Christmas Songs - S&D!!!!

I might amend Yesca's point to say that there are very few Christmas albums worth hearing after the 60s.

Off the top of my head these are excellent single-artist albums from the 70s and later:

Klezmonauts - Oy to the World
John Zorn - A Dreamers Christmas
Hortens Ellis and Trinity - African Christmas
The Mistletoe Disco Band - Christmas
Willie Colon - Asalto Navideño

And that's before we get to canonical compilations like the Ze Christmas album/Christmas Rap/Funky Christmas. The joy of Christmas music isn't really in albums though.

Cyndi Lauper's Merry Christmas...Have a Nice Life is delightful.

it’s the greatest!!

Love this one today
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7H_-ia2M2M4

yeah it's definitely a singles affair. that St Etienne christmas album is an exception, it's so great.
https://saintetienne.greedbag.com/buy/a-glimpse-of-stocking-vinyl-lp/

^although that was a compilation of fan club singles with a few new songs added!

Good (not by various artists) Christmas albums since 1970 that haven't already been mentioned:

Bobby Sherman - Christmas Album
Jackson 5 - Christmas Album
Red Simpson - Truckers' Christmas
Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton - Once Upon A Christmas
Hilary Duff - Santa Clause Lane
Götz Alsmann und die WDR Big Band - Winterwunderwelt

*Claus

Red Simpson - Truckers' Christmas

classic for sure!

My Christmas (and New Year) 2017 Spotify playlist. As ever, nods to the new recordings for this year, mixed in with old-but-new-to-me favourites and a few classics. Featuring: Leadbelly, Mariah, Prince, Gwen Stefani, Cheap Trick, Deerful, First Aid Kit, Patti Page, Ariel Pink, Girl Ray, Loona, Lawrence Welk and more. Happy holidays everyone.

https://open.spotify.com/user/worrellj14/playlist/6VVjGF3BTT9dGqQuvzEZNW

earl nash's "floyd not floyd" thread had me on a steve miller kick. here's steve on the king biscuit flower hour doing god rest ye merry gentlemen -> fly like an eagle. (i tend to like christmas songs best when they're just interpolated into non-christmasy songs. like there's a song on "the electric lucifer" that's like that.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKS29ZP2_SI

Heard Slade's "Merry Xmas Everybody" in a public setting (restaurant) for the first time ever last week. Probably a commonplace occurrence in Britain--not here.

Repost of the 2015 Christmas concert w Gaby Moreno's soulful, shivery, yet no-frills delivery, mostly with a guitar or two (generally electric), a drum, mostly in Spanish, but you'll recognize the tunes (Gina Chavez and her uke or mando show up too):
https://www.npr.org/sections/altlatino/2015/12/04/458352429/festivo-alt-latino-gaby-moreno-in-concert

Actually I don't recognize all the tunes, but all good.

In 3 a.m. sleeplessness the other night I started mashing up Jefferson Airplane lyrics with "Sleigh Ride."

Horror grips us as we WATCH-- you die
All we can do is echo your ANG-- uished cry
It'll nearly be like a picture print
By Currier and Ives
These wonderful things are the things
We remember all through our lives

S: ...The Pretenders - "2000 Miles"...

― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Monday, December 1, 2003 4:41 AM (fourteen years ago)

It's a weird Xmas/not-Xmas song but the way her phrasing is laid out upon the waltz is amazing and gorgeous. I love Chrissie.

search: The Living Sisters - Harmony is Real: Songs for a Happy Holiday

heard that for the first time this week. "christmas in california" is fantastic.

Just discovered this one this year. It's a new year's song rather than Christmas, but it's lovely.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WsVBAc3Hc4

it'd be cool if we can get a compilation of more christmas related songs this year

Infinity did you catch the new Bloodshot comp this year? https://www.bloodshotrecords.com/album/13-days-xmas
I might amend Yesca's point to say that there are very few Christmas albums worth hearing after the 60s. Not really sure why that is, perhaps the labels had more power back then and could order a Phil Spector or Kenny Burrell to make one.

― campreverb, Wednesday, December 20, 2017 7:29 AM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i guess i never replied to this but i liked these two tracks:

all our exes live in texas - how to make gravy
the yawpers - christmas in oblivion

The new John Legend xmas album is quite good

is it...

legendary?

