The new collection of indie rock Christmas music from this Italian music blog has just dropped, so let's get right into it. Oscar Twins do a driving 90s rock tune called "Holy Fans," in which holiday commercialism takes a hit; Marcello Newman's "Natale hilare ex Roma" is a talking synth-pop narration of a different kind of 12 days of Christmas, cynical and funny; Setti's "Magica notte" is a folk-rock number in Italian, but I'm pretty sure the title translates as "Magical Night" and the rest of the lyrics proceed from there; Vanishing Muffins say they want to "Hit You With Snowball," but the lyrics to this fuzzy 90s rock tune are more about lusting after a lover; and e.p. nap featuring melody almroth offers this anti-Christmas number "john lennon, bono, bob geldof," a driving instrumental backing a recitation of an essay whose thesis is "Just be nice to people. Who gives a fuck about what time of year it is?" Assistant offers "Thank God We're Alive," a syncopated remembrance of past holidays that weren't so great; A Minor Place tills the same row with "The Story So Far (Christmas Time Not Doing Fine)," a bouncy number with twangy guitar and synths; No Other News covers The Aislers Set with "Cold Christmas," a more power pop tune; Baruf gives us a little hip-hop production with a brief "Christmas Time Is Here"; Baseball Gregg offers "Nevicare," a bit of slow-tempo surf-adjacent 60s pop-rock; and the Lost Cavalry offers "Christmas Wish," a sort-of R.E.M. tune with a hopeful slant on the holiday. Lac Observation's "Strungout Moonchild vs Arthur the White" follows an addict wandering around on the holiday; The Interpretation Cultures cover the Field Mice's "If You Need Someone" in a new-wave-via-Velvets arrangement; The Ian Fays perform "King's Cup," a rock ballad with sweet female voices mentioning cookie baking and the title-mentioned game; Steven Lipsticks and his Magic Band cover the Sonics' "Santa Claus" in a doomy, gothy synth-based arrangement; and Kristian Noel Pedersen does "Christmas All Over Again," not the Tom Petty song but a cool lo-fi rock 'n roll tribute to the holiday; Heron King offers "The Light," not Christmas but compatible sentiments; Deine Mutti's "Samurai" is in Italian, but it's a solid rocker and I did detect a "buon Natale" in the lyrics; Feduzzi takes on Charlie XCX with "Girl, So Confusing But With Guitars," the last part no doubt added by the artist; Easy Heart covers East 17 with "Stay Another Day"; Guimaraes offers "Damn Fine," a "Twin Peaks" tribute but not holiday oriented; and the Shalalas give us "After Hours," a Velvet Underground cover, also non-holiday. Buy this from Bandcamp and support Gaza Soup Kitchen with your purchase.
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We only got onto this particular bandwagon last year, but this ongoing compilation series of indie artists doing holiday tuneage has dropped a 2025 edition. Death Valley Girls offer the grungy synth anthem "Season of Dreaming," semiwestern's contribution is the thumping grinder "Merry Xmas Mary," Olivia Ellen Lloyd goes full country and western with "Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!," Shannon Lay's "I'll Be Home For Christmas" is folky and spacy in equal measures, Zach Cooper makes a Hanukkah move with the almost spaghetti-western instrumental "8 Candles," Nightlands sings a choral ballad about a "Christmas Moon," Heavenly Peace cranks up the old-school modular synths behind a rhythm section for "Jingle Bells, Batman Smells," brend_zombley goes contrarian on us with "Scrooge Good," Eric Slick gives us an 80s synth-pop slow-tempo "The First Noel," Serious Bob evokes an ethereal "Magical Christmas" and Meridian Brothers wrap things up with an authentically Latino "Lloro Sonriendo En Navidad." Unique takes on the holiday, up for streaming and download.
This Olympia, WA record label last did one of these holiday compilations in 2020, although individual artists on the label have dropped some Christmas tuneage in the interim. This year, according to the label, they did a last-minute call for participants and got 33 responses, which led to there being volume 1 and 2 of this 2025 collection. Festivities kick off with Rusty Jason with Calamity Jason and the Editorial Review (whew!) throwing us "Retail Christmas," a country ode to Black Friday, The True Olympians faithfully covering the Sonics' "Don't Believe in Christmas," Across 35th offering a rocked-out take on the "Frozen" tune "Do You Wanna Build a Snowman," Mike Tye & Rosie Dyer offering a folky original "Christmas Spirit," Amy Denio playing all the parts on her original holiday nutritional warning "Sugar Sacks," Daven and Megan Tillinghast performing a choral gospel augmentation of "Angels We Have Heard On High," and Toxic Socket throw us an original rocker, "Jing Jing Lin." Richard Peterson's "On Christmas Day" originally appeared on his own album, Band Of Jays offers the syncopated, poppy "When It's Christmas," and Jim of Seattle's "Happy Holidays" is an imaginative solo piano medley of familiar Christmas carols in which he switches songs so quickly you have to work to figure the transitions. Throttle Body m/c does a "Silent Night" that isn't the familiar carol but an original folk-pop lament, Guidon Bear's "IWanna4GiveYou" is an indie-pop gem built on a Police-like rhythm and lots of female vocals, The Freewheelin' Joe Ros & Ed Portnow give us the bluesy shuffle "I Wish It Was Christmas," Fur For Fairies performs a lo-fi take on the Webber-Rice classic "Christmas Dream," Infra Ed does "Orange Grinch," which is the Grinch theme but in orange, and Chris Lund's "Christmas Time," a kind of power pop tune in which we hear equal parts Neil Young and Big Star, wraps up the proceedings. Click the cover or go to Bandcamp to get this volume. Vol. 2 gets a separate entry.
