The Deadbeat Poets are a Youngstown, OH-based rock act, and they're also descendants of another Youngstown band, Blue Ash, considered to be among the earliest practitioners of power pop by aficionados of that style. The main track from this 2011 EP is "Christmastime in Painesville," as in the small Ohio town of that name, and it's a solid upbeat jangle-rocking paean to mixed emotions on the holiday. Following through in a similar vein is "Drunk at Midnight Mass," a more hard-rocking ode to a familiar holiday transgression. This is great stuff and I'm sorry it took me so long to unearth it. The EP also has "Christmas Eve," a finger-picked guitar instrumental, and "Father Kenny's Lament," essentially a church-organ overture to "Drunk at Midnight Mass." Downloadable at Amazon and elsewhere.
December 2021 Archives
Bond is a transgender cabaret artist working in New York City, and this three-song EP was released in 2015 featuring the title song, an original about how the world fails to live up to the Christmas spirit. It's a very affecting ballad, especially as performed in the artist's unadorned baritone voice. The artist also performs two covers in the same style, "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" and Nilsson's "Remember (Christmas)." It's available to download on Bandcamp and in all the usual places.
I've very occasionally noted the release of what I consider antique blues Christmas albums, which is to say music released prior to the rock 'n roll age. In 2021, Document Records issued a collection of titles called Blues, Blues Christmas, each volume of which contains songs spanning from 1925 through 1962. There's also a collection, Nine Below Zero: The Cold Winter Blues, which covers the same period with songs more about winter than Christmas, a genre we've noted among more modern performances; Compliments of the Season, which covers the Christmas-New Year's period; and Mr. Edison's Christmas, which appears to be antique holiday songs, hymns and stories. The record label offers a bundle of the six Blues, Blues Christmas volumes at a discounted price, or you can graze them individually at Amazon. UPDATE: It appears not all of these albums were released in 2021, though some were.
Gucci Mane is a mainstay of hip-hop Christmas music, and he's back for 2021 with another collection of jams. A lot of the tunes on this album don't remind me at all of Christmas or even seem to allude to the holiday, making this a tough sell at a Christmas-oriented site such as this one. Opening song "Street Ni66a Christmas" at least doesn't have that problem, nor does "All I Want For Christmas," though this one is about getting firearms for the holiday, and "Like the Grinch" at least alludes to a popular holiday entertainment. The rest is fine for the non-holiday period if you're a hip-hop fan or at least a Gucci Mane fan, although he only claims credit for six of 17 songs here; the rest are credited to Enchanting, BigWalkDog, Big Scarr, BiC Fizzle and Hotboy Wes.
This is Bill Champlin, Joseph Williams and Peter Friestedt, Bill being a founder of the 60s West Coast band Sons of Champlin and former member of Chicago, while Joseph is a former member of Toto and Peter is a Swedish singer-songwriter. They've been together off and on for a decade, and this original 2021 Christmas song will remind you of the Top 40 pop tunes made by 70s singer-songwriters. Check it out.
OK, everybody is getting excited because "Bumlaser," some guy on Twitter, expressed disappointment that when he discovered Kenny Loggins had made a Christmas album, it was called December and not Highway to the Manger Zone. And that this tweet reached Kenny Loggins himself, who then improvised a version of it in a Facebook video. Turns out musical parodists RPM had already covered this ground years ago. They're notoriously difficult to search online, so this amateur video is the best I could do.
Mac has a history of doing Christmas covers, and this is his 2021 effort. As has been his habit, no independent audio available.
As longtime followers of this site are aware, I typically ruminate on the state of the culture when Christmas Eve arrives, although recent entries in this series have had more to do with the state of this website and my growing estrangement from what's considered popular out in the world. For now, I'd just like to recognize that first, people are still visiting this site, and to thank them for doing so. Even though we've had some recognition in the wider culture over the history of the site, this has still been, first and foremost, a hobby for me, and one in which the readers are just as hip as I've ever claimed to be, maybe more so. So thanks once again for stopping by. When I started this site, it was as much to help me compile my annual mix cassette as anything, and then my annual mix disc.
