Don’t you love Christmas music? I’m Jewish so mostly it makes me feel like I’m in a mall. But don’t you love malls? I’ve been trying to get my daughter to listen to The Nutcracker, and that’s been pretty easy because she’s only three and doesn’t have a choice. But if Tchaikovsky’s not your speed there are always new XMas jams from indie rockers to keep you in the holiday spirit. Once again we’ve collected this year’s free additions to the canon since it should only be a Sufjan Christmas so many years in a row. (And once again we are using the term “indie rock” a bit loosely.) The 2011 crop is heavy on covers — there are four versions of Vince Guaraldi’s “Christmas Time Is Here” alone (one courtesy of AVClub‘s excellent Holiday Undercover ’11) — though there are plenty of originals, too. Props to Summer Camp for covering my two favorite modern XMas pop songs at once. Merry downloading.
This comp also serves as our December 2011 monthly mix, so download as a .zip file (127 MB) and make an iPhone playlist for Christmas Eve. If you don’t have an iPhone hopefully Santa will deliver a 4S faster than AT&T can.
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NICE!
you forgot banjo or freakout who did a whole awesome christmas album. go check it out.
http://banjoorfreakout.bandcamp.com/album/xa2011
that’s the best xmas thing together with the drums cover. love the josh t pearson one too!
yep. also the parenthetical girls xmas ep is good.
Did I miss the memo that Scott Weiland is now an indie rock artists?
did you miss the memo that said they’re using the term indie rock loosely?
My favorite is Dog is Dead-Christmas Wrapping (The Waitresses Cover) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W24fqkwOSzg Free download from their website dogisdead.co.uk
The Drums posted a cover of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” this week via their facebook page as well.
Nice. Right-click…
#21 The Drums – “I’ll Be Home For Christmas
Every year I keep coming back to Sufjan’s Christmas stuff. Sister Winter is an especially awesome tune.
What no Emmy the Great and Tim Wheeler, sigh suppose someone had to miss out but they were great in Shepard’s Bush last week.
Frightened Rabbit released a Christmas song yesterday. As good as any Christmas song can be.
Thanks. Here that is:
http://soundcloud.com/frightened-rabbit/frightened-rabbit-cheap-gold
That Michael Buble Duets album easily tops anything on this list.
If’n you want to listen, psych/garagey Chrimbus jamz: http://albinofather.bandcamp.com/album/chrimbus
I fully expect this to be hidden due to low comment ratings.
Self-promotion? How dare you!
In case anyone is wondering about the photo, there is a whole tumblr based around Kim Jung-Il dropping the bass:
http://kimjongildroppingthebass.tumblr.com/
Here’s Brian Wilson’s contribution, from the vaults:
http://blog.brianwilson.com/merry-christmas-from-brian-wilson/
Parenthetical Girls release some great original Chirstmas/holiday-themed music every year, and this year was no exception: http://parentheticalgirls.com/discograph/savechristmas.html
If you’re not listening to The Front Bottoms, you’re doing it wrong.
http://soundcloud.com/filter-magazine/the-front-bottoms-christmas
Christmas Wrapping cover.
Can we start a meme here where everybody starts talking about how awesome Dawes is on every article?
Dawes >
311 >
I don’t know if 311 is better than that JamesVanDerBeekcrying.gif. It’s a good .gif.
That exact thing happens at AV Club all the time, never fear.
It will always be a Sufjan Christmas!
“As a thank you for supporting the Smashing Pumpkins Record Club (SPRC) this year, Billy went digging in the vaults and found this beautiful holiday song called Have Faithe, Be Merrie. We hope you enjoy it!”
Smashing Pumpkins – “Have Faithe, Be Merrie”
this is terrible :-)
Cold War Kids have a free download on their website (http://www.coldwarkids.com/site/christmas) too. Regardless of what you think of them, I think we can all agree it’s a pretty fun song.
Moon Taxi do Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime”
http://soundcloud.com/moontaxi/wonderful-christmastime
I just checked back to reshare this on Facebook with my friends and noticed you added two more songs including my favorite indie “THE DRUMS” thankyou thankyou and Merry Christmas!!!!!
I wish I would have seen this before Christmas. Like even a week before, so I could get in the holiday spirit ya’ know?
why didn’t chris martin make the news when he did this?
can’t wait for slipknot arranges Christmas songs
http://www.gudangmusikkeras.com/
why isn’t Karate For Christmas by The Chop on this list?