As promised, here's the second volume of Green Monkey's massive 2025 Christmas song drop. The True Olympians open things with the third version of their original "Fruitcake," previously on another Green Monkey comp and a Tom Dyer solo EP, Reggie Garrett and Christine Gunn offer "Personent Hodie," an antique number first published in a Finnish music folio in the 16th century and rendered here in a period-appropriate arrangement, Levi Fuller offers a politically astute dirge with the title "Merry Christmas (Everything's Fucked)," The Squirrels take a goofy tack on "Joy To the World," apparently donated from the band's own 30-year-old album, and Marke Brunke created the ragtime number "Old Christmas Rags" with the assistance of AI, although he put so much work into it it's hard to see what effort AI saved him. Kaz Murphy 3 offers the earnest original "Where Is Santa?," Krampus Choir does the ukulele ballad "Krampus," The Hyperdrive Kittens give us the punk energy of "All I Want," and Von Cube's "Christmas Time" has that 70s hard rock feel filtered through a lo-fi approach. The Olson Bros Band give us the acoustic swinger "Keepin' It Jolly," Daddy Daughter Datge DOD's "Jingle Bells" is fine if you're looking for parents getting their kid to sing a song, Tommy Lee Dyer's "John Lee Christmas" is a John Lee Hooker-styled holiday song, and Woo & Rooby do "Join Our Hands," a humorous acoustic novelty. The Dyer Family Singers perform "On Thanksgiving," a song for that holiday actually recorded on Thanksgiving, Dead Air Fresheners do "The Worst Noel," a film noir narration spoken over the familiar carol, The Elftones offer "Christmas is Here Again," a coming-home midtempo tune, and Ben Shaw wraps things with "The Man With the Beard," a folky ballad. As before, click the cover or visit Bandcamp.
Wicked Cool is Stevie Van Zandt's record label, and this 2025 compilation is the label's second after Christmas a Go-Go from 2008. Like that collection, these songs are all previously released as singles, and nearly all of them on Wicked Cool. As they're all solid examples of what you'd hear on Sirius XM's Underground Garage channel, the rock 'n roll bonafides are not in question, although regular readers here have probably heard most or all of them before, or at least read our reviews here. Among the tunes I've previously missed are "Christmas With Me" by Jessie Wagner featuring Rocco of the Snow, a nice uptempo girl-group influenced tune; "Gimme Christmas" by Prima Donna, a cool thumper that will remind you of the Ramones; "Santa's Coming (Ho Ho Ho)" by the Woggles, a bluesy stomp straight out of the garage; "To Heck With Ole Santa Claus" by Ryan Hamilton, a rockabilly cover of the Brenda Lee tune; Steve Conte's cover of the Kinks' "Father Christmas" is a solid tribute to the original, as is Soraia's "Santa Claus," the Sonics' original; and the Chesterfield Kings' boogie take on "White Christmas." That leaves "It's Christmastime" by the Empty Hearts," "Another NY Christmas (Piss the Season)" by Wyldlife, "Christmas in the Sand" by Kurt Baker, and "Auld Lang Syne" by the Dollyrots as tunes you can search on this site for the original reviews. Streaming and downloads everywhere, no hardcopies that I can find.
Bongo Boy Records is back again for 2025 with the 10th volume of their holiday series of compilations. Although we've found in the past that the word "Rockin'" is doing a lot of work when representing these collections, there's nevertheless been some good playlist candidates here, as always. Monique Grimme is apparently the star of this year's compilation as she's represented four times, starting with "Christmas Is Coming, the Goose is Getting Fat," a pop-rock duet; "First Snowfall Memory," a mildly funky, almost yacht-rock tune; "Silver Dust and Mistletoe," a minor-key power ballad with some solid lead guitar; and "My Favorite Part of Christmas," another ballad, this one more gentle in approach. Following on, we have "Christmas Time" by Inches From Sin, a cool midtempo tune that seems to combine 70s Top 40 with 80s synth-rock, and they return later with "Jingle Jangle Jingle," a fine uptempo 70s funk tribute. Simonne Draper gives us the orchestral instrumental "Flowertina," Boys 'n Barry offer us "It Was Santa," a poppy featuring with Sandi Kight, "Why Can't Everyday Be Christmas" by Steve Contino is an uptempo rocker with a bit of 80s drum machine propelling it, Wayne Olivieri & DJ Christ Ibe give us the synth-poppy "I Love Christmas Time," Kristin Hope punk-thrashes her way through "I Saw Three Ships," the New Bardots nod to the end of the holiday with the closing song, "New Year's Lullaby," a nice barroom rocker, and, as always, Jackie Kringle & the Elves give us the title song of the collection. Plenty of playlist candidates here, whether pop or rock. Streaming everywhere, click the cover to find it on Amazon.
