Bleachers Release Long-Promised “Merry Christmas, Please Don’t Call”
For years, the Bleachers holiday song “Merry Christmas, Please Don’t Call” has been an object of fan speculation. Every year, super-producer and Bleachers frontman Jack Antonoff puts on his Ally Coalition Talent Show, an all-star benefit show in New York. It’s always during the holiday season, and for the past few years, it’s always included Bleachers’ performance of “Merry Christmas, Please Don’t Call.” Last year, Antonoff posted a long snippet of the song, calling it (probably jokingly) a “work in progress.” Now, the progress is complete, and the song is out in the world.
In its final form, “Merry Christmas, Please Don’t Call” is a swirling, pulsing, downcast synthpop track about the long aftermath of some kind of bitter fallout. Antonoff’s narrator has enough fond feelings about someone to wish them a Merry Christmas, but that doesn’t mean he wants to talk to them. Antonoff sings it in a deep baritone, with reverb all over its voice. We would probably call this an indie-pop song if it wasn’t coming from the most successful producer in the world.
“Merry Christmas, Please Don’t Call” caps off one more very busy year for Jack Antonoff. Back in February, he won his third straight Producer Of The Year Grammy. He’s not nominated this year, but it seems like one of those situations where TRL would retire a video after a certain number of weeks. Bleachers released a self-titled album and headlined Madison Square Garden, and Antonoff produced big, big records for people Taylor Swift, Sabrina Carpenter, and (hey, look at that) Kendrick Lamar. Listen to “Merry Christmas, Please Don’t Call” below.