The Internet-driven evolution of the music business has brought us to a point where not just physical media, but even various artists' collections are giving way to groupings of songs put together by people other than those who work for record companies. (Which I should know about, given my history of mix discs, right?) Combine that with Amazon's push into streaming music, which you get as part of your Amazon Prime subscription, and we get this 2014 playlist curated by Jeff Bezos' minions. (As opposed to "Despicable Me's" minions.) Many of these tunes are new in 2014, and many are previously released, but as I haven't seen them anywhere but in this playlist, I'm simply going to highlight a few tunes from here you'll want to know about. Of course, you can click through and see the full two-hour playlist -- or listen, if you're an Amazon Prime customer. The star of this particular playlist is Liz Phair's "Ho Ho Ho," a snarky pop-rocker that hits all the possible lowlights of an average person's holiday without entirely kicking Christmas to the curb. Anna Nalick builds from the end of summer "Till the End of the Year (Bye Buy By)," a nicely poppy ode to holiday preparations, Mia Doi Todd takes the Kate Bush approach to the antique "Cherry Tree Carol," Emi Meyer offers the love song "Everything This Christmas," and Sinclair has a bouncy original in "This Christmas," not the Donny Hathaway song but a good one nevertheless. Jenn Bostic gives us the ballad "Light a Candle," Selena Garcia's "Hold Up Holidays" is a dirge-y gospel number, Ruby the RabbitFoot eschews mistletoe for a kiss "Under Any Limb," Jesse Baylin watches the "Purple Snowflakes" and Kelly Hogan laments a "Blue Snowfall." Lots of covers, of course, Hero Fisher taking the almost ethereal tack for "Pretty Paper," Laura Gibson slowing down "Wonderful Christmastime," Shelby Earl making a conventional rocker out of "We Three Kings," Lucinda Williams going jazzy on "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," Heartless Bastards slow "White Christmas" to a crawl and Houndmouth start out depressed on "Blue Christmas," but they pick things up to an almost poppy tempo. Yoko Ono and Flaming Lips perform "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)," Ladyhawke does a nice turn on Slade's "Merry Xmas Everyone," Beth Orton does Joni Mitchell's "River" and Jessica Hernandez & the Deltas give us "I Want a Hippopotamus For Christmas."
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