We covered Vol. 1 when it dropped three years ago, so I'll leave you to follow the link to get most of the background. Once again, this is a group of Pittsburgh-based musicians doing holiday music to raise money for Band Together Pittsburgh, a charity that supports autistic musicians. Scott Blasey of Pittsburgh favorites The Clarks opens the show with "Happy Holiday" in an old-school jazz-pop arrangement, followed by a blast of 60s and 70s rock classics, Jon Belan with Slade's "Merry Xmas Everybody," Clinton Clegg's "Everyday Will Be Like a Holiday," Joe Wodarek's "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)," and Bill Deasy's faithful arrangement of Greg Lake's "I Believe in Father Christmas." Stevee Wellons offers a highly syncopated take on "Little Drummer Boy," and you know I like it when folks deviate from the martial paradiddles of the original arrangement. Billy Price and Bill Toms duet on the bluesy "Santa Claus Wants Some Lovin'," Nieds Hotel Band offers Cordell Jackson's "Rock 'n Roll Christmas," Megan Paullet takes on Stevie Wonder's "Someday at Christmas," and Pete Hewlett performs a jazzy "O Come Emmanuel." Joey and Emma Wodarek reenact the Gwen Stefani-Blake Shelton duet on "You Make It Feel Like Christmas," Jeff Jimerson also goes old-school pop on "Sleigh Ride," Kelsey Friday takes "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" out to the country, although the sax solo brings it back, but Frank Viera pushes farther back into country with Brad Paisley's "Penguin, James Penguin." Joe Grusheky and the Houserockers offer "Christmas Everyday," although this cool rocker doesn't resemble any of the songs I remember with this title; couldn't confirm if it's their own original tune. The collection wraps up with "Married and Bright" by Bailey Taylor, "It's Almost Christmas" by Mark Zucco and a countrified "Run Run Rudolph" by Morgan Gruber. All told, these folks acquit themselves well and you won't regret listening to this or plucking tunes for your playlist.
This 2024 release is a compilation of new original songs by an array of groups that identify as progressive rock, a genre that peaked commercially in the 1970s but has always retained a cadre of loyal fans, some who trace their favorites' history back to psychedelia and others who simply got on the train when they discovered their favorite artists identified as progressive. This collection includes the previously reviewed "I Ruined Christmas" by Refrestramus, along with a solid pop-rock ballad by giGO called "Christmas Tears." That one's also available as a single. Other performers include A Multitude of One, whose "A Christmas Surprise" is a by-the-book prog-rock instrumental; Orchestre Celeste, whose "Cornubia" is an extended instrumental journey through prog, synth-rock and even jazz; Maurizio Vercon's "In the Hands of God" is an old-school hard rock guitar-shredding ballad; Juan R. Leon's "Re-gifting Ye Old Fruitcake" is a lengthy keyboard-heavy melody and his "Jesus Wept" has a classical/flamenco influence that appears to include both guitar and treble-heavy bass; The Round Robins' "Web Cosmic Visions" has a kind of late-period King Crimson feel to it; Stanislav and the Lion's "Yuki-Onna" is a brief monologue over a Japanese-influenced melody; Robeone's "Robeone Christmas" is a rock improvisation over "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen"; and Quicksilver Night has two entries, one with vocalist Nina Flory called "Dragon's Eye View," a bombastic Florence and the Machine-styled song, and, with Dark Beauty, "Whispers in the Snow," a fairly sweet 70s hard rock midtempo ballad. Must note that the preponderance of instrumentals means that a lot of this won't "feel" like Christmas to some, but that's for the listener to decide. Appears to be only on Bandcamp.
Last year we belatedly introduced you to this series of alt-rock-pop compilations, and they dropped another for 2024. The series benefits the UK charity Crisis, which battles homelessness, and the artists apparently donated their songs to it. As with the past ones, there are plenty of tunes previously covered in the pages of Mistletunes, along with a bumper crop of songs I haven't previously encountered, for a total of 65 tunes. Their Bandcamp page is where you go to pick it up, and I recommend doing so.
Bone Sound Inc. has been dropping Christmas compilations since 2020, and this is the one for 2024. The concept is basically indie artists doing Christmas songs, kicking off with Boeckner doing a grungy "Blue Christmas," Electric Santa playing with the tempo concept of the title with a thrashy "Merry Fast/Slow Christmas," Serious Bob doing an exaggeratedly slow version of "O Christmas Tree," and Boy Brooks taking a slightly more uptempo approach to "O Holy Night." Julian Lynch goes practically motionless in the atmospheric take on "O Little Town of Bethlehem," Heavenly Peace offers "Slow Hanukkah," a version of "O Hanukkah," brend_zombley takes on "Angels We Have Heard on High" in which the melody is slowly drowned out by white noise, and Fire-Toolz wraps things up with "Shaktipat w/The Lord," more grungy synth noises. This is something for fairly specific tastes, so tread lightly. Check it out on Bandcamp.
