Bananarama were queens of the British New Wave starting in the early 80s, with multiple hit singles and collaborations with such folks as Fun Boy Three. Over time they evolved into a cabaret disco act with lesser, though not insignificant, chart success in Europe. In 2010 they dropped this EP, which is just five mixes of the same holiday song. I probably wouldn't have chanced upon this if I hadn't seen that a career retrospective is dropping in March 2024 including this song. But if you've got a theme playlist for 80s new wave stars, you might want to add this to it.
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While tracking down this year's Volume 4, I had to crawl down a rabbit hole when I realized I was only aware of two volumes in this series. Turns out Volume 3 came out in 2015, though there doesn't seem to be any trace of it anywhere this year. AllMusic at least remembers when it was available, and it made a pretty decent playlist. Grateful Dead with a live "Run Rudolph Run," Donny Hathaway's "This Christmas," a Joey Ramone remake of "Merry Christmas (I Don't Wanna Fight Tonight)," Dwight Yoakam's "Santa Can't Stay," Booker T. & the MGs with "We Wish You a Merry Christmas," The Pretenders' "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," Chicago's version of "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year," Otis Redding's classic version of "Merry Christmas Baby," Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons' "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus," Pet Shop Boys' "It Doesn't Often Snow at Christmas," Everything But the Girl's "25th December," America's "Frosty the Snowman," Linda Ronstadt's "I'll Be Home For Christmas," Emmylou Harris' "The First Noel," Sinead O'Connor's "Silent Night," Jethro Tull's "Ring Out Solstice Bells," Solomon Burke's "Presents For Christmas," Clarence Carter's "Back Door Santa," Lindsey Buckingham's "Holiday Road," and Los Lobos' "Rudolph the Manic Reindeer." If you can't track down physical media, you can duplicate the playlist if you like it well enough.
Toronto new wave band Martha and the Muffins, though a one-hit wonder for the popular early 80s single "Echo Beach," actually has continued making music ever since, with new music dropping as recenttly as 2022. For 2010, they dropped this pop-folk ballad perfect for the more mellow playlists, or as a change of pace on your party queues. Widely downloadable and streamable.
Happened to have on Little Steven's Underground Garage when this came on the other day and I found myself wondering why I hadn't known about it, especially when I discovered it was from 2019. Solid garage punk from these guys, all about being stuck in the city alone for the holiday. Flip it over for "Peppermint Shnapps" (yes, they misspelled it), an arguably more fun number about day-drinking on the holiday with a bit of Spector sheen added to the jangling guitars.
Ah, one of those rabbit hole research situations presents itself. I started out believing I'd unearthed a new Christmas compilation, only to discover it's from 2016. Looking further, I discovered that "Band in Seattle" is a local TV series featuring Seattle-area bands that's been on for seven seasons. This 2016 collection is the soundtrack from a single Christmas-themed episode of the show. And it's pretty darn good, offering modern takes on classic tunes like Jupe Jupe's "I Saw Three Ships," Blake Lewis' mildly hip-hop influenced "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen," Star Anna and Whitney Lyman offering traditional versions of "Silent Night" and "O Holy Night," respectively, Jake Hemming & the Bereaved going hard rock on "O Come O Come Emmanuel," and Good Company going all big-band blues on "Good King Wenceslas." The rest of the tunes are originals, starting with Bread & Butter's rock take on "All I Want For Christmas Is For You to Stop Being a Psycho," Whitney Monge's ballad "Around Christmas Time," Charlie and the Rays' jump blues "Long Nights (Yule Log)," The Crying Shame's boogie version of "Don't Touch the Christmas Tree," Sundae + Mr. Goessi's old-fashioned jazz ballad "Dear Santa Won't You Bring Me a Ring," SweetKiss Momma's 70s hard rock "Santa's Got Bad Intentions," Vaudeville Etiquette's country-inflected "Spice the Eggnog," Jessica Lynne Witty & the Cousins' similarly styled "Yuletide in My Doublewide," The Bend's grungy "Wassail, Wassail," Furniture Girls' pop-rocker "Yule Tied," The Malady of Sevendials' gothy "I Remember That December," The Staxx Brothers' "Slow Jam For Christmas," which isn't really in the slow jam style, and Champagne Honeybee's 50s-flavored lament "Kimchee For Christmas." Click the cover to get it from Amazon. There were Christmas episodes of the show in 2017 and 2018 per IMDB, but I was unable to rustle up compilations from those years, so feel free to comment here if you know something I don't. UPDATE: Stubby writes in to note that the "Band in Seattle" show went all in on the 2016 release with not only CD but DVD releases, and they wildly overestimated demand for the physical artifacts. As a result, there were only a few new songs on the 2017 show and the 2018 show simply drew from the two previous years. He notes a couple of the bands, one of which was The Staxx Brothers, issued separate 12-inch singles of their songs. Nevertheless, the 2016 album remains available to download.
