skip to content
home > albums > xyz > this page

Support www.hipchristmas.com! Amazon Shop at Amazon, Apple Music, and more...

On This PageOn This Page

YuletunesWhile in many ways a great record, Yuletunes: A Collection Of Alternative Pop Christmas Songs (1991) isn't quite the power pop slam dunk I imagined when I first heard about it. Yuletunes sets a mood more congruent with an indolent Big Star ballad than a raucous Raspberries rocker. While a few cuts work up a pretty good head of steam, most dwell on the melancholy aspects of the holiday season, and the music inevitably reflects it. Now, that's not a bad thing, but it casts a certain pall on the proceedings that prevents any one track from delivering a knockout punch - not even "Merry Christmas Will Do" by Material Issue, whom I all but worship.

That makes it sound like I don't like the record, but I do - very much. My point is, Yuletunes is a record made for power pop acolytes (like me), but it may leave the uninitiated pop supplicant mystified. On the flipside, said acolytes will really enjoy just about the whole album. Yuletunes is extremely well-crafted and very consistent, with hardly a clunker to be found. As you'll see below, I recommend more than three-quarters of the album's 16 tracks. That includes the aforementioned Material Issue track, as well as the Critics' rave-up "She Feels Like Christmas Day," which is as close as the collection comes to the aforementioned knock-out punch. (The Critics, I feel compelled to point out, gained their greatest national profile as the house band for the mid-90's TV talk show hosted by Danny Bonaduce of the Partridge Family.)

As I mentioned before, Yuletunes mostly mines the emotionally dark side of the holidays, that aspect of Christmas that makes us remember lost love or departed loved ones - or even question the meaning of the whole thing. One of the most striking tracks, "A God Of My Own" by Chicago-based 92 Degrees, is essentially a holiday song for atheists and, more broadly, a plea for religious tolerance. Other mopey tracks are more straightforward (Spooner's "The Saddest Time Of The Year"), others more whimsical (Leroy's "Santa Stole My Baby"), and, on the Cavedogs' "Three Wise Men And A Baby," Yuletunes gets weird, wild, and wacky. But, even otherwise happy songs like the Spongetones' "Christmasland" ultimately sound melancholy. That downcast perspective is the defining theme of Yuletunes, and that's the thing that distinguishes the album - like it or not.

Yuletunes is subtitled "A Collection Of Alternative Pop Christmas Songs" for a reason, but not the one most people might expect. By the time of the album's release, record companies had begun using the word "alternative" to describe what they used to call modern rock or, before that, new wave. So, describing Yuletunes as alternative probably meant selling a few more copies. Smart move, right? But, the subtitle also conveys that Yuletunes provides an alternative perspective on the merry, happy, joyful Christmas usually portrayed by mainstream pop music. That might be a tougher sell, but it's a perspective that many, many of us understand.

Thankfully, the jangling guitars and bright harmonies of Yuletunes serve as a spoonful of sugar to help the bitter medicine go down. Which, if you think about it, describes a lot of great power pop.

Discographia

Yuletunes was released on Black Vinyl Records, a label owned by power pop icons Shoes, and much of it was produced by Shoes wunderkind Jeff Murphy at his studio, Short Order Recorder, in Chicago. The band also contributes "This Christmas" to the album - an original song, by the way, not a cover of Donny Hathaway's 1970 soul classic. And, Jeff Murphy adds a goofy kiddie track, "The Christmas List," under the guise of the Puddles, which I am guessing is him and one of his children.

It's worth noting that the little-known band Spooner, who hailed from Madison, Wisconsin, included vocalist and guitarist Doug Erikson (later known as Duke Erikson) and drummer Butch Vig. They released three albums between 1982 and 1990, and "The Saddest Time Of The Year" would be the last thing the band ever committed to wax. While Spooner was still active, Erikson and Vig formed another band, Fire Town, that recorded two albums for Atlantic. Later Erikson, Vig, and Steve Marker, a guitarist and Fire Town roadie, recruited Scottish singer Shirley Manson and formed the band Garbage - one of the biggest alternative rock acts in history. Butch Vig, meanwhile, became one of the genre's leading producers, helming such efforts as Nirvana's Nevermind (1991) and the Smashing Pumpkins' Siamese Dream (1993).

Finally, at this late date, it's worth noting that all of the songs on Yuletunes were recorded specifically for the project, and very few have appeared elsewhere since. And, Yuletunes was released only on compact disc, and it has never been reissued for download or streaming. Trust me, though, it's worth the effort to chase down a copy. Try Amazon, Discogs, or eBay. [top of page]

Albums Albums

SongsEssential Songs

  • Baby Jesus (Matthew Sweet)
  • Christmasland (Spongetones)
  • Every Day Will Be Like A Holiday (Marti Jones & Don Dixon)
  • A God Of My Own (92 Degrees)
  • It's About That Time (The Idea)
  • It's Not Christmas (Kelley Ryan)
  • Merry Christmas Will Do (Material Issue)
  • The Saddest Time Of The Year (Spooner)
  • Santa Stole My Baby (Leroy)
  • She Feels Like Christmas Day (Critics)
  • This Christmas (Shoes)
  • Three Wise Men And A Baby (Cavedogs)
  • Underneath The Christmas Tree (Bill Lloyd)

Further ListeningFurther Listening

[top of page]