Once again, the Italian music blog Memoria Polaroid has compiled a selection of indie rock bands worldwide contributing holiday-oriented songs. As you might imagine, there are a fair number of Italian bands singing in their native language, but about half these songs are in English, starting with PoPo's cover of Low's "Just Like Christmas," a crunchy rendition possibly inspired by Jesus and Mary Chain. The Ian Fays offer "Set the Table," a tune that seems to suggest someone long gone is being asked to set the holiday table. Shiva Bakta perform "Christmas Quarantine," the premise of which may seem old hat at this point but don't worry, the next American administration seems poised to start a bird flu pandemic. Her Skin does "I'll Be Happy Anyways," a cool pop tune about lost love on the holiday, Waving Blue featuring Matilde gives us "See You at the Club for Christmas," a fairly doomy folk strum rather than the dance tune you might expect, and Neucloud has "In Colder Times," a midtempo indie rocker with just a little David Lynch overlaid on it. Altre di has "No Guest List," a semi-rockabilly flavored raver that doesn't appear to have a holiday connection, and the same can be said for Casta's cover of the Cardigans' "My Favorite Game" and Heron King's version of the Bobby Charles song "I Must Be In a Good Place Now." Danxgerous (no typo) does Joni Mitchell's "River" with guitar and celeste, Georgia, Georgia performs "Good Luck Babe" and AGA gives us a tone poem, "Open in the Eyes." Among the Italian language offerings, Setti's "Star" is a nice 60s folk rock opener, Deine Mutti goes lo-fi on "Voglio dormire fino a Natale," Olymipa Mare sings a folky "Giallo," Bauf introduces some hip-hop elements on "L'infanzia di Maria," and Baseball Gregg performs "stefania." Get it from Bandcamp as always, and this year's charity being supported by the collection is the non-governmental organization Palestine Children's Relief Fund.
The Bongo Boy label has a long-running album series of indie artists performing Christmas songs, as you might gather from the volume number above. For 2024 they're back, starting with Fans Of Jimmy Century, who check in with three new tunes, the power-poppy "Here Comes Christmas," a cover of "You're a Mean One Mr. Grinch" that's straight out of showtunes-ville, and "Santa Jamaica (Jolly Old St. Nicholas)," a not-entirely-convincing islands-influenced take on the carol. The New Bardots, a band that's figured on several previous entries in the series, provide us with new original "Pocket Full of Christmas," a cool rocker that narrates the holiday while swinging widely among various secular and religious holiday archetypes. "Christmas Eyes" by Boys 'N Barry with Wendy Tuttle is a 70s hit radio pop number about the child's-eye view of the holiday, Clark Ford and Underground Treehouse offer the pop ballad "I Remember Christmas With You," fairly self-explanatory, and Willow Layne and Countryside Studios perform "Just Me and You, December," which you will not be surprised to hear is a straight modern country lament, as is their other tune "St. Nick On Aisle Six," as well as Paula Boggs Band's banjo-led "Mistletoe & Shiny Guitars." Denise Fink and Roselyn Brinkman offer a classical flute and harp take on "Clair de Noel," which is mainly "Clair de Lune" with some carols mashed into it, and Simonne Draper's "Finesca" is another classically influenced instrumental. Steve Andrews also gets two entries on this collection, "Climb Through a Rainbow" and "We Can Sing Together," pop-rockers that don't seem to have much to do with the holiday. Dulcie Taylor has the jazzy "This Christmas Is Gonna Be Great," and Studeo wraps up with "Why Can't Christmas Last All Year," a 70s rocker with pop overtones. Given the title of the collection, the real rocking stuff is only about half the collection, but of course there are plenty of playlist candidates here. Downloads and streaming in the usual places, although Bongo Boy does offer hard copy at its website.
Indie label Cleopatra has persisted into the modern era with its occasional forays into the slowly dying genre of Christmas compilations, offering really cool punk, general, alternative rock, southern rock, psychedelic, rockabilly and psychobilly collections over recent seasons. For 2024 it's "Gothmas," bringing goth and industrial bands together for downbeat but by no means unlistenable takes on Christmas using familiar tunes and others less so. Five songs are by Cleopatra's Dark Ensemble, about which I couldn't find more info but I'm going to assume is some sort of label-organized ensemble, doing "Silent Night," "Carol of the Bells," "Deck the Halls," "You're a Mean One Mr. Grinch" narrated by Malcolm McDowell, and the collection's title song. The band Priest also does "Carol of the Bells," in a unique arrangement less bombastic than most rock bands' takes on the song. Kap Bambino offers the original "Red Water (Christmas Mourning)," an unexpectedly upbeat synth-poppy tune, and This Cold Night's "Reindeer" is similarly poppy in a more goth-oriented tune. R. Missing takes on "Little Drummer Boy" in a minor-key arrangement, Buzz Kull's version of Merle Haggard's "If We Make It Through December" is suitably dour for the collection while stealing a synth riff from Til Tuesday's "Voices Carry," and La Scaltra's "Sleigh Ride" is based on the riff from an 80s-90s song that currently escapes me. Rosetta Stone covers Sisters of Mercy's "Driven Like the Snow," Die Krupps takes on the Sonics's "Santa Claus" goth-style, and David J's version of Taylor Swift's "Christmases When You Were Mine" is suitably desperate-sounding. Skold takes on the Kinks' "Father Christmas," The KVB covers "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)," Xiu Xiu performs "Frosty the Snowman," Missing Persons (the very same!) goes with "Last Christmas," 45 Grave does "The Snow Miser Song," and a version of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" comes to us via Leaether Strip (spelled correctly). All told, a very listenable collection, and even the non-goth-oriented folks out there should be able to find some playlist candidates here. Note to vinyl-heads: only the first 14 songs of this collection are on the ancient artifact version. To get the full 20 songs, you must buy the CD, download, or stream it.
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. UPDATE: For 2023 Rum Bar added two songs to this collection, "Maybe This Christmas" by the Gypsy Moths and "Effin' Dreidel Song" by Jay Allen and the Archcriminals. Still a "name your price selection" at Bandcamp.