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.
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.
Just stumbled over this on Bandcamp, an EP called "Snowflake Singles" from 2019, though it's only the song mentioned above of the four that's a holiday tune. All four songs are in the Billy Bragg vein of protest folk, though "Proper Job Christmas" is a bouncy little number about thrifty folks celebrating the holiday. "Proper Job" is the name of a housewares store that, in the artist's description, is sort of a cross between a hardware store and a bodega. As the band is from Glastonbury, UK, you'll find that the concerns of these songs are mostly British politics, but "Proper Job Christmas" travels nicely outside its home country and everyone should check it out.
As you might have construed from the name, this 2015 collection of indie Christmas tracks originated with a group of musicians in Baltimore, MD. Some of them are lo-fi amateur attempts, others are parodies or comedy bits. Jessie & Hughes pay twisted tribute to Sonny & Cher with "I Got (Snow) Shoes, Babe," Allison Clendaniel & Connor Kizer do "Good Kynge We Siestas" and "In the Bleakly Middle of Winter" over, presumably, a few holiday schnapps, Cricket Arrison takes three different shots at "Christmas at the Dam," Curiosity Rover channels Flaming Lips with the electro-pop anthem "Please Ask Santa If There's Christmas On Mars," as does The Dan Lips' version of "Some of White Christmas," and Tim Whatley & the Wenkers repurpose "Heat Miser" into "The Regifter Song." Ben O'Brien does a doomy parody of Melissa Etheridge on "Come To My Driveway," Dina Kelberman covers Mono Puff's "Careless Santa," Frogman performs Deep Blue Something's "Breakfast at Tiffany's" for some reason, and Meredith Moore takes a crack at "Hard Candy Christmas." Lola Pierson performs "Santa Looked a Lot Like Daddy," Jimmy Joe Roche mutates "Jingle Bells" on his "Jingk," and Becca Morrin & Jared Paolini tinsels up the theme from TV classic "Cheers." Then there's Alan Resnik's series of five demented holiday songs sprinkled throughout the playlist, each named "Chick-fa-la-la-la-la" followed by the names of cities, in which he cold-calls a Chick-fil-a restaurant, identifies himself as a 12-year-old boy (unconvincingly), and sings one of his songs over the phone. They're entertaining enough in a Wild Man Fischer on his meds sort of way, but maybe a few too many in total number. The folks behind Baltimas also made compilations in 2014 and 2016, and you can find them all on Bandcamp.
We've made mention of G. Love's Christmas music offerings in the past (on the Brushfire This Warm December compilations), but I only noticed lately that there was a full Christmas album released by this rootsy rocker back in 2017. Three of the five songs on those compilations are from this album -- "Christmas Baby," "Christmas Cookies," and "Christmas Blues." Also on this album are the mellow "So Blessed," the sprightly "Christmas Morning" and "Christmas Change," the dour "Cape Cod Winter Blues," the mid-tempo "Merry Christmas," and the accurately titled "Christmas Rock" and "Christmas Boogie." This is a solid Americana celebration of the holiday and you should check it out. Completists will have to go back to the label compilations to hear "Christmas Wave" and "New Year Blues," however.
Billie Eilish's brother/producer is also on the Christmas tip in 2020 with a warm piano ballad about how hard it is to get in the Christmas mood in Los Angeles, especially without that significant other. A definite add to your holiday playlists.
