In the lead-up to Christmas, music fans get assaulted with countless cash-in cuts about the baby Jesus, sleigh rides, and cuddling up by the fire with your friends and family. There's apparently not much quality control this time of year, but this season's song crop isn't entirely hopeless.
Down below you'll find an assortment of recent holiday bounty that didn't have us praying for silent nights. Bonus points if the songs are original, but that said, we'll take an interesting twist on a Christmas classic over, well, this.
Top 10 Christmas Songs of 2012:
10. Cee Lo
"All I Need Is Love"
Cee Lo Green's anti-capitalist message of opting for simply a smooch from his baby for Christmas plays well for the sentimental set, while the gleeful electro-soul-pop arrangement will likely get some feet shuffling at your seasonal soirees. In fact, it got a whole cast of Muppets going crazy in the video clip, which is truthfully more entertaining with its fish-hucking and pig-delivered punch-outs than the song itself.
9. Chilly Gonzales
"A Minor Key Medley"
Most yuletide arrangements get by on glad tidings of joy, but piano-playing producer Chilly Gonzales implores us to examine their potential for sorrow via his traditionals-twisting "A Minor Key Medley." You may want to stir some Paxil into your mulled wine whilst listening to the gloomy, transposed melodies of "The Little Drummer Boy," "Jingle Bells" and "Silent Night."
8. Killers
"I Feel It in My Bones"
It almost wouldn't seem like Christmas without getting another seasonally specific song from Las Vegas stadium rockers the Killers. This year, Brandon Flowers and co. ponder their places on the naughty list with "I Feel It in My Bones." The video features a bad-ass, hog-riding Santa armed with explosives, so we hope for the Killers' sake that they've been good little boys this year.
7. NOFX
"Xmas Has Been X'ed"
Anti-Christmas songs aren't anything new, but there's some serious bile being spit on NOFX's "Xmas Has Been X'ed." Even while dressed in their finest Santa suits, Fat Mike and co. supply a speedy rant that points to the bogusness of the Holiday economy, and suggest a good-old fashioned religion swap instead of celebrating the birth of baby Jesus unquestionably. Just don't forget to pick up a Fat Wreck Chords issued tree bobble before officially switching teams.
6. Dawn McCarthy and Bonnie "Prince" Billy
"Christmas Eve Can Kill You"
Bonnie "Prince" Billy (aka Will Oldham) and Faun Fables' Dawn McCarthy are delivering their Everly Brothers-toasting tribute disc What the Brothers Sang in 2013, but the pair of folk-favouring performers dropped a new take on the bros' downer jingle "Christmas Eve Can Kill You" a little early. It's a finger-pickin' go-through that has Oldham and McCarthy's country-fried vocal melodies entangling over heart-rending lyrics about trying to hitchhike home for the holidays. Expect to spill a few salty tears into that cup of Christmas cheer you're holding, and don't forget to hug your loved ones tight.
5. White Poppy
"Last Christmas"
Vancouverite Crystal Dorval gathered up a bunch of buds to deliver some experimental sounds on her winter-themed Whiteout, and one of its many gems is her own band White Poppy's mind-expanding take on '80s unit Wham!'s schmaltzy "Last Christmas." White Poppy reinvent the track with gauzy dream-pop sonics, and judging by those echoey-tones, it was recorded in the bowels of the Bumble's lair. We may not have sessioned it last Christmas, but you can count on this being on playlists in the years to come.
4. Jonti
"Christmas Worm"
Honestly, there's nothing cornier than putting sleigh bells onto your holiday song. Stones Throw signee Jonti skips that whole business by slapping snickety-tickety percussion ticks, tropipop guitar licks, 8-bit Nintendo blips, and Beach Boys-indebted barber shop harmonies onto his tree-trimming "Christmas Worm."
3. Sufjan Stevens
"Mr. Frosty Man"
Does anyone actually have time to sit down and enjoy Sufjan Stevens' latest, five-disc Xmas set Silver & Gold in full? For those of you on a time-crunch, just skip straight to the lo-fi slop-pop number "Mr. Frosty Man." Partially tuned acoustic guitars plunk out chunky riffs behind Stevens' tales of the snow-bred Yo La Tengo fan who occasionally chills with Coolio, Vanilla Ice and Ice Cube. As for its accompanying video, how can you resist a claymation clip where a carrot-nosed hero takes a chainsaw to a team of humbuggin' zombies?
2. Wrathmatics
A Charlie Brown Beat Tape
Bay Area producer Wrathmatics upped the awesomeness of Vince Guaraldi's already stellar A Charlie Brown Christmas score by adding some deep boom-bap to the classic collection of smooth piano runs. He manipulates dialogue snippets and the jazzy source material on "O Tannenbaum" and "What Child Is This?" but the finale of the chop job leaves us "loo-loo-looing" along to an untouched stretch of "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing."
1. Tracey Thorn
"Joy"
Tracey Thorn's Tinsel and Lights is all together excellent, but "Joy," one of two originals on the set, is the strongest song of the bunch. While presented as a weeper, Thorn's mellow, piano-assisted carol asks us to forget the bad times, if only for a moment, in order to celebrate the season. "Joy" indeed.
