Hip Christmas
Welcome To Hip Christmas! I think you'll enjoy my
dysfunctionally vast web archive dedicated to holiday music that rocks, rolls, swings, and twangs. If you do, please support
me by shopping at Amazon, Apple Music,
and Sheet Music Plus! Regardless, the best of
the season to you - no matter what month it is! [about me]
What's New In 2024? The new Christmas albums are here - lots of vinyl reissues, plus big names like Jennifer Hudson, Kelly Clarkson, and Little Big Town and indie darlings like Phantom Planet and the Sunturns. I've completed my annual obsessive, quixotic attempt to keep up with it all. Highlights also include a full-length Tower Of Power album, a new collection from the Carpenters, and yet another Bear Family compilation. [gimme gimme]
A Christmas Gift For You. Every year, I offer free MP3's from my voluminous collection - all unavailable easily or legitimately in the music marketplace. This year, I revisit the legendary, exceedingly rare Flagpole Christmas albums, filling in some gaping holes and sprucing up the sound quality. [listen or download]
The Christmas Jukebox. My online Christmas music player is bulging with over 900 hip tunes - and counting! You can listen to the music I write about - the coolest, weirdest, and loudest holiday songs ever - all while enjoying my inimitable prose. [press play]
My Face, Your Book. There's a lot of holiday hilarity going on over at Facebook, in case you can't get enough on my website - or vice versa. Check out the Hip Christmas page, and follow me for maximum holiday fun all year long. No Russian trolls, please. I also post cool cover art on Instagram and Pinterest. [follow me]
Breaking News
Merry Christmas, Mitchell. Ernie (Not Bert) and Christmas A Go-Go have written lovely tributes to Mitchell Kezin, the director of the Jingle Bell Rocks documentary, including links to download a new memorial mix made by the King of Jingaling. Mitchell died earlier this year, and his expertise and enthusiasm have been sorely missed. [download]
The 12 Plays Of Christmas Redux. In 2007, the Indie Rock Cafe published an amazing set of holiday playlists ranging from a handful of classics to an endless supply of genuinely obscure bands sure to thrill the kiddies and stump obsessive collectors. The playlists have fallen into disrepair, so I rescued them as a special gift just for you. [listen & download]
Congratulations To Me! Hip Christmas is getting some love from the media this year. We got called "stellar" in an article by Ed Mazza for HuffPost, and we got praised in an article by Guuz Hoogaerts for Dutch broadcaster VPRO. Guuz is one of the editors of the great Christmas A Go Go, and he also pings the excellent blog Christmas Underground.
Trouble On The Trail. Sofia Talvik's latest single was inspired by the true story of man who almost died on the Appalachian Trail during the holiday season. In Sofia’s version, the hiker might not be so lucky as the snow and exhaustion take hold. Download or stream "AT Christmas" at Amazon, Bandcamp, and most online services.
Red & Green Submarine. The Weeklings are four guys from New Jersey who love the Beatles and Christmas. They've released four festive singles over the past few years, and all four are included on the band's first full-length holiday album, simply titled Christmas, along with 12 more fab tracks. Available for download or streaming and on compact disc.
Peace In Our Time. Over the last 20 years, Dean & Britta & Sonic Boom - members of indie rock icons Galaxie 500, Luna, and Spacemen 3 - have released several lovely Christmas songs. All are collected on their much-anticipated album, A Peace of Us, plus a bunch of cool covers and new originals. Order at Bandcamp, Amazon, and around the web.
Well, Now I'm Excited! So far, the biggest news for me this year is Ben Folds' first-ever Christmas album, Sleigher. Most of the tracks are new, original songs with his usual mix of pathos and humor - plus keen musicianship. Oh, and he lets AI write the lyrics for one of the songs! Read more in Variety and order the CD or vinyl at Amazon.