Mona and Lisa Wagner are indeed twins, Austrian-born and Britain-based, and they love themselves some mid-60s British bands, to the point that they played a two-year residency at Liverpool's iconic Cavern Club and released a live album featuring all 60s tunes, with an emphasis on Beatles covers. I've been getting a lot of notifications for this album recently but it turns out it was released in 2019. Oh well, better late than never. Based on this album, I'd say their sound was less British Invasion and a lot more of a female Everly Brothers, but then the Everlys were a heavy influence on many of the British Invasion bands. The 11 songs are mostly familiar, although I've never encountered "Snow Falls Softly at Night," an antique German carol, or "Walking in the Air," which turns out to have been a top 5 hit in England back in the 1980s and has been covered by everyone from George Winston to Iron Maiden. We should also note the sole original, "All I Want Christmas to Be," penned by Mona, a nice mid-tempo number about holiday verities. Performance-wise, the songs on this album are more 70s pop-rock-folk, although "Walking in the Air" has a "Things We Said Today" feel and their upbeat "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" has a rhythm reminiscent of "All My Loving." Given their Beatles roots, you won't be surprised to find covers of "Wonderful Christmastime" and "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)," the former featuring ukelele and the latter in a calypso rhythm. They do an interesting reimagining of the Bing/Bowie duet "Peace On Earth/Little Drummer Boy," more folk-oriented versions of "Winter Wonderland," "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year," and "Silent Night," and a cover of "Santa Baby" in which they extract the gold-digging parts of the lyrics and substitute requests for favorite musical instruments like "a '54 vintage bass" and a "Gretsch guitar." It fits with their ethos, but you may feel deprived of the sexy subtext. Still, quite a lot to like here.
Stereogum describes these folks as an Appalachian supergroup, in that it's comprised of members of Sylvan Esso and Daughter of Swords, bands from the great Southeast of America, and they dropped this single in 2019. It's a simple, unadorned cover of the popular Irving Berlin classic featuring only guitar and voice, or voices when the harmonies kick in. Independent audio of this is here.
Jane's a California singer-songwriter and this 2018 number is that state's sunshine pop-rock sound carried over to the holiday. It's all about how Mrs. Claus's contribution to the holiday is important but overlooked -- the oldest story in the world, of course. But no worries, Jane finds her efforts worthy of a "double-Jack" at the end of the night. Pour one out for yourself while you're at it, Jane.
As long as there are progressive rock artists still active out there in the world, there will be new albums of prog rock music. Yes, that's true of literally every non-hipster-oriented genre of music, but prog especially is a genre that folks dismissed utterly in the wake of the 70s punk revolution despite the fact that the active fanbase for this music never really went away. (As someone who has been thinning out his vinyl collection by going to record shows, I find that these events tend to attract prog fans as much as those for any other genre of music.) So here we are in 2019 with this collection of prog rock Christmas music for your delectation. One caveat: Detailed information about this release is at a premium, so I can't swear that all of these performances are new to this collection, but since I don't immediately recognize any of them, I'm going to act as if they are fresh performances. Jon Davison opens with a cover of Chris Squire's "Run With the Fox," Kasim Sulton offers the ballad "Christmas Lights," Steve Morse does an ensemble guitar arrangement of "Carol of the Bells," Annie Haslam performs "12 Days of Christmas," Billy Sherwood and Patrick Moraz do Sir Paul's "Wonderful Christmastime," and Martin Turner's performance of ELP's "I Believe in Father Christmas" works as a tribute to the late Greg Lake. Leslie Hunt & Robin McAuley offer their version of "Fairytale of New York," Sonja Kristina does a suitably churchy version of "O Come All Ye Faithful," Focus's Thijs Van Leer breaks out his flute on "A Christmas Song," Geoff Downes changes very little about "Linus & Lucy," Nik Turner and Simon House take instrumental liberties with "Silent Night," Malcolm McDowell (yes, the actor) does a dramatic reading of "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch," and the late John Wetton tops off the proceedings with his version of John & Yoko's "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)." While the selection of artists is catnip for prog fans, I would point out that nearly all these performances would appeal to fans of conventional pop rock of the 70s and 80s, as there are no selections over six minutes long and there are almost no exhibitions of instrumental prowess at the expense of melody and rhythm. Check it for yourself.
