The 12 Plays of Alternative-Indie Christmas Songs
Mix 4
In 2007 the Indie Rock Cafe published an amazing set of playlists - The 12 Plays Of Christmas, they punned - including MP3 links for listening and downloading. The lists spanned a handful of post-modern classics and a seemingly endless supply of genuine obscurities - a dizzing cornucopia of digital delights sure to thrill the kiddies and stump obsessive collectors. In 2009, they published four more volumes, but eventually the playlists fell into disrepair. That's when I stepped in - to preserve this golden moment of obsession and compulsion for musical history! [complete list]
The 12 Plays of Christmas: Mix 4 (2007)
Do you have egg nog-tummy, Christmas-time fatigue, coffee-infused insomnia or instant vertigo every time you hear Bing Crosby singing "White Christmas"? We've got an antidote: Our collection of the Best Indie Alternative Rock Christmas Songs – the largest, longest-running, regularly updated collection of indie/alt rock Christmas songs on the web since 2007.
Mix 4 kicks off with the first-ever original and popular true punk rock (now more commonly referred to as alternative) Christmas song by who else but The Kinks.
Simply titled "Father Christmas" (1977), the song lashes out at the commercialism of Christmas and yet ironically encourages disenfranchised youth to beat up Santa Claus if he doesn't give them "some money," and declares: "give all the toys to the little rich boys."
On a lighter note, Beulah, Michigan indie pop musician Andrew Dost delivers an original and cynical view of the season in "Yeah, I Know, It's Christmas Time." The Matches serve up their own brand of bitter cynicism about Christmas, "December is For Cynics." (Max Hammer)