28 Days of Christmas: Frightened Rabbit - "Boxing Night"

Hope everyone had a great Christmas! Now here's some beautiful Scottish glumness for those who celebrate Boxing Day!

28 Days of Christmas: The Pogues - "Fairytale of New York"

Name a better, more affecting Christmas song and I'll give you a dollar. Seriously, go on, do it. I dare you. Life ain't always sleighbells and reindeer. It's messy and dirty and frequently beautiful and full of joy in the darkest places. Merry Christmas everyone!

Bonus! Because it's Christmas here's the No Use for a Name cover, which introduced me to the song many years ago. Tony Sly duets with Cinder Block from Tilt and it's so so so so so great (and has more muted power chords).

28 Days of Christmas: Low - "Just Like Christmas"

Low may be best known for their gorgeous, moody slowcore, but when they add the sleighbells and up the tempo for the standout track from their Christmas album, it's just pure Christmas magic. Though it doesn't cover your traditional Christmas fare (the last line of the first verse is, after all, "It wasn't like Christmas at all") it captures the essence of the season perfectly.

28 Days of Christmas: Blink-182 - "I Won't Be Home For Christmas"

I must have made half