Even though there’s something sacred about time-honored traditions, there’s only so many years you and your beloveds can sit beside the Christmas tree and listen to Sufjan or “Last Christmas” or the same old yuletide indie rock. It’s time we spruced up our collective Xmas indie rock playlist with some newness! Even if Christmas isn’t your thing, you gotta respect a holiday responsible for this.
We’ve lovingly assembled a small playlist worth of new holiday tracks from artists you might enjoy, and they’re going to sound great to you while you decorate your Solstice tree. Merry downloading!
- AM Taxi – “The Worst Noel” (MP3)
- Blondie – “We Three Kings” (MP3)
- Blood Feathers – “Christmas Will Help You Feel O.K.” (MP3)
- Banjo Or Freakout – “White Christmas” (MP3)
- Findlay Brown – “Last Christmas” (MP3)
- Can – “Silent Night”* (MP3)
- Julian Casablancas – “I Wish It Was Christmas Today” (MP3)
- Amy Gore – “Dear Santa” (MP3)
- Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings – “Ain’t No Chimneys In The Projects” (MP3)
- Julian Koster – “Let It Snow!” (MP3)
- Lightning Dust – “Ho Ho Ho” (MP3)
- Lindstrøm – “Little Drummer Boy (Edit)” (MP3)
- Lucky Soul – “Lonely This Christmas” (MP3)
- Nellie McKay – The Christmas Waltz” (MP3)
- Ohbijou – “Last Christmas” (MP3)
- Parenthetical Girls – “Thank God It’s Not Christmas” (MP3)
- Lee “Scratch” Perry – “Santa Claus” (MP3)
- Jeff Richardson & Steven Drozd – “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” (MP3)
- Slaraffenland – “Little Drummer Boy” (MP3)
- Slow Club – “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” (MP3)
- Sean Bones – “If You Hear A Knock” (MP3)
- Swearing At Motorists – “Silver Bells” (MP3)
- The Aquabats – “Holiday Road” (MP3)
- The Canon Logic – “Kiss Me On Christmas” (MP3)
- The Magnetic Fields – “Everything Is One Big Christmas Tree” (MP3)
UPDATE:: A late-breaking contender for Indie XMas Jam Of ‘09 just arrived. Dee Dee (AKA Stereogum fave Dum Dum Girls) and her pals in BTW Crocodiles holed up in a studio all last night (12/21) to record this catchy, gothy yuletide original. World premiere:
//
Sean Bones’s “If You Hear A Knock” comes from the Ear Farm charity holiday abum which is available for $5. Banjo Or Freakout’s track is one of nine songs from a new Xmas LP he put up for free download. Slaraffenland’s launched Eight Days Of Hometapes. And don’t forget the very special recreation of Bob Geldof’s patronizing holiday classic “Do They Know It’s Christmas?,” spearheaded by Fucked Up and featuring all of indie rock. It costs, but it’s charitable!
This holiday season we wish happiness and enjoyment to you and your iPod. Good luck, Rage Against The Machine!
And if we missed any new and free and awesome indie XMas jams, shout out in the comments. Or at least tell us if there will ever be an XMas song better than this:
[John Roderick Santa photo by Laura Musselman via Three Imaginary Girls.]
* Not “new,” yes, but newly free!
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Andy’s Tea Party (full disclosure: I’m in it) has a free Xmas single. It’s a cover of Mariah’s “All I Want for Xmas” and a remix of said cover by Mark Andrus Roberts of San Francisco.
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=TS3FN4SJ
Good cover choice! Will download…
The Hives and Cyndi Lauper – A Christmas Duel
this.
You missed a good one! Ohbijou released a cover of Wham’s Christmas classic on their site a couple of days ago.
http://ohbijou.com/holiday2009/index.html
Thanks for mentioning this! I had no idea!
Half-Handed Cloud- Asian Meteorologists Predicted the Heavens to Snow-down a Child a Child to Us (Plant a little Fir Tree)
http://soundsareactive.com/nichole-and-the-dreamcatchers-various-artists-krismus-karuls-kk01/
CAN!
http://hypem.com/track/979445/fun++-+Believe+In+Me
fun. – believe in me.
WHEN I ASKED FOR FUN I GOT AIM AND IGNITE
The Dylan one will be a staple I assure you…
iTunes has a holiday sampler available for free download. It’s 20 songs, and a mixed bag for sure (David Archuleta, Mannheim Steamroller, Rascal Flatts, MANILOW), but also includes Stephen Colbert, Weezer, Meaghan Smith, Glasvegas, Aretha Franklin, Vince Guaraldi. I quite like the Meaghan Smith song, “It Snowed.”
if anyone can find a mp3 of PAS/CAL – bootyfull xxxmas you are my hero.
