazon Music. Thanks. 

The perennial Christmas punks are back in 2025 with a cover of Eric Idle's anti-Xmas carol. It was funny when it was just him and a guitar, and it's still funny with these guys thrashing it out all 1977-style for us. Appears to only be on their Bandcamp page.

Kansas City, MO-based Chase has been around for a while and for 2025 dreamed up this cool little pop-rocker with little bits of Phil Spector and Bruce Springsteen's sound mixed into a tune that also reminds of a more boisterous Father John Misty. Great stuff, and there are three different mixes of it included on the single. Downloads and streaming everywhere. 

Kylie's one of those British singing stars who, like Robbie Williams and The Darkness, have only managed the slightest visibility in the American music charts. This album originated in 2015 and has been retinseled for 2025 with three new tunes, the self-described "banger" "Hot In December," the uptempo "Office Party," and the ballad "This Time of Year." Kylie's usual sound is contemporary hit radio via early 90s dance music, but for the holiday crowd she willingly went old-school jazz-era pop on "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year," "Santa Baby," "Let It Snow," "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," and "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" in which she exhumes Frank Sinatra for a duet. (Of this latter item, from the original 2015 album, I'm really over this Duets of the Living Dead thing, especially since you can do something similar with AI nowadays.) The original album also featured modern originals like "100 Degrees" done with her sister Dannii, "White December," and "Christmas Isn't Christmas Till You Get Here." The modern stuff is clearly her forte and I'm happy to wave one or more of these into your playlists; the antique pop stuff is probably done better by others. Oh, almost forgot; if you buy the album from Amazon, it includes the 2015 tune "XMAS," which has remained exclusive to the merchant from that day to this. There are also endless remixes of this particular song available there as well.

It's the 30th anniversary of this DIY stalwart issuing their first Christmas song. For 2025 we get a rocked out number about a Santa Claus on the run. Cool stuff, free to download from their site (no streaming anywhere), and as always the whole 30 years worth of holiday music is there for your free download. Check it out.