This year I finally sloughed off physical media, although some of my correspondents still lovingly compile and design virtual mix discs with art and everything and just choose not to clog up the USPS with the actual plastic and paper versions, leaving it to the listener to do that. Good on you folks; some technological armageddon may come along in which it once again becomes cost-effective to burn discs, and you'll be ready. I've skipped ahead to simply building a Spotify playlist, which I chose because that service offers a free tier and the ability to embed the music into a website. Hopefully this covers everyone, though I'm open to suggestions. Almost forgot to note: this year's Mistletunes mix is called Don We Now Our Plague Apparel, and you can access it here.
Going forward, I'm going to do what I've always done, which is to highlight new Christmas records in the rock 'n roll realm, with a certain generosity toward covering associated genres. If I can, I hope to update the software underpinning this site to make it a more convenient historical archive at some point, but we'll call that an aspirational goal for now. Don't forget to click on Amazon from here to start your shopping sprees. And just to remind you why we're here, merry Christmas from Thin Lizzy and the Sex Pistols.
Having just gotten last year's entry by these Philly jokesters, it was fresh in my mind to go after the 2021 entry in the series upon its Christmas Eve release. This year's conceit is the current obsession of billionaires with space travel, especially Amazon, and running character Rich Mahogany's need to testify in front of Congress about that company's imaginary adventures in space involving floating warehouses and Merkel's misadventures there. Lots of references to "2001: A Space Odyssey," "Peanuts," and "The Grinch" of course, along with a lot of dated political references in the congressional segments. "Spaceward" and "Christmas In Space" are folky ruminations following the storyline, "Christmas Spirit in the Sky" parodies the 60s hit by Norman Greenbaum, "Straight Up" steals the Paula Abdul smash, "Whoville In the End" plays off "Blowin' In the Wind," one of the sketches, "Mr. Mahogany Is a Little Freaked Out," incorporates a takeoff on John Lennon's "Watching the Wheels," "Still Alive" is a vocal solo by "Mother," the spaceship's artificial intelligence character, though if it's a parody I don't recognize the original song, and "The Merkelettes" is a concluding number based on Marshall Tucker Band's "Take the Highway." This doesn't lend itself to playlisting, unfortunately, as the tunes are too tightly wound into the sketch material, but that doesn't mean you won't enjoy listening to this album on its own merits. As usual, it's on Bandcamp.
This was a Spotify-only performance last year, but for 2021 it got a general release. It's a solid new original performed in a 70s soul-funk arrangement calling for peace and brotherhood on the holiday. If you didn't playlist it last year, it's not too late. UPDATE: Stubby notes this was originally done by Lou Rawls.
Here we go with still more holiday punk rock. There's a Canadian thrash-metal band called The Annihilators, but this isn't them; Bandcamp reveals that this 2021 album is the work of one Richard T Pflueger of Cleveland, OH, who notes this is the work of himself and "whoever's available." Nine originals and one version of "Auld Lang Syne" are on offer here, and I'd like to note these are pretty sharp originals, though their point of view ranges from jaundiced to snotty, as you'd expect from a punk album. It appears that "How Do You Gift Wrap a Throat Punch" is the breakout tune from this collection, judging by the track breakdown in the iTunes Store, and justifiably so given its hilarious premise. Things kick off with a Public Image Ltd.-sounding "Joyride to the World," "I Know What You Got Me" is a rant against overspending on the holiday, "Skip the Holiday" is a duet with Jenny Dangerously about blowing off holiday celebrations (good advice in yet another pandemic year), "Christmas Really Sucks (When You're a Dad)" veers more into traditional hard rock territory in its tale of keeping a family afloat while spending for Christmas, and "Uncle Stu" is a crunchy lament about an uninvited reprobate relative crashing the party. "Merry Christmas Baby" is a ballad, "Under My Tree" is a thrashy invitation to share companionship, and "The Christmas Tree Is All Lit Up" is a bit of an oomp-pah number about the tree catching fire. Great fun and eminently listenable all the way through.