Last year I discovered the Taste of Christmas series, and a new edition of this collection became available this year. To reiterate, Alice Cooper supports a foundation that gives music instruction to at-risk youth, and they put on Christmas concerts and get to record Christmas albums like this one. I'm giving the Apple For the Teacher Award to the group Dragons in the Desert for their repurposing of a big hit by the school's benefactor, "School's Out For Christmas." Another eye-opener from this collection is "Funky Funky Christmas" by Mellowpshychodelicculture, which is a hard-rock cover of a song by the obscure soul group Electric Jungle from the 1970s. The Homestretch does a rock-inflected Americana version of "Santa Looked A Lot Like Daddy," John Caufield does a straight "Blue Christmas," Paige June takes a singer-songwriter approach to "Santa Baby," as does Ciara Cisneros on "Please Come Home for Christmas," and Sundai goes grungy on "Mr. Heatmiser." There appears to be a few originals on here, like "This Christmas Day" by Sun Kissed, "Christmas Toes" by Phoebe, and "No Need to Deck the Hall" by Between the Dark. Some selections are gentle ballads like "O Holy Night" by Sophie Dorsten, "Mary Did You Know" by Sammi Martinez, and "Have Yourself a Merry little Christmas" by Sophia Humbert, while the rest are 70s-style hard rock like "The Grinch" by Undecided Youth and "Mary's Boy Child" by Conrad Varela. This is a solidly listenable collection, especially if your tastes run to 70s rock. UPDATE: Stubby wrote in to mention that Dragons in the Desert didn't originate "School's Out For Christmas" as implied above. A group called Suite 88 recorded it for a previous Pudding LP in 2012, and that it probably was played live at one of the Pudding Christmas concerts prior to that.
I haven't encountered this New York city band before, but they apparently specialize in 50s-60s nostalgia filtered through new tunes, and this mid-tempo boogie with hints of Elvis and Gene Vincent is pretty darn cool. The singer is alone on Christmas and has nowhere to go except for a Chinese restaurant, one of the few institutions open on the holiday according to modern urban legend. No mention of this being an alleged Jewish tradition, which suits me just fine. Go grab this and its flip side, "White Christmas," from Bandcamp.
Yet another case of me being blissfully unaware that this English folksinger has made a second career out of Christmas music, starting with 2008's Sweet Bells, 2011's While Mortals Sleep, 2015's The Frost is All Over, and 2017's Angels and Men. For 2019, we have this, another full album of Christmas-themed music. Her being a folkie, most of these are familiar carols from the ancient repertoire, like "Yorkshire Three Ships," "While Shepherds Watched 6," "Bleak Mid-Winter (Yorkshire)," "Mistletoe Bough," and "Lu Lay (Coventry Carol)." Definitely not a part of the ancient repertoire is "Hippo For Christmas," the Gayla Peevey number that was revived by Dr. Demento, in a gentle arrangement propelled by tuba. She also wrote "The Holly King" and "B.B.B.B.," the latter apparently a continuation of the story of Big Brave Bill, who Kate has sung about on previous occasions. This is a modern pop production of what is essentially folk music, and pretty mellow for all that.
This popular sensation has made Christmas tunes before, although typically low-budget homemade performances like this one. No independent audio, this is just him, some synths and a drum machine.
The once and future Judas Priest singer went solo for Christmas last in 2009, and 10 years later he's back in the saddle, or should we say the sleigh, with this new album featuring four new songs, the portentous title instrumental, the romping "Donner and Blitzen," the midtempo "Morning Star," and the reflective "Protected By the Light." The rest are classic carols like "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen," "Deck the Halls," "Joy to the World," "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing," the lengthy, almost progressive take on "Good King Wenceslaus," and downtempo takes on "Away in a Manger" and "The First Noel." No real surprises here; it's metal, dudes! But Halford's always been a good singer and he brings the bombast to the holiday.
We've had Christmas tunes from Jenny before, and this 2019 entry is an original, a pensive ballad about the failed hopes of the current year and a new hope for the future. Given the message, it's still a pretty warm-sounding record that draws listeners in. Recommended.
Solid pop-punk-rock snark with a bad attitude on this 2019 single. These guys previously did "I Won't Be Home For Christmas," but this year's entry by them perfectly captures all the mixed emotions of the season, and if it dwells on the negative, well, it's an honest emotion.
This guy is one of the biggest singing stars in England but he's never been able to carve out that status for himself here in my native USA despite having lived in Los Angeles since 2006. For 2019, he took a cannonball dive into the Christmas market with a two-disc album consisting of a mix of familiar tunes and also some never-before-heard numbers, and he backstopped all that with a liberal seasoning of duets with other famous people like Rod Stewart, Helene Fischer, Jamie Cullum, Bryan Adams, and Tyson Fury. The double-disc structure is there for a reason; the first disc is entirely composed of Williams doing his Michael Buble impression with cabaret/lounge arrangements of such tunes as "Let it Snow," "The Christmas Song (Chestnuts)," "Rudolph," "Winter Wonderland," and some originals like "Coco's Christmas Lullaby," "Let's Not Go Shopping,", and "It's a Wonderful Life." Fischer provides the duet voice on "Santa Baby" so we don't have to be grossed out by a guy singing it solo, and I'm not sure we needed a Nelson Riddle arrangement of Slade's "Merry Xmas Everybody." The second disc is more of the contemporary pop-rock that made Williams' career, with a larger selection of non-standard tunes like "Snowflakes," "Time For Change," "Idlewild," "Fairytales" with Stewart (not the Pogues classic), "Bad Sharon," "Happy Birthday Jesus Christ," and "New Year's Day." There's also a duet with Adams on "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)," and if you manage to score the bonus tracks, a version of "I Believe in Father Christmas," the faintly ska-ish "Merry Kissmas," and another Stewart duet on the non-holiday "It Takes Two." My feeling is that Williams should have released the two discs in successive years and pitched them to the likely audiences for each.