Rough Trade, once an independent punk-new wave record label based in Britain, is now more of a vinyl-and-merch clearing house with actual brick-and-mortar stores in New York and London. Nevertheless, they have pretty good taste in ferreting out indie artists they can feature with fresh vinyl, and for 2023 they compiled a Christmas album which is mostly previously released, or previously exclusive streaming-only, songs. So I probably don't have to spend a lot of time selling you on this if you're into physical media (vinyl and CD versions available through Amazon as well as Rough Trade). They claim one exclusive-to-this-compilation tune, Marika Hackman's "Driving Under Stars," and other tunes include "Groovy Xmas" by Linda Lindas, Black Midi's "Jingle Bell Rock," Los Bitchos' "Los Chrismos," Pale Waves' version of "Last Christmas," Allo Darlin's "Will You Please Spend New Years With Me?," Bubble and Squeak's "The Christmas Stick," and Sinkane's version of "Christmas Wrapping." Fourteen tunes in total for vinyl, the CD gets five bonus cuts: "Lonely Star (Christmas Song)" by Dream Nails, "Merry Christmas" by Willie J Henley, "I Wish I Were Giving You a Gift" by Girl Ray, "Christmas Anyway" by Stars," and Alex Lahey's version of "Merry Christmas (I Don't Wanna Fight Tonight)." No downloads or streaming, but as I said a lot of these tunes already existed in those realms.
This Italian radio show and blog has been compiling indie-pop Christmas albums for several years now, and they're back again this year with 19 new songs. It's a "name your price" purchase at Bandcamp and the proceeds benefit SOKOS, a volunteer-run health clinic in Bologna, Italy for migrants and the homeless. As you might expect, some of the artists are performing in Italian here, but the Bandcamp page helpfully offers each song's lyrics, which you can drop into Google Translate at your leisure. Emphasize the "pop" in indie-pop, as nearly all these performances, even the uptempo ones, have a sort of mellow vibe to them. Baseball Gregg has a semi-distracted performance on "December First," in which the singer wants to make this record but is battling the sniffles. "Our Long Goodbye" by May Eyes Love is more of a wordless vocal/instrumental, "Santa Claus Goes Erotic" by Tacobellas is an R-rated punker, "Blue-Eyed Boy" by Her Skin has the vocalist wanting a guy who has a different girlfriend at Christmas, "Who Cares If Christmas Comin;" by A Minor Place featuring Cristiano Pizzuti is a meditation on holiday loneliness, "O e Natali tutti I giorni" by Luca Mazzieri is a nice folky strum which I'm pretty sure is about Christmas, "All the Wreaths" by the Ian Fays is a ballad full of ancient pop culture references, and "My Treee" by Plastic Palms is sort of the Velvet Underground on helium, but it's cool for all that. There's more, and you should at least give it a listen.
Only just discovered this charitable effort mounted on behalf of Wales' nonprofit Crisis, which fights homelessness. It's a huge playlist, taking just short of two hours to listen to, and in keeping with the name it's a roster of indie artists playing Christmas songs. You'll find performances from bands we've covered here in the past, like the Futureheads, Lisa Mychols, the Pearlfishers, the Hannah Barberas, Helen Love and Ricardo Autobahn, but the preponderance of the playlist offers songs I haven't heard before, though I'm pretty sure they've been curated from around the British Empire. Sonically this 2023 collection might remind you of the Cherryade compilations, although there aren't many artists from the lo-fi realm here. The rundown here will be incomplete, but when you grab this from Bandcamp, you can hover over the song titles and click on the "info" tag to learn more about each individual artist. Among the highlights are Bjear featuring Ella Ion with the ethereal "Sleep Sound," Bunnygrunt's short tribute to the Velvet Underground "All I Got For Christmas Was This Lousy Boy," Caleb Nichols' ballad "I Fell In Love On Christmas Day," Lisa Mychols' "The Joy Is In the Giving" was re-recorded especially for Crisis, Charlie's Hand Movement's "Always a Dream" is mid-tempo power pop, El Gato Roboto's mildly punk "Merry Merry Christmas" is cool, Fascinations Grand Chorus reuses the same title in a girl-groupy rocker, El Sancho repurposes "Blitzkrieg Bob" into "Merry Christmas Joey Ramone," and Vista Blue stays in that lane with "I Want New Ramones Songs For Christmas." Red Shoe Diaries give us "Ice and Snow," Brixton Riot punk out on "Lockdown Holiday," The Wedding Present's "The Loneliest Time of Year" is here, Valentina Way sings about the "Advent Calendar 2022," Wicketkeeper offers the punky "Ho Ho It's Christmas Again," and Wake Up and Smell the Sun goes old-school boogie on "Thee Christmas Card Committee." There's more, all good, and if you can't get enough you can still download Vols. 1 and 2.
It's the 2023 edition of this annual compilation, which we've covered in previous years. The NEW Bardots appear twice, first with their almost power-pop version of the Band's "Christmas Must Be Tonight" and then with their previously released "Santa Don't Like Politics." Lyla Meta gives us a folk-gothic take on "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen," STUDEO offers the midtempo rocker "Under the Christmas Tree," and Charles Brown performs an instrumental version of "Greensleeves," known in the vocal version as "What Child Is This." Boys 'N' Barry offer the pop rocker "Christmas With You," Ma Bell break out the banjo with "Christmas in the Country," Annemarie Picerno takes the blues uptempo with "Mr. Santa," Gregg Wietstock takes a folky tack on "2020 Christmas Star," and Rita Fay Tanner's ballad "Little Child in My Arms" is performed live. Oh, and as with all the previous editions of this compilation, we get Jackie Kringle & the Elves performing the title song.