YES IN FACT IT IS

St Etienne's Christmas album is only 10 GBP right now, which is a steal considering the cd would cost you 5 times that much on the 2nd hand market. Get one for you and a friend, with only 2000 pressed, i'm surprised they've lasted this long. https://saintetienne.greedbag.com/buy/a-glimpse-of-stocking-vinyl-lp/

Search tool: http://everynoise.com/xmas_around_the_world.cgi

I just did a CTRL+F and couldn't find mention of Frightened Rabbit's It's Christmas So We'll Stop. It's beautiful.

https://wiaiwya.bandcamp.com/album/stars

this is wiaiwya's new (and second) xmas lp. features amelia's new band, darren hayman, bill from allo darlin, that kind of crowd. out on friday.

https://wiaiwya.bandcamp.com/album/christmastime-approximately

^ the previous one

I made it through all of Shatner Claus. I'd say about half of it works.

An in-progress playlist of my faves: https://open.spotify.com/user/cryptosicko/playlist/1DTUcvNiveCVZlV8uau5f2?si=M4DYU6FXQk-FE2YytnQVjQ

Fuzzy's "Christmas" and Aimee Mann & Michael Penn's "Christmastime" are annoyingly absent from Spotify.

mentioned itt already but needs to be posted anyway
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCY2JhrwxVs

Hip Christmas pointed out Rickie Lee Jones has some downloads on her site:
https://rickieleejones.com/christmas.html

just found out Shoes did a christmas tune. classic Shoes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BE-iPVFUXU&fbclid=IwAR0getUcGdnrsWGf-VFnyskt9ldU-COP36R2IEKlOuXYmCBdVr4_qF3DLrQ

How have we gone a quarter century without a solid addition to the canon. How.

Is there a consensus on the worst Christmas song? 'Christmas Shoes'?

Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer

How have we gone a quarter century without a solid addition to the canon. How.

Because we realized that it's so much easier to just record covers of old songs than anything new. Or in Penatonix's case, covers of songs that have nothing to do with Christmas, but pass them off as Christmas songs.

I've only listened to last christmas by wham! twice this year so far which is a disappointment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk6TD1PX22c

Julie on her second tour reminiscing
Three Decembers in New York City
Selling fir trees
Pack a truck with 90 fir trees
Pack 'em tight

Julie on her second tour reminiscing
The cassette of Daydream Nation worn out
The Bernadette Peters autograph on my cast
The CBGB t-shirt I'm wearing

The drive down from St. John
Was almost always easy
The drive back
On Christmas Day was not

Happy BreXitMAS!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5Xgktqp-Zw

xposts

Mariah’s “All I Want For Christmas is You” is surely part of the canon at this point and that was, what, 24 years ago?

I presume Old Lunch meant since Mariah

A Rhode Island favorite. "No Frosty!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ekgDJou6G0

Yes, I meant since Mariah. There have been several additions to the xmas movie canon in that time, get with it musical artists.

My favourite post-Mariah Xmas tracks (none of which I ever see ever becoming canonical):

Dar Williams, "The Christians and the Pagans" (1996)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_KiHRHwaAs

Fuzzy, "Christmas" (1996)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9gDz1VFyf0

Aimee Mann & Michael Penn, "Christmastime" (1996)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSkr6fr01M0

The Magnetic Fields, "Everything is One Big Christmas Tree" (2012)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PCeOrg2Tyc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4iWO73zPL4

I have a playlist that I've ''''curated'''' and fashioned over the past years. It's bloody amazing. It's not only Christmas songs, soundtrack stuff, but also things that were xmas number ones or popular around Christmas time like Girls Aloud 'promise' or anything else I decide just sounds Christmassy. My OH added about 20 versions of 'last christmas' to it but I had to cull most of them.

― kinder, Saturday, December 5, 2015 5:39 PM (three years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I never posted my playlist mainly because it's not a Spotify one but I'm on the lookout for lesser-known, GOOD, festive songs. It does have lots of the Home Alone soundtrack interspersed

Some quality songs that sound like holiday songs but are not necessarily, I don't think:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjU-IQh8Txo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kd1tNDpcbOs

And also 'Fjords of Winter' by Ladybug Transistor, which is apparently the only song in existence that isn't on YouTube but which is featured in this video at least:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ml9H1INzqFc

I would love to see your playlist!

donny hathaway, "this christmas"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Q5O6WnBF6g

I will never ever grow tired of this.
david axelrod and lou rawls in their prime.

some of my favorites from dr. demento's xmas shows ca. '87-88:

bob rivers, "wreck the malls"
yogi yorgesson, "i yust go nuts at christmas"
cheech & chong, "santa claus and his old lady"
bob & doug mckenzie, "the 12 days of christmas"

that whole Lou Rawls album, my god.
I suppose think it's lazy to say there has been nothing great since Carey. Low's "Just Like Christmas" is pretty much canon at this point, and there's great stuff every year, note the Khruangbin above.