Down below you'll find an assortment of recent holiday bounty that didn't have us praying for silent nights. Bonus points if the songs are original, but that said, we'll take an interesting twist on a Christmas classic over, well, this.
Top 10 Christmas Songs of 2012:
10. Cee Lo
"All I Need Is Love"
Cee Lo Green's anti-capitalist message of opting for simply a smooch from his baby for Christmas plays well for the sentimental set, while the gleeful electro-soul-pop arrangement will likely get some feet shuffling at your seasonal soirees. In fact, it got a whole cast of Muppets going crazy in the video clip, which is truthfully more entertaining with its fish-hucking and pig-delivered punch-outs than the song itself.
9. Chilly Gonzales
"A Minor Key Medley"
Most yuletide arrangements get by on glad tidings of joy, but piano-playing producer Chilly Gonzales implores us to examine their potential for sorrow via his traditionals-twisting "A Minor Key Medley." You may want to stir some Paxil into your mulled wine whilst listening to the gloomy, transposed melodies of "The Little Drummer Boy," "Jingle Bells" and "Silent Night."
8. Killers
"I Feel It in My Bones"
It almost wouldn't seem like Christmas without getting another seasonally specific song from Las Vegas stadium rockers the Killers. This year, Brandon Flowers and co. ponder their places on the naughty list with "I Feel It in My Bones." The video features a bad-ass, hog-riding Santa armed with explosives, so we hope for the Killers' sake that they've been good little boys this year.
7. NOFX
"Xmas Has Been X'ed"
Anti-Christmas songs aren't anything new, but there's some serious bile being spit on NOFX's "Xmas Has Been X'ed." Even while dressed in their finest Santa suits, Fat Mike and co. supply a speedy rant that points to the bogusness of the Holiday economy, and suggest a good-old fashioned religion swap instead of celebrating the birth of baby Jesus unquestionably. Just don't forget to pick up a Fat Wreck Chords issued tree bobble before officially switching teams.
6. Dawn McCarthy and Bonnie "Prince" Billy
"Christmas Eve Can Kill You"
Bonnie "Prince" Billy (aka Will Oldham) and Faun Fables' Dawn McCarthy are delivering their Everly Brothers-toasting tribute disc What the Brothers Sang in 2013, but the pair of folk-favouring performers dropped a new take on the bros' downer jingle "Christmas Eve Can Kill You" a little early. It's a finger-pickin' go-through that has Oldham and McCarthy's country-fried vocal melodies entangling over heart-rending lyrics about trying to hitchhike home for the holidays. Expect to spill a few salty tears into that cup of Christmas cheer you're holding, and don't forget to hug your loved ones tight.
5. White Poppy
"Last Christmas"
Vancouverite Crystal Dorval gathered up a bunch of buds to deliver some experimental sounds on her winter-themed Whiteout, and one of its many gems is her own band White Poppy's mind-expanding take on '80s unit Wham!'s schmaltzy "Last Christmas." White Poppy reinvent the track with gauzy dream-pop sonics, and judging by those echoey-tones, it was recorded in the bowels of the Bumble's lair. We may not have sessioned it last Christmas, but you can count on this being on playlists in the years to come.
4. Jonti
"Christmas Worm"
Honestly, there's nothing cornier than putting sleigh bells onto your holiday song. Stones Throw signee Jonti skips that whole business by slapping snickety-tickety percussion ticks, tropipop guitar licks, 8-bit Nintendo blips, and Beach Boys-indebted barber shop harmonies onto his tree-trimming "Christmas Worm."
3. Sufjan Stevens
"Mr. Frosty Man"
Does anyone actually have time to sit down and enjoy Sufjan Stevens' latest, five-disc Xmas set Silver & Gold in full? For those of you on a time-crunch, just skip straight to the lo-fi slop-pop number "Mr. Frosty Man." Partially tuned acoustic guitars plunk out chunky riffs behind Stevens' tales of the snow-bred Yo La Tengo fan who occasionally chills with Coolio, Vanilla Ice and Ice Cube. As for its accompanying video, how can you resist a claymation clip where a carrot-nosed hero takes a chainsaw to a team of humbuggin' zombies?
2. Wrathmatics
A Charlie Brown Beat Tape
Bay Area producer Wrathmatics upped the awesomeness of Vince Guaraldi's already stellar A Charlie Brown Christmas score by adding some deep boom-bap to the classic collection of smooth piano runs. He manipulates dialogue snippets and the jazzy source material on "O Tannenbaum" and "What Child Is This?" but the finale of the chop job leaves us "loo-loo-looing" along to an untouched stretch of "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing."
1. Tracey Thorn
"Joy"
Tracey Thorn's Tinsel and Lights is all together excellent, but "Joy," one of two originals on the set, is the strongest song of the bunch. While presented as a weeper, Thorn's mellow, piano-assisted carol asks us to forget the bad times, if only for a moment, in order to celebrate the season. "Joy" indeed.