Check out the Christmas Cards on iTunes. Feelin’ it.
You guys forgot the best one…
http://bit.ly/KissOnXmas
haven’t seen these posted, but apologies for any redundancies:
Andrew Dost – Yeah, I Know, It’s Christmastime
Au Revoir Simone – Fallen Snow
Blitzen Trapper – Christmas is Coming Soon
Denison Witmer – Christmas Song
Evangelicals – The Last Christmas on Earth
Frightened Rabbit – It’s Christmas So We’ll Stop
Lightspeed Champion – I Forgot To Wrap Your Present
My Morning Jacket – Christmas Time Is Here Again (Bring Out the Joy!)
Of Montreal – My Favorite Christmas In A Hundred Words Or Less
Over the Rhine – All I Ever Get For Christmas Is Blue
Parenthetical Girls – Festive Friends (Forever)
Snowden – White Christmas
Sufjan Stevens – Did I Make You Cry On Christmas Day? (Well, You Deserved It!)
Sufjan Stevens – Sister Winter
Summer Cats – Plastic Christmas Trees
The Bird and the Bee – Carol of the Bells
The Decemberists – Please, Daddy, Don’t Get Drunk This Christmas
The Raveonettes – Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)
I don’t think any of those are new this year, which was the point of the post. Great songs, though!
Not everything on the presented list is new this year.
Julian Kostner is from last year. Lucky Soul is from 2007. Heck, the Can track is from the mid 70s.
If the point of the post was good tunes, it succeeds. If the point was “new this year,” as you say, it fails.
andrew dost released another christmas song here:
http://www.suburbansprawlmusic.com/xmas/
classic: The Kinks-Father Christmas.
I believe they are called the “Slow Club” not “Snow Club”. And yes, they are fantastic.
We made a free digital EP of xmas songs by Columbus bands
http://www.donewaiting.com/2009/12/18/christmas-in-columbus-vol-1/
The 88 have a new one, and it’s free on iTunes right now. (It’s not the best, but…better than nothing.)
I’ve also been listening to a bit of Be Still’s “Sounds Like Snow.”
No there will probably never be a better Christmas song than Christmas Wrapping.
Oh I don’t know. That Gaga song about how she’s a ho-ho-ho, doing it cowgirl style, and her christmas tree’s delicious, is a heartstrings tugger.
No love for Little Drummer Boy by The Dnady Warhols??
Goldfrapp ‘Winter Wonderland’
Or you could watch the Philco Brothers CHRISTMAS IN MORNINGDALE video!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvaRg8Vpqs8
There are a tonne of free indierock Christmas songs at http://www.filthylittleangels.com , not only the ones at the top once you enter the site but there are loads more further down.
I recommend And What Will Be Left of Them and Hillary and the Democrats efforts particularly!
crocodile bros need to turn the nob on the drum machine. think they’re stuck on the same beat
Hard to understand that Iggy Pop’s white x-mass is not on the blog list along with Auld Lang Syne by Elephone and several songs from Los Straitjackets x-mass album.
You can also download free Tornato Solare’s xmas ep Under the tree http://www.lastfm.pt/music/Tornato+Solare/Under+the+Tree
I like the Magnetic Fields’ song, but it sounds eerily similar to Busby Berkelely Dreams from 69 Love Songs..
Last year’s xmas gem: Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ “All I Want For Christmas”
Does anyone know the post-punk-ish cover of “Winter Wonderland” playing in dept. stores this year? It sounded like Interpol or the Editors, but I’m not seeing anywhere in their discographies where they have covered that song.
crocodiles: Hey, let’s do a Christmas cover song for some media/blog attention. It’ll be fun.
dum dum girls: Hmm, Christmas cover? Isn’t that like not cool or something?
crocodiles: Good point…We may get viewed as corny or less indie. I don’t want to risk our indie-ness.
dum dum girls: Well, what if we made unneccessary references to death in addition to Christmas?
crocodiles: Crikey! That’s a great idea…I’ll go grab the sleigh bells. You take care of the tremolo pedals.
Has no one mentioned Laura Marling – Goodbye England (Covered in snow) … is it still cool to like Laura Marling? Not the most christmassy song but rather lovely nevertheless.