Today's the day for this, right? No Handsome Dick, unfortunately, but Adny Shernoff and Ross The Boss are involved, along with the Bouchard brothers, so it counts, definitely. No independent audio yet, just this video.
This Pittsburgh Americana group knocked out this timely talking folk/blues number for 2021 about a family holiday dinner going south when a Fox News Uncle™ hijacks the holiday cheer with a bunch of talking points. Very cool and should be turned loose anywhere one of these sorts of conflicts erupts.
I found these guys on the Bongo Boy compilation and discovered that they had a previous rocking song about politics on Christmas, this one from 2020. Can't decide whether I like this one or "Santa Don't Like Politics" better, but this one's available independently, where the other is part of the album. Grab both if you can.
A while back, we covered a compilation from Bongo Boy Records with the same name and an earlier volume number. Hadn't realized the series had continued, but I stumbled onto this 2021 compilation while looking for something else. The album title is a tad misleading as there is far more than rock being offered here, but we'll start with the rockers. "When We Were Kids At Christmas" by 42nd St. Singers featuring Alyssa Young is a nice 60s girl-group number, and they come back later with a similar take on "Let's Go to Toyland." Studeo offers the nicely midtempo "It's Christmas Time," Tammi T & Keith Hines Production give us some modern synth-pop with "Christmas Cheer," See Your Shadow Songwriting goes somewhere between Southern rock and country with "Christmas on Cellblock 9," no relation to the great Coasters classic, and Jackie Kringle and the Elves offer the collection's title song. (If this sounds familiar, apparently this song has appeared on every one of these Bongo Boy compilations.) My two favorite tunes on here are the ballad "Snowman" by Hannyta, which will remind you strongly of Amy Winehouse, and The New Bardots' rocker "Santa Don't Like Politics," in which they both-sides the issues "Meet the Press" style, though they ultimately come down on the side of kindness and holiday joy. (Which means they picked a side after all.) Kate Magdalena gets three entries here, traditional pop rendtions of "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear," "The Holly and the Ivy," and "The Christmas Song (Chestnuts)." Opening and closing the collection are versions of "Mary Did You Know" and "I Wonder as I Wander" by Jeralyn Glass & Dr. Sue Morter, in which the performances are bracketed with seriously sappy spoken-word parts; if hip-hop had been invented by the women's studies department of a small rural liberal arts college, this is what it would sound like.
Ziemba is the band name being used here by Texan René Kladzyk, and this new album isn't strictly Christmas, but the whole album's synth-pop-over-piano setting does have a sort of icy winter sheen to it. Indeed, the artist has said she took inspiration from Ze Records artist Cristina when she set her mind to covering "I'll Be Home For Christmas," although you shouldn't assume it sounds anything like Cristina; nevertheless, it's a unique arrangement, a little more uptempo than we're used to, and I like it a lot. Elsewhere on the album we have "Set In Ice," a cover of a 1974 song by Aurel Roy, who turns out to be René's father, who gave up his career to support his family. "Time Doesn't Freeze" references the snow and the holiday, the stop-action ballad "Only Lonely Christmas" has a bit of "Twin Peaks" about it, and"Fear" has an unsettling resemblance to John Lennon's "Watching the Wheels" via "Imagine." The rest of the songs' relationship to the holiday is something of a stretch, but there's plenty to enjoy whether you're looking for unique holiday takes or just something for your general listening pleasure. Get it at Bandcamp.
