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 Was New In 2024? Last year's new Christmas albums included lots of vinyl reissues, big names like Jennifer Hudson and Little Big Town, indie darlings like Dean & Britta and Phantom Planet, a full-length Tower Of Power album, a new collection from the Carpenters, and yet another Bear Family compilation. I've completed my annual obsessive, quixotic attempt to keep up with it all, including my Top 10 Albums and Top 25 Singles. [gimme gimme]
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 - or not! [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]
Jews For Jesus. A surprising number of popular
Jewish entertainers have recorded Christmas albums and songs. From Irving Berlin to Beck, we've
got the shmutz on this strange phenomena. Plus, Jews we wish would record a Christmas
record - and Jews we hope do not! [read more]
Sucking In The 70's. The 1970's was a decade of extremes. We got plenty of wonderful
Christmas records, but the songs on Rhino's Have A Nice Christmas: Holiday Hits Of The 70's aren't them. Rather, they are the songs that reflect the decade's kitschiest artifacts: smiley faces, polyester pants, lava lamps, mirror balls, and leisure suits. [read more]
Hey Sister, Go Sister! Patti LaBelle started out as lead singer of a girl group, the Bluebelles, and their 1963 Christmas album is charming, but not much more. LaBelle would record several holiday records befitting the diva she became, but none approached the funk grandeur of "Lady Marmalade" or the turbo-charged polish of "New Attitude." [read more]
Top 20 Christmas Albums. Actually, 40 - I
started unwrapping presents and just couldn't stop! Anyway, who said Christmas music has to be
boring? Not me! These sterling platters will put you in the Christmas spirit faster than you can
say, "Go Cat Go!" [read more]
Holiday Deluxe. The 1997 album Come On Christmas has all the swagger and adventurousness of Dwight Yoakam's best work, and it demonstrates what made him so important to modern country music - his musicianship, his inventiveness, his humor, and his insatiable thirst for the next cool sound. [read more]
Christmas Time's A-Coming. When I first dove into hip Christmas music, Emmylou Harris' 1979 album Light Of The Stable was newly minted. Decades later, it has aged very well, indeed. Much like the rest of Emmylou's forward-thinking country music, the album is joyful, mournful, traditional, and visionary - without contradiction. [read more]
A Christmas Miracle. Only a handful of Christmas albums came out of Motown Records during their "Golden Decade," and two of them belonged to Smokey Robinson & The Miracles. The first contained one of Motown's finest holiday songs, "Christmas Everyday" (1963), but the second is the better LP. [learn more]
Santa Goes To Memphis. Six soul music stalwarts from the 60's sing 12 holiday favorites arranged in the classic style of Stax Records. That was the concept behind Christmas Soul Special, a 1982 album produced by a long-forgotten New York label. It turned out to be a better concept on paper than in reality, but it's still a lotta fun! [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]
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]
Euphemisms for Boring. Columbia's Acoustic Christmas (1990) was a harbinger of a genre that we would struggle to put a name to before settling on Americana. Most of the tracks are, indeed, acoustic, and nearly all of the arrangements are spare, if not altogether solo. Some are lovely, but they sure don't rock, roll, swing, or twang. [read more]
Not-So-Smooth Grooves. Rhino Records' Smooth Grooves: A Sensual Christmas is a contradiction. First, lots of the songs aren't smooth at all - they're uptempo R&B jams. Second, it fails to live up to the standards set by Rhino's series of historic Christmas compilations - even though all 12 tracks are essential holiday listening. [read more]
Mr. Excitement Is Boring. Almost forgotten these days, Jackie Wilson played a pivotal role in the development of Motown and soul music, not to mention his staggering talent as a singer and entertainer. Sadly, while his 1963 album Merry Christmas showcases his spectacular voice, it obscures his deep soul and sexy showmanship. [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]
An Offer You Can't Refuse. Mob-connected New York indie Roulette Records waxed a treasure trove of doo wop, girl groups, rhythm & blues, and jazz in the 1950's and 1960's. All of that is on display on Westside's 1998 CD compilation, Christmas Past, alongside novelty songs of unspeakable weirdness. Let's spin the wheel! [read more]
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. In 2024, I revisited the legendary, exceedingly rare Flagpole Christmas albums, filling in some gaping holes and sprucing up the sound quality. [listen or download]
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