Carols Covered (Again). Apple Music has made an annual tradition out of a batch of exclusive holiday tracks by young artists. I'll be honest, I don't even recognize most of these people. But, I sure do love the Linda Lindas, a young band of Angelinos who contribute a bangin' version of "Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree." [get it]
Spotify, Schmotify. Once again, the company busy destroying the music industry is taking a breather to add new new tracks to their ever-growing, exclusive holiday playlist. It's free to stream, but you'll have to upgrade if you want to download. This year's biggest name is Kesha who does a nifty cover of Lindsay Buckingham's "Holiday Road." [spot me]
Hip Christmas Favorites
Blue Again. I've revisited Rhino Records' 1991 CD Blue
Yule: Christmas Blues And R&B Classics, and I love it even more than I did back then. It's full of the sort of weird, wonderful moments that made all those Rhino compilations such collector's delights. It's not perfect, but it was good enough for my Top 20 Albums, and it's not on Spotify. [read more]
Christmas Was Better In The 80's. One of the last great Rhino compilations was VH1: The Big 80's Christmas, which chronicled the decade that brought Christmas music back in a big way - and teed up the internet age, when it went totally bonkers. Great singles by the likes of Billy Squier and the Pretenders signaled great things to come. [read more]
Humbug Hit Parade. If the annual deluge of holiday music hokum is driving you to suicide-by-fruitcake, Spin Magazine has compiled 25 of the weirdest, darkest, most awesome, "Noel-wave" oughtabe classics you'll never hear in a mall during the holiday season. [read more]
Raising Capitol. Once upon a time, Capitol Records was an independent label cranking out an incredible body of eclectic Christmas music - from dirty blues to brassy pop. In the 1990's, the now-corporate label compiled four compact discs that chronicled those heady, halcyon times. Return with me now to those thrilling days of yesteryear... [read more]
I Can't Help Myself. The Four Tops were the biggest Motown act to never record a Christmas album - until 1995 when they briefly returned to the label to cut Christmas Here With You. It's a solid album, but it doesn't have that magic Motown sound that made songs leap out of tiny transistor radios and into our hearts. [read more]
The Real Thing. Every cut on Atco's Soul
Christmas (1968) is a bona fide classic, from Clarence Carter's nasty "Back Door Santa" to Joe Tex's sanctified "Make Every Day Christmas (For Your Woman)." It's a classic of soul and Christmas - and one that belongs in the collection of anyone who claims to know anything about either. [read more]
Bottoms Up! The rise of the compact disc in the 1980's and the lounge music craze of the 1990's converged in Capitol Records' voluminous Ultra-Lounge series, which deftly spotlighted the swinging side of easy listening music. The series addressed the holidays with four volumes of Christmas Cocktails and jingled all the way to the bank. [read more]
A Special Product. In many ways, Sony's Reindeer
Rock is a cheap piece of crap. But, nearly all of its measly 10 tracks are insanely rare, most never reissued before or since, mastered from pristine sources. Thrill to rare rock classics by a blonde bombshell, a forgotten girl group, a juvenile Elvis, and, unlikely as it seems, Little Jimmy Boyd. [read more]
Intimate Christmas Music For Young Lovers. The
legacy of Hollywood Records is both glorious and shameful, encompassing
some of the greatest holiday rhythm & blues ever waxed - including the 1956 album Merry Christmas Baby - and some of the
shabbiest reissues in the history of record collecting. [read more]
Feliz Navidad, Baby! Never a household name, Juan Esquivel was thrust into the hipster limelight when his music was reissued during the lounge revival of the 1990's. Part of that bounty was Merry Xmas From The Space-Age Bachelor Pad, compiling his holiday recordings for RCA and Reprise between 1959 and 1962. [read more]
Top 40 Christmas Oldies Songs. The web is crammed with blogs and tweets, obscuring the fact that experts might know more than know-it-alls armed with a quick wit and a laptop. To me, that's sad, and this rock solid list from (now defunct) About.com shows why. [read more]
I Want You Back. The Jackson 5's Christmas Album (1970) is a good example why people thought the group would be the salvation of Motown Records. They turned out to be the label's last hurrah, but it's the single best holiday record Motown ever produced - and that's saying something. [read more]
Check This Shit Out! In the early 90's, über indie Sympathy For The Record Industry released a fascinating series called Happy Birthday, Baby Jesus, much of it out-of-tune caterwauling dripping in sarcasm. Strangely enough, the highlights tend
to be songs played well, or enthusiastically, or both - not shrugged off with post-modern ennui. [read more]
Farting On Santa's Lap. Hip-O Records' 2000 collection Sleighed:
The Other Side Of Christmas aims to present an alternative-rock-meets-Dr. Demento view of the holidays. It falls short of that mark, but 10 of the 12 tracks are pretty great all the same, including big names like Beck, Sonic Youth, the Smithereens, and (ahem) Spinal Tap. [read more]
Christmas In A Honky Tonk. Three vinyl volumes of The Austin Christmas Collection, released in the early 80's, gave rise to The Texas Christmas Collection, a compact disc released in the early 90's. They did a pretty good job of representing the regional music scene, past and present - albeit in a very Chamber-of-Commerce sort of way. [read more]
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