Christmas movie soundtracks are a dime a dozen, but I tend to ignore most of them as they typically compile existing Christmas song performances that we covered for their original release. In this case, we have a new-for-2021 Christmas movie with a mostly original soundtrack, so we're giving it some notice. The "various artists" tag is for the site's own housekeeping, as a small collection of folks is actually responsible for these tunes: Sean Brown & Gemma Bulos, songwriters and performers credited separately and also under the band name The New Carpenters, and Jordan Taylor Roach, who did the movie score and provides several originals and a few covers of familiar carols. Unfortunately for Mistletunes readers, the new songs here are mostly musical theater-type songs that won't resonate with listeners unless they've seen the movie (available on DVD or for rental at Amazon, iTunes and Google). "Cool Xmas" and "Cool Christmas" are the same pop ballad, one given a more traditional orchestral arrangement and the other paring back the accompaniment to emphasize pedal steel guitar. "Misfit In" is a bouncy number establishing the star's character, "I Can't Even" is a Seventies-style funk-soul tune, "Christmas Is the Very Best Day" is a pop-rocker, and "Merry Christmas Clarice" is a power pop number about eating holiday pizza with your girlfriend. Having not seen the movie, I'll reserve further judgment, but at the very least the movie's premise is distant enough from the Hallmark Channel's version of the holiday that you may wish to follow through.
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Polaroid is an Italian radio show and music blog, and for the last three seasons they've compiled an indie rock Christmas music collection via Bandcamp. I was just hipped to this by Stubby recently, so excuse my lateness to the cause. You can name your price on the download, including $0, but throwing some money in the pot will benefit SOKOS, a volunteer-run health clinic in the Bologna region of Italy. This year's collection is notable because unless you already have it, this is the only way to get the A-side of "Happy Christmas To Me," Swansea Sound's Snowflake Christmas Singles Club entry, for the time being. As you might imagine, Italian bands figure in this collection, so we have the twang/grunge number "Il corriere gentile" by Deine Mutti and Vulva De Leyva's "Scende dolce il Natale," an angular-sounding rocker that owes a little to XTC and Flaming Lips. A number of covers appear hear, including Built To Spill's "Twin Falls" by Adult Matters, Joe Tossini's "Lady of Mine" by Baseball Gregg and Cristina Muñoz in a modern electro-pop arrangement, Mounties' "Dust on the Christmas Tree" by A Minor Place, Kiwi666's version of Badly Drawn Boy's "Donna and Blitzen," Setti's cover of Daniel Johnston's "Maledicitta," Black Tail's grungy take on Nilsson's "Snow," and Big Cream's thrashy "Prayer To God," originally by Shellac. Rounding out the collection is PRIM's breathy "Cold Cold Winter," Grand Drifter's "Memory and Dust," and Humesick Suni's "Why Christmas." This is quite a listenable collection, and while you're downloading it you can look at the past entries in this series as well.
Can't recall whether anybody ever did the hip-hop thing on a version of Brenda Lee's classic, but here in 2021 somebody definitely did. Autumn's voice is very nice and it makes you want to hear more from her alone. Meanwhile, this production is available on streaming and through Amazon and iTunes.
Patricia is from San Antonio, TX, and she's a musician, singer and flamenco dancer. You may have heard her with the Texicana Mamas, and if you need any celebrity cred, her brother is film director Robert Rodriguez, whose films often found cameo spots for her. For 2021, she gets her name above the title with this fine rocking Christmas album. This is one of the few records to spawn a Little Steven's Coolest Song of the Week while being a playground for numerous Latin musical guests, like Rosie Flores, who pitches in on that LSCSW, "Santa's On a Rampage." All the tunes are originals except "Carol of the Bells," which features Patricia's sisters supporting her on vocals. Ruben Blades pitches in on "Las Posadas," Alex Ruiz assists on the folky "Nochebuena" and the hard rocker "Old Man Santa," and David Grissom co-writes "Alone on Christmas Day." Proceedings kick off with the Western swingy "Santa's On His Way," "Christmas Without You" is a jazz ballad, the title song manages to be Latin and 60s girl group simultaneously, "Cumbia Navidad" is a ballad in that particular style, and "Christ Child" is another folky ballad. The spread of styles may not be to everyone's taste, but I imagine Tex-Mex fans will eat this up, and everybody should have "Santa's On a Rampage" in their permanent holiday playlists.
