Christmas Underground, various artists (bumbleBEAR/Planting Seeds)

Indie-rock-pop compilation from 2001, reputed by its website to be a limited edition. There are 22 cuts, not counting about 10 brief "Christmas messages" from some of the musicians. Quality ranges from professional to "Hey, my dad has a garage, let's start a band," so I'll just tip you to the better tunes. Paula Kelley, whose Nothing/Everything CD has been well reviewed, does a sweet "Blue Christmas" and Miss July has a cute original in "First Noel (Revised)." Orchid Pool puts a nice guitar figure and flutes behind "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear." Capsela has a quirky take on "The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late)," and The Otter Pops' "Brothers" is the textbook definition of quirky with its ukelele and kazoo backing. Jumprope's "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" is well played but mostly lounge-like with the electric piano dominating. The Wee Turtles are amateurish but endearing with "By Golly, They've Dehydrated Christmas!" And Pinkie brings "sha-la-la" backing vocals back with "Pretend Like It's Christmas Day." The rest you can rate for yourself, assuming you can find a copy of this. There were 300 copies and they sold out the year they were released; no 3rd party links through Amazon exist at this time.