Back for a second year, members of the Philadelphia Eagles join with Philly-based musicians for a seven-song collection of Christmas music to benefit various Philadelphia charities. Among the participants, in addition to Eagles Jason Kelce, Lane Johnson and Jordan Mailata (and reputedly KC Chief Travis Kelce, Jason's brother and official Taylor Swift arm candy, who's on "Fairytale of Philadelphia") are Patti LaBelle, Amos Lee, Eric Bazilian and Rob Hyman of the Hooters, DM Hotep, Kevin Hanson, and members of Waxahatchee, the War on Drugs, Mewithout you, Dr. Dog, and the Silver Ages Choir. As with last year's collection, probably none of these entries are going to be your favorite versions of the songs, but it's a well made and listenable album. This year's album features a Jason Kelce original, "Santa's Night," a countrified ballad that isn't at all bad, and the rest are all familiar tunes. "The Christmas Song (Chestnuts)," "This Christmas," "Pretty Paper," "The Dreidel Song," "All I Want For Christmas Is You," "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," and "Auld Lang Syne" all get serviceable versions, and they parody the Pogues on "Fairytale of Philadelphia," although the recent loss of Shane MacGowan probably dampens your enjoyment of that particular cut. Widely available on download and streaming, and the official website offers vinyl combined with swag to raise the maximum amount for charity.
Imagine my surprise when, during my expedition into the recent history of Warner Records' Gift Wrapped series of compilations, I pulled up Volume 3 of this New Jersey indie rock label's similarly named series of holiday EPs instead of the Warners Vol. 3 I was looking for. Volume 1 dropped on Christmas Eve 2019 and features seven songs, starting with Backyard Superheroes' not-quite-ska "This Christmas" and proceeding into Calendar Year's "Noel Solitare," an uptempo cross between thrash and Britpop considering the nature of loneliness and the connection to the holiday. Emotional Transporter gives us the punk tribute "We Are Santa's Elves," Love, Rose comes back with a cover of "Little Saint Nick" similarly punked out, and Jake and the Nowhere performs "Christmastime in New Jersey," a drunken recitation of the state's place names with a bit of holiday nostalgia thrown in. Grey Goes Black goths up Wham's "Last Christmas" and TEDxDANCESøN wraps things up with "A VERY MERRY TEXxMas," a clattery symphony for guitars and synths. Volume 2, from 2020, kicks off with Ed Allison's fairly faithful Fall Out Boy cover, "Yule Shoot Your Eye Out," followed by Fit the Bill's midtempo acoustic pop-rocker "Snow & Mistletoe," Grey Goes Black returns with a slowed-down cover of "Christmastime Is Here," and TEDxDANCESøN gives us a synth-pop cover of My Chemical Romance's "Every Snowflake Is Different (Just Like You)." Blue Vines resurrects Tom Petty for three minutes with a poppier take on "Christmas All Over Again," and TH Speedball wraps things up with the synth-pop "Santa Claus (Ho Ho Hoin')," a lost-love take on the holiday. Volume 3 starts with Pezh & Son Pat doing a fairly faithful version of "Last Christmas," Landon Defever covers Fountains of Wayne's "Valley Winter Song" in a more indie-pop way, Vater Boris offers "Silent Night Manic Night" in a version that starts as a drone and ends as a surf instrumental, and Todd Barriage does "If La Dispute Made Christmas Music," a reference to the hardcore band, although as I've never heard that band I'm missing the gag, as this is a Christmas-themed monologue laid over a decent cover of "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)." These are all download and streaming; the individual links above are to Amazon, but if you click the cover you can access them all on Bandcamp.
We don't get a lot of major label compilations for Christmas in the post-physical-media era, so kudos to the Brothers Warner (Stan, Nathan, and Itzy) for maintaining a tradition in the year of our streaming 2023. You'll find that, just as in the old days, this collection spans genres, so you'll want to pick and choose among these offerings. Bebe Rexha gives us a modern pop rocker in "Count On Christmas," Michael Buble drops an old-school croon on "Let It Snow! -- 10th Anniversary Version," Dolly Parton is herself on an old-fashioned country-tinged pop ballad, "Comin' Home For Christmas," and Seal offers the Donny Hathaway chestnut "This Christmas." JoJo with PJ Morton give us the holiday ballad "Wishlist," Teddy Swims lays down a pop=gospel reading of "Silent Night," Josh Groban's "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" is an orchestral, almost Broadway reading of the John Lennon classic, Andra Day gives the jazz vocal treatment to a ballad version of "Winter Wonderland," and Brandy Clark and Charlie Worsham give a Nashville duet treatment to the Carpenters' "Merry Christmas Darling." The Goo Goo Dollsx' "This Is Christmas" makes an appearance here, along with Lukas Graham on the somewhere between hip-hop and pop song "HERE (For Christmas)" and Kathleen's odd rendition of "I'll Be Home For Christmas" featuring strange synths and background noises. My assumption is that this collection was curated from around the Warners empire of associated labels, rather than the result of any original commissions, but I'm happy to be corrected on that. There's a vinyl version of this out there for you collectors, of course.
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.