Chicago native Kate's been around a pretty long time, having formed ska band Heavy Manners and cut a 1980 new wave single "I Don't Wanna Be Too Cool." Currently she lives in New Orleans, and for 2021 she's popped out a Christmas album infused with the musical spirit of her adopted home. This one is all covers, though not necessarily familiar ones. She does a nice job on Clarence Carter's "Kiss You All Over," Chuck Leavell's "Hey Santa, What's In Your Bag?," Paul Rogers' "Santa Lost a Ho," Chick Willis' "All I Want For Christmas," and Ella Fitzgerald's "Santa Claus Got Stuck In My Chimney." Also on here is the jazzy swing "Hot Buttered Rum," Michael Garley's "Champagne Champagne," Joan Osborne's "Santa, What Do Bad Girls Get?," and William Bell's "Everyday Will Be Like a Holiday." This is a mostly upbeat collection of Christmas tunes good for parties, and I think you'll like it, especially if you like to play down the usual holiday hits in favor of something different.
These folks are from Japan and have been around for almost 30 years. They classify themselves as "experimental," and you'll definitely get that from this 2021 double release, both of which are kind of emo and noisy. "Pardon?" is a kind of dirgy cover of a song by the UK's Lauren Auder and French producer Dviance, and "Last Christmas" is a square-wave blast over the bones of Wham's holiday classic. Some may find this unlistenable, others may decide it's just deserts for an overplayed holiday anthem. Your call. It's on Bandcamp.
Missed this when it dropped Christmas Eve 2020, the latest collection of novelties and sketches from this Philly aggregation. This year's collection is light on song parodies and heavy on sketch material based on a radio show run by a personality called Rich Mahogany talking to Santa. There are only four full songs: "Oldman," a takeoff on the Neil Young song that is about actor Gary Oldman and is not particularly Christmas oriented; "Santa Claus Is Coming," the classic Santa song with lyrics tweaked to take in the pandemic; "Delusions," a Fleetwood Mac takeoff that incorporates Christmas with quarantining; and "Where's My Yuletide," further quarantining set to what's either a Nirvana or Green Day number that I just can't place, feel free to weigh in. It's on Bandcamp if you're short of novelties for the season.
V.D. King is part of a New Jersey roots-rock band called Better Off Dead, which itself had a Christmas album many years ago, and since then V.D. has knocked out an annual new Christmas tune via the video realm, although he promises a free download of independent audio this year. This tune manages to be a rocker and an oomp-pah band ditty at the same time as it mocks greedy kids at Christmas time. An entertaining number, and the video is nicely produced if treading on potential copyright claims, but that's his problem, not ours.
Indie label Big Stir didn't come up with a new Christmas compilation for 2021, but they did release a couple of holiday singles. Up first is this one, a solid garage rocker backed with a cute spacey cover of Yoko Ono's "Listen, the Snow Is Falling." Great stuff.
I'm not familiar with The Incurables, but they're a great pop-punk rock outfit, and this bluesy Christmas tune with a quick Ramones homage spliced on at the end will spice up your playlists and get the dance floor bouncing. Grab it.
Modern folk-rockers The Lumineers have provided us with Christmas singles before, and for 2021 they leap into the fray once more with this sweet original co-written with their collaborator. Horns and organs collide with a bouncy Lumineers beat to deliver a positive holiday message. Blog sez check it out.
Scottish alt-rockers pull together this Americana-tinged cover of the Slade holiday classic for 2021. Only independent audio appears to be on the streaming services, however. UPDATE: Thanks to Stubby for finding this cut on Amazon when I couldn't.
This band isn't new to Christmas music, having produced an entire album that included the classic "George and Andrew" parody of Wham! For 2021 they joined the Netherlands' Snowflake Christmas Singles Club with this sweet holiday ballad about a child's Christmas after his parents divorce. B-side of the single is a cover of Shakin' Stevens' "Merry Christmas Everyone," with a poppy take on rockabilly. This one's still on sale through Bandcamp, and with the vinyl you get a download. I note that I apparently missed TBLLT had released a 2020 single, "It Will Still Be Christmas."
In the indie-pop semi-tradition of boy-girl duos comes this New York act with a nice bit of shoegaze balladry for 2021 via the Snowflake Christmas Singles Club. Flip the vinyl artifact over and you get their version of the Vince Guaraldi classic "Christmas Time Is Here," which adapts nicely to the group's style. Copies remain available at Bandcamp, including download. Couldn't find it on Amazon, but iTunes has this single too.
