White Xmas Lies, Magne Furuholmen (Drabant)

The keyboardist for 80s MTV superstars a-ha has been spending his years out of the musical limelight as a visual artist, but he's back by himself in 2019 with a concept album about the darker side of Christmas. The quote from him in British website iNews goes like this: "I am ashamed to be a part of a Christmas which these days seems to be mostly about buying more and more shit that no one needs or even really wants ... a tacky superficial celebration in stark contrast to the original Christmas message of hope, charity and compassion." Musically, there aren't many surprises; you might not say "a-ha" upon hearing these songs, but there's lots of 80s synth-pop here, leavened by folky touches and a variety of tempos. Song titles drive home Furuholmen's themes, starting with the title track and moving on through "There Goes Another Year," "The Light We Lost," "A Punch-Up On Boxing Day," "The Season To Be Melancholy," "So Cold It's Hard To Think," "Snow Is Falling," "A Wintry Silence" and so on. You may have heard he did a protest song, "This Is Now America," earlier in the year, and though it's not about Christmas, it's here too. I don't know that anybody will love this album unconditionally, but it's quite listenable for what it is, and there are a fair number of candidates for your mixes here. At Mistletunes, we've often provided equal time for Scrooges, and it's hard to argue that Furuholmen doesn't have a reasonable complaint to offer.