Back in 2007, this act put out A Neighborly Christmas, a smoothly swingy Americana approach to 11 popular carols in which Drew shared vocals with his wife Ellie. (Including "Baby It's Cold Outside," and I'll spare you any further analysis of that song.) Apparently Ellie doesn't perform with the Neighbors on a regular basis, because part of the promotion for this 2019 EP is that she's back singing with the band. The title song is the familiar classic carol in an arrangement that would fit seamlessly on the previous Christmas album, but it's backstopped by two new originals, "Christmas Style" and "It's Christmas," the latter a mildly snarky poke at the Christmas routine that'll make you smile. Maybe a little mellow for Mistletunes regulars, but the original tunes are worth an audition.
Just found out about this Columbus, Ohio band the other day and this new 2019 midtempo holiday ballad they just released. Stereogum calls it "sad and festive," which is not a bad description; indie-rock bands do like to go for the mixed emotion aspect of the holiday. In tracking this down, I found I've been remiss; these guys had The Mallwalker EP in 2016 with five holiday tunes, including "All the Best," a power-poppy holiday missive from the road, "New Coats," a sprawling semi-psychedelic sonic collage, "Plastic Baby Jesus," a pensive electric guitar ballad, the midtempo "On Holiday," and the title track, a Lumineers-like traipse through a shopping center. And in 2017, they offered "The Wandering Star," a folky strum over a drum machine. Please note that proceeds from The Mallwalker benefit the charity Water For People.
This British lo-fi power pop ensemble has been with us on the Christmas tip before, and they've conjured up another EP of holiday sounds for 2019. "Headfirst Into Christmas" provides a poppy holiday tableaux, "It's Christmas Time Again" is a rock-ish cover of a bluebeat classic, they take on "The Christmas Song (Chestnuts)" as a power pop anthem, and they recorded a new version of their previously released original "Oh Santa Claus!" that's on the most recent Cherryade compilation. Looks like these tunes were also on the Christmas Cards LP mentioned in the first link in this post. Proceeds from this EP benefit the British homelessness charity Shelter. Grab it from Bandcamp.
Mosey is the solo project of Dan Pawlovich, member of Panic! At the Disco and Valencia, and this 2019 single is a cool thrashy holiday protest song about commercialism in the face of world problems. For all the crunchy rock sounds, it has a nice pop sheen over it and you should grab it or playlist it.
Wouldn't be a Christmas season at Mistletunes without another offering from this duo, posted free at their home page for your holiday enjoyment. This one, a decidedly indie-sounding number, is an angular uptempo rocker with a shuffling rhythm and hopeful lyrics. Play it where it lays or download it. As always, the duo's past Christmas tunes are available in the same place.
These guys were a band in the 90s, then they broke up, and then the two main guys got back together as an acoustic duo. For 2019 they popped out this Christmas EP featuring "Flying For Christmas," which their Instagram post states is a rewrite of Cake's "The Distance," and it's a fairly sharp little talk-sing number. That was the most information I could get about the EP, and from listening I'm going to assume that "All the Gifts I Need," "Twinkle Little Christmas Lights" and "My Favorite Time of Year" are originals, while "Christmas All Over Again" is a Tom Petty cover. This is solid pop-rock and should grab some attention for your playlists.
Bryan had a single of "Christmas Time" and "Reggae Christmas" back in 1985, and you may recall that the latter tune had an MTV video featuring all of MTV's original veejays prancing around in Santa hats around that time. Those two songs are here on this 2019 EP, along with another original of the same vintage, "Merry Christmas," and what appear to be new songs, the cheeky original "Joe and Mary" and a cover of "Must Be Santa." I have always liked "Reggae Christmas" and I'm adding "Joe and Mary" to the list too. The rest are good but less essential.