Loving this rambunctious punk-pop ode decrying holiday commercialism that is part of the 2021 Snowflake Christmas Singles Club release. On the B-side, they cover Cheap Trick's "Merry Christmas Darlings" in a nice midtempo arrangement. Now that the vinyl artifact is sold out (only 300 copies worldwide), you can only sample it on Bandcamp. UPDATE: Stubby emails us to say the A-side is included on a free compilation from the Italian blog Polaroid, about which more later.
Give the late night folks, especially Jimmy Fallon, credit for blurring the lines between novelty records and TV musical sketches by putting this cool topical tune up for downloading and streaming as well as YouTube viewing. Getting Ariana Grande and Megan Thee Stallion to play along definitely helps, and maybe this will even be a hit.
Nicholas previously did a indie-synth-pop EP of Christmas tunes in 2018, and for 2021 he's re-envisioned a track from it in a new recording. It's not a lot different in its languid synth-ballad style from the original, but you might want to check it out if you haven't encountered this Boston performer before. He's on Bandcamp.
Another free Christmas song for 2021 by longtime friends of the site, this one is less of the indie-rock homemade sound they've given us before and more of a pop-rock holiday ballad. It also sounds a lot more produced than their previous submissions; maybe Santa bulked up their home studio gear during the pandemic? As always, go to the site and download it, and feel free to graze previous years' songs while you're there.
Seventies folk/soft rock powerhouse Orleans hitched a ride in Doc Brown's car to the 21st century to gift us here in 2021 a Christmas album. (Various incarnations of the band have existed between then and now, per Wikipedia.) As you might expect, this offering is even more mellow than the band was in its heyday. I'm not about the mellow myself, but I'm including it here because the bulk of the tunes here are new originals, although some of them have history to them. For example, the album's title tune by former congressman John Hall and his wife Johanna dates back to a 1994 Woodstock Holidays album released only in Japan (available on Amazon for stupid money if you're interested) and was cut as a duet by Ricky Skaggs and James Taylor. The Halls also contributed "Quiet Place" with Jonell Mosser, "I Wish I Could Have Been There" with Tad Richards, and "Snowed In With You." Dennis "Fly" Amero wrote "Jinglin' In New England" with his wife Donna, "Ballad of the Christmas Day Cowboy" with Robert Ellis Orral, and "I Wish I Could Fly" with Allen Estes. Former Orleans member Chip Martin contributed "The Sound of Christmas." Late band member Larry Hoppen had recorded a version of "Winter Wonderland" for a 2010 charity album, and that's here, and the band also scavenged a 1985 recording of Larry, Lance, Lane, and Lynda Hoppen singing the opening of "Mary Had a Baby" and built a new track around it. Also here is a cover of Little River Band's "Mary's Christmas," and "I'm Coming Home For Christmas" was originally by Ambrosia's Joe Puerta. All of these songs are warm reflections of Christmas memories, and this will be loved by the folks who were young when Orleans was a new band.
The Leona Lewis holiday hit from 2013 gets reimagined for 2021 as a punk-pop powerhouse song, which is only natural as that style is this band's wheelhouse. Singer Kelly Ogden is, of course, best known lately as a Little Steven's Underground Garage hostess, but the band keeps coming on stronger and stronger in the marketplace with its non-holiday fare. Also, don't forget they have history in the holiday realm. It's on Bandcamp.
Green Monkey Records has put out a lot of indie Christmas rock over the years, and label stalwarts The True Olympians were responsible for a lot of those songs. For 2021, they decided to stage a big Christmas music show at a Tacoma, WA venue and to promote it they pulled together a greatest holiday hits compilation, The True Olympians Holiday Collection. They also snuck a couple of new tunes onto it, so if you haven't been on this particular Northwest Christmas train, click the cover and grab a copy.
Chicago's indie rock darlings (that's what Stereogum calls them, anyway) dropped this lovely slab of indie rock-pop on the holiday for 2021. It's way too polished to be indie rock, but at 2:15 it breezes by you before you've even had a chance to dig into it. Grab this pronto.
I didn't know much about Grandaddy before finding this tune, but it appears to be the nom de record button of Jason Lytle of California, and he's got a number of past releases on his Bandcamp page. This 2021 number is a recasting of the familiar carol with new lyrics about how ELO's major domo randomly appeared at his door on Christmas Eve. It's silly, but the artist puts an ELO spin on the arrangement to make it entertaining. For ELO fans obviously, as well as those who don't mind surprising people with odd tunes on the playlist.
Always wonder where the cultural appropriation police are when it comes to K-pop, given their songs basically straddle American R'nB and hip-hop and most people couldn't really determine which is which when the songs come on the radio. This year's Pacific Rim contribution to holiday fun is this 2021 EP from Stray Kids, four original songs that are a pastiche of modern sounds with grabs of particular Christmas carols and cliches thrown in for seasoning. The songs "24 to 25" and "Winter Falls" are the more playlist-friendly tunes here, with the title song and "DOMINO" throwing down hip-hop style attitude with the tinsel. Check it out.
A fully Elton John-sounding holiday tune for 2021 on which Ed Sheeran happens to be singing, proceeds from this upbeat, old-school pop-rocker will go to support the Ed Sheeran Suffolk Music Foundation. Not particularly a standout song-wise, but we'll see if it catches on in future years; always happy to have new songs enter the canon.
The long-running dance music trio from Croydon, UK, has had a long history of sneaking out Christmas EPs and singles since they began back in the 1990s, and that history was summed up in their 2010 album A Glimpse of Stocking, in which they compiled all those tunes and added a few new ones as well. For 2021, they're back with a new EP comprising long and short versions of the pensive electronica-based spoken word title song, the spacey instrumental "Lillehammer," and the vocal ballad "A Kiss Like This." This is more a winter collection than a Christmas one, just so you know which of your various holiday playlists this one will fit into.
This 2021 ambient take on the title is by Namibia's Immanuel "Etienne" Haneb, a dj/artist/producer, and it doesn't have much to do with the classic carol, but it sets up a nice holiday-ish vibe if you need soundtrack music for your holiday videos. It's very nice. Another thing it has even less to do with is the dance/house trio Saint Etienne, which is important to note due to their past Christmas music efforts and the fact that they're back for 2021 with a new Christmas-themed EP, see separate post.
Another Boston power-pop ensemble checks in for 2021 with this cool 70s-inspired pop rocker, starting out quiet and delaying the rock 'n roll explosion to the second verse. A fine piece of work, and if the song on its own doesn't tempt you, perhaps you haven't glommed on to several past Christmas singles of the Rum Bar label that are included for the price of a single. They are "Classic Ruins" by Scrooge's Body Shop, "What Will Santa Bring" by Heatwaves featuring Freddie Dilevi, "Some Kind of Christmas" by Stop Calling Me Frank, "Christmas Time Again" by the Connection, and "X'mas Time (It Sure Doesn't Feel Like It)" by The Dogmatics. For some reason "Peppermint" appears twice in this collection, and there appears to be no difference in the two versions. Anyway, you'll pay more for a beer than for this collection, so what are you waiting for? Get it on Bandcamp.
Looks like HAIM thought it was time to update Adam Sandler's epic novelty, see what you think.
Sandler we love you pic.twitter.com/QGBAwqOZld
-- HAIM (@HAIMtheband) December 3, 2021
If I didn't declare Lisa to be the power pop queen of Christmas music in previous installations of this humble blog, I might as well have, given the glowing review I gave to her 1990s holiday album Lost Winter's Dream. Over time she's added more Christmas tunes to her resume, via the Hi-Fi Christmas Party compilations series and volume 2 of Rodney Bingenheimer's Santa's Got a GTO series, but I've not heard much since then, which is my fault as she's got several recent Christmas singles out on the market. Starting with the one featured here, 2021's "A Very Merry Christmas" just blasts out of your speakers with all the presence of 60s girl group pop rock and puts a smile on your face. Turns out I overlooked 2020's double-sided smash, "Winter Is Here" backed with "In Love With Love," the former a folky jangle-popper and the latter an uptempo rocker with Beatlesque guitar work, and 2019's "Ringing Bells on Christmas Day," a fine toe-tapper that reminds me a little of the Go-Gos. All these songs belong in the collections of determined power pop Christmas fans. UPDATE: Just discovered that Lisa had another Christmas song in 2020, "Christmas Will Be Just Another Lonely Day," a Spectoresque midtempo ballad that snatches the bridge from "Then I Kissed Her." For some reason, this one's only on Bandcamp.
Tiller is a hip-hop artist of some renown, having had several hit albums in the past decade including Trapsoul. For 2021 he applies his skill set to a Christmas EP, seven tunes totaling 18 minutes, five of which are original holiday songs. As you might expect, the full hip-hop production toolbox is employed here, including copious use of auto-tune, as you'll find from the first song, "Be Mine This Christmas," followed by a brief transitional number called "Cold December Interlude," leading into the slow jam "Presents" featuring Kiana Lede. I'm assuming the pick to click off this collection is "Lonely Christmas (featuring Justin Bieber & Poo Bear)," which is pretty catchy in a hit radio sort of way, and that's followed by "Ain't a Lonely Christmas Song (featuring Tayla Parx)," the featured singer pretty much owning the show on this one. Rounding out the collection is a short hip-hopified "I'll Be Home For Christmas" and an almost old-fashioned take on "Winter Wonderland" featuring Halo. All told, a listenable hip-hop collection with a few playlist contenders for you eclectic collectors out there.
Garage music indie label Rum Bar turned loose this solid two-sided single for 2021, "You Ain't Getting Nothin" being a fine driveway raveup and "That's What Christmas Means To Me" adding some Boston barroom sweat to the Stevie Wonder original. Hie yourself over to Bandcamp to put this single in your collection.
Sofia's frequently visited this site over the past couple of decades due to her penchant for cutting new original singles for Christmas every year. 2021's entry is a kind of American-Irish folk meditation on a long-past holiday in Copenhagen, and in case her homies missed the message, she sings it over again in Swedish. Stop by Bandcamp to pick this one up.
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Somehow missed this one in 2020, and in actuality I've missed out on these guys for many more years than that, as they've been around for quite some time entertaining audiences with their a capella takes on the various aspects of the Jewish religious experience as filtered through the wider popular culture. "A Star Wars Chanukah" takes off from the main theme of the beloved sci-fi franchise, "A Hamilton Chanukah" draws from the popular hip-hop musical, "Chanukah (Shake It Off)" parodies Taylor Swift, "Watch Me (Spin / Drey Drey)" is a parody of a song by Lina, and "The Thanksgivukkah Anthem" is a song about the convergence of Hanukkah with Thanksgiving. Also in this collection is the almost inevitable "Bohemian Chanukah" parody of Queen, a bit of self-promotion in "A Nice Jewish Boy Band Chanukah," and "Feliz Chanukah," taking off from the Jose Feliciano classic. Remaining tunes appear to be modern upbeat takes on Jewish folk tunes, but for those of you who go for this sort of a capella entertainment, grab on and don't let go. They have a bunch of albums with Hanukkah tunes spread throughout them, but I'm going to call attention to 2019's Volume 8: Lights, which has the very timely "West Side Chanukah," see below.
Long-running Christmas minstrels the Non Traditionals (previously known as That Band From Holland) are back again in 2021 with a four-track EP of their patented indie-rock chamber pop Christmas originals. "Brain Freeze" is a bouncy opening number about celebrating a cold holiday, "Holy Night" is a gentle waltz with an anti-consumerist twist, "Forest in My Chimney" is about keeping the fireplace stoked, and "Cat in the Christmastree" is pretty self-explanatory, not to mention on point for cat owners. Visit them at Bandcamp and grab this.