The folks at British indie-pop label Cherryade continue with their annual Christmas tradition of an old-school compilation album despite having all but ceased year-round operations. The curation has for years been curated by label head Rachael Neiman and for the past several years she's been assisted by radio/podcast host Gareth Jones. This year's collection of 25 tunes includes 16 specially commissioned for this collection, the remaining tunes having been culled from various digital sources including Bandcamp. It's CD only; apparently rights issues prevent it being streamed or downloaded, and the cost of vinyl is well beyond the curators' budget. As always, this is indie-punk-pop-rock with attitude, evoking everything from fractured 60s girl-group and garage to 80s synthpop. Selected highlights include "Christmas Number One" by Problem Patterns, solid girl group with guitars; The Photocopies' "I'm Not Coming Home For Christmas" only lasts a minute but you'll want more; The Surfisticats go all instrumental on "Santa Bring Me a Surfboard Please"; Toy Disco goes lo-fi synth-pop on "A Gameboy For Christmas '96"; you office supply geeks will go for The Twelve Hour Foundations' "Thank You Letters (Written on Basildon Bond)," as they namecheck a particular brand of stationery; "Thinking About Christmas" by Portable Radio is a cute piano-led bit of music hall pop-rock; The Get Arounds give us a rocking ode to "Xmas Radio" that few would come up with in this age of all-Christmas radio stations with playlists of 20 songs, seven of which are Mariah Carey; Madrid 's The Yellow Melodies return with "Por fin es Navidad"; Building Rockets produce their own original song "Christmas Island," though they cover similar ground with a Jimmy Buffett treatment; Edam Edam, from France, gives us "Krampus," sung in the demon's own voice; Keith Burton gives us some British quirk with "Christmas Food Shopping In Adverse Weather Conditions, On Foot," evoking the Bonzo Dog Band; Canadians In Space offer "Peace & Gravy," keeping holiday dinner in the forefront; Baby In the Bitch Seat rocks out a tribute to "Mrs. Claus"; Goddammit Jeremiah offers "Keep Your Christmas Tree For Burning," a cool punk thrash; the often-included Hanna Barberas offer "It's Christmas Time Again," previously released; Pete Drake and Doctor Bongo offer "A Spider's Christmas," which if you listen closely offers tribute to UK singing superstar Cliff Richard. There's more of course. Hurry over to Bandcamp to order the CD, as they don't press very many copies of each year's offering.
This is the fourth annual indie-pop hoiday compilation release by Italian radio show/music blog Polaroid, released with a name-your-own-price-tag via Bandcamp, and with proceeds benefiting the SOKOS volunteer-run health clinic in Bologna, Italy. This year we have a title song, "A Polaroid For Christmas" by A Minor Place, a strummy bit of chamber pop-rock; "You Made Me Remember My Dream" by Baseball Gregg, a power-pop ode to dreaming originally by Marlene Belissimo; "Shining Light" by Waving Blue, a moody guitar ballad; "Bolle" by Setti, a folky strum in Italian; the quick punky rocker "Christ Almighty" by The Photocopies; Domino's "Herr Wade," a German pop number with banjo; "Lontano da qui" by Deine Mutti, a dreamy guitar-pop number in Italian; "As the Days Change" by Grand Drifter, an English-language pop shuffle by an Italian band; "When We Are Together" by Prim, covering The 1975 in a solo guitar-vocal rendition; "Spend Christmas With Me" by My Lo-Fi Heart, a stately bit of synth-pop; and DJ Minacola's "Jingle Bells," an extremely slow playing of the melody on a single synthesizer, which is not how you expect to hear this particular song. This is very, very indie-sounding, but I think folks will find plenty to like here. UPDATE: Stubby writes in to note that there are four volumes on Bandcamp, but Polaroid has been doing these comps since 2007.
I have not yet watched this special, owing to the fact that I'm old and I remember the legendary (?) "Star Wars Christmas Special," but I did look into the soundtrack, where I found almost entirely movie soundtrack-type instrumentals except for two excellent pop-rock tunes featuring the Old 97s, who are already on the Christmas tip. They back Kevin Bacon on a solid midtempo "Here it is Christmastime," which they previously released without Kevin, but the winner of this two-horse sweepstakes is "I Don't Know What Christmas Is (But Christmastime Is Here)," a solid jangle-rocker with hilarious lyrics written from the viewpoint of an alien who just landed on Earth and is trying to explain the holiday. This you will want on your holiday playlists. The PowerPop blog notes that the show also includes airings of the Pogues' "Fairytale of New York" and Fountains of Wayne's "I Want an Alien For Christmas," though these don't appear on the official album. Oh well, download or add to your streaming queues the two songs reviewed here and be a little better off for it.
This is a label compilation from the New York-based I Surrender Records featuring a selection of their artists performing original punk Christmas tunes. If you've never heard of this label or its artists, this is a cool collection of high-octane holiday music. (The first four tunes all come with content warnings.) Valencia offers "How Valencia Stole Christmas," a pastiche of holiday readymades; The High Court's "Rico Christmas" is a swipe at over-commercialization; the band latewaves thrashes through "Hungover For the Holidays," because of course they do; Mattstagraham goes even faster tempo through "I Can't Keep Up With the Holidays"; Pollyanna's "Christmas Garbage" sounds like an homage to the more famous band whose name is the second word of the title; We Are the Union drops the almost-mandatory ska offering, "Yr Always Alone (On Christmas)"; Alex Amiruddin & Vinnie Caruana give us a downtempo "December 26th," which is about escaping town and not so much Boxing Day; Punchline's "Together" is a poppy rocker; and Raccoon Tour leave us with the wild farewell "Happy New Year I'm Still a Piece of Garbage." A short (tailored for vinyl no doubt) but enjoyable collection of tunes.
