Modern Christmas Albums

Any suggestions for festive music fun without resorting to Slade/Wizard/Wham/Buble hell.

Lest year's A Glimpse of Stocking by St Etienne was, as the Beeb put it, a frisky delight, and we are enjoying Emmy the Great and Tim Wheeler's This Is Christmas at the moment - particularly "Zombie Christmas" and the Ramones-lite "Christmas Day (I Wish I Was Surfing)". Great fun. The Kirsty MacColl like "(Don't Call Me) Mrs Christmas" is a joy, too.

Any others?

Not a typical Christmas song as such but beautiful all the same :

Joni Mitchell - River

Summer Camp's cover of Christmas Wrapping is pretty good, plus 'Christmas was better in the 80's' from The Futureheads and 'It's Christmas so we'll stop' by Frightened Rabbit.

Has anyone listened to Funny Looking Angels by Smith & Burrows yet?
I've heard it a few times and i think it is a very good album, some great covers on there and the single 'When the Thames Froze' is a brilliant song

Beach House's I Don't Care for the Winter Sun is also a great song in my eyes

jonnyw wrote:

Not a typical Christmas song as such but beautiful all the same :

Joni Mitchell - River

Oh yeah, definitly. I love Robert Downey jrs. version.


White winter hymnal by Fleet Foxes!

Low - Just Like Christmas

As soon as we put the tree up we always play this.
A great track off a brilliant Christmas EP

Not modern in the slightest, but Phil Spector's album 'A Christmas Gift To You' always warrants an airing this time of year.

Although not an album, Frank Sidebottom did record 'Christmas Is Really Fantastic' (you know it is....it really is).

How's about this for a cool alternative concept album?

Side 1 (Snow Side)
Sunlight Hits The Snow - I Am Kloot
The Last of the Melting Snow - The Leisure Society
Snowglobe - Jesca Hoop
The Fox In The Snow - Belle & Sebastian
Snowflakes - Emmy The Great & Tim Wheeler
Last Year's Snow - The Cribs
Snowball - Elbow
A Samba In The Snowy Rain - Guillemots
Goodbye England (Covered In Snow) - Laura Marling

Side 2 (Christmas Side)
Just Like Christmas - Low
Don't Call Me (Mrs Christmas) - Emmy The Great & Tim Wheeler
Maybe This Christmas - Ron Sexsmith
Merry Christmas (I don't want to fight) - The Ramones
Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis - Tom Waits
Blue Christmas - Low
Christmas Island - Depeche Mode
Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) - Death Cab For Cutie
Christmastime - Smashing Pumpkins
Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas - Bright Eyes

I'd buy it......Happy Christmas everyone.

This is a christmas song from the Dutch band The Kik.


Sam Baker - Angel Hair is also a personal favorite:

The song starts at 5:36.

Some great ideas here, and I love Sparky's album. I might add "50 Words for Snow" (the song, not album) onto side 1. Brilliant stuff there Sparky. Spotify playlist, here I come...

Mr_K wrote:

Some great ideas here, and I love Sparky's album. I might add "50 Words for Snow" (the song, not album) onto side 1. Brilliant stuff there Sparky. Spotify playlist, here I come...

Thanks Mr_K much appreciated.

It's all spotify playlists, youtube and itunes these days, but when I was a lad I used to "make tapes" for my friends with compilations taped off the radio. Painstaking work, made all the more difficult when "DJ"s Dave Lee Travis or Peter Powell used to talk before the end of songs.

35 years later, I'm still fighting an ongoing personal crusade to enlighten my friends to the joys of great music. Whilst I can claim a few successes, notably my brother-in-law (The Lippy Kid on here) whom I converted from heavy metal to elbow/kloot/low anthem etc, it has generally been a thankless task with little success.

Ha Sparky - I notice that you are, erm, shall we say well into your 5th decade like myself. Therefore we both know the joys and despair of constructing the mixtape. The decisions - a snappy C60 or double album sized C90. Adding up the times and trying to think of that 2m 34s track that will just slot onto side 2 to pad out the time. Whether to do theme sides like your Christmas album, or to mix it all up. Aaah, the nostalgia.

Actually I seem to remember Guy contributing to a radio show on the Beeb about exactly this subject a few years ago. "The Disappearing Art Of The Mixtape" it was called. In fact I've just looked and it is no longer available to listen to, sadly.

Béla Fleck and the Flecktones - Jingle All the Way

Banjo, sax, bass, drumsounds + Mongolian throat singers.