A Polaroid For Christmas 2021, various artists (Polaroid)

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.