Once again, Cherryade Records and DJ Gareth Jones compile their annual labor of holiday love, this 70-plus minute compilation of indie-pop-rock Christmas songs from around the world. It's only available to the public on CD and only 200 copies are offered, so hie yourself over to Bandcamp soonest if you want a copy of the 2022 disc. Let's start with Birmingham's Wiince, whose "Happy Xmas (When It's Over)" disguises their Scrooginess in a poppy-grungy melody, then onto Building Rockets of Austin, TX and the classic punk "It Ain't Christmas." We get more of the same with returning artist Goddammit Jeremiah's short "Where's My Presents" and The Portrait's "Renegade Reindeer," in which the Jacksonville, FL group imagines the reindeer as a gang. Another British band, Sheffield's Get The Fuck Outta Dodge, insists that "Well if Die Hard's a Christmas Movie, Then This is DEFINITELY a Christmas Song," but only for 57 seconds. Bristol/Bath "supergroup" Candymouse get on the green transportation tip with "Leccy Car For Christmas," returning group The Hannah Barberas offer a breezy "Dancin' Santa," and Sparky's Magic Piano return for the first time since Volume 5 with "Waiting For Christmas," spacey and orchestral with a children's choir. Mouse Assassins from Luton solve the mystery of "Who Nicked Santa's Trousers," Analogue Electronic Whatever break out the synths to ask "What's For Christmas," and Arcadia do likewise on "Christmas In the 80s," as does Rodney Crowell on the sinister-sounding "Cold Christmas." Coosticks are on about celebrating a happy holiday for "Bobbi & Kayleigh," Tennessee's File Under Foliage offer the piano-led "Sleigh Comes Tumbling Down," and Toronto's Cameronoise offers a holiday-flavored power pop instrumental, "And a Star On Top of it All." Cherryade was serious about world-wide coverage, as Spain gives us The Yellow Melodies and their indie-pop-rock "Ya vuelve la Navidad," Germany goes the same way on Herr Wade's "Und sie tanzen im Himmel, France's Joni Ile offers up a cheap keyboard rendition of 1968's "Joyeux Noel," and from Japan we get yumenoma's "A Winter Romance," a surprisingly Western-sounding number if you can factor out the language barrier. Fans of Wild Man Fischer will enjoy Kawaii Sakura Trees' "Catch is Catch Can," Jimmy McGee's "All I Want For Christmas is International Socialism," and Steveless' "Think of Christmas." Back on the synths we have My Lo-Fi Heart with "Spend Christmas With Me," Ukulele Bailey is surprisingly upbeat about there being "No Christmas Pud," by which he means pudding, The Woodlice make up a wild tale about Scrooge getting caught in the "Scrooge Flume," All Ashore! mourns the British energy crisis with "In Front of the Gas Fire," and the DMs wrap things up with "For Christmas Day." This exhaustive rundown, though not of much use to those who can't score a copy, will at least allow you to see if you can find some of these tunes on your own.
We've had the Bongo Boy label here in the past with previous installations of their holiday compilation series, so this is 2022's entry in the series. Boys 'n' Barry kick things off with the nicely uptempo rocker "It's Christmas Time," featuring a fine female lead vocal. The New Bardots (previous participants in this series) go 70s hard rock on "Never Too Much Christmas," Mark Winter's "Christmas in the Air" has that 70s soft rock thing going on, "Every Christmas Side By Side" by Courtland Thomas is a cool rockabilly/stride tempo number, Annemarie Picerno makes a fine bluesy mama on "Mr. Santa," and Gar Francis has a midtempo ballad, "Palaces," that has a Fleetwood Mac feel to it. Wayne Oliveri goes all midnight mass on a bell-filled ballad, "Glad It Is Christmas Time Again," and fires up the synths for a poppy "I Love Christmas Time," David Scott Kocher gives us some Nashville holiday verities on "Christmas Time in the Carolina Country," STUDEO goes girl-groupy on "It's Christmas Time Again," and as always, Jackie Kringle & the Elves' title song is part of the proceedings. You can grab it from Amazon or the label website.
Nobody ever lost money retinseling Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" for a modern holiday, whether a straight dramatization of the original novella or an all-singing, all-dancing takeoff, whether animated or live action. Your friends at Apple TV+ went musical theatre for their 2022 version of the venerable story, featuring Will Ferrell, Ryan Reynolds and Octavia Spencer, and this album is the resulting soundtrack. As with any musical theatre production, the songs tend to be specific to the plot, but as anyone with any experience in the realm of popular music knows, the canon, holiday and otherwise, is filled to the brim with songs that originated on Broadway or in other musical theatre realms. The whole show is filled with fourth-wall-breaking snark, so feel free to let the "Glee" nerds in your immediate circle put this in your streaming queue and make notes as to which songs might fit your holiday playlists. "Bringin' Back Christmas" would pair nicely with your favorite Stan Freiberg tunes like "Green Christmas," and "That Christmas Morning Feeling" is mostly independent of the show's plot when heard in isolation. "The View From Here" is a nice ballad, though it's a little specific to the show, and "Do a Little Good" starts out like Oasis' "Wonderwall" and is generally nice, though a minor expletive near the beginning might spoil it for some. As it's a new production (of an old story), this will probably be a worthwhile diversion this year, certainly more so than yet another sequel to "A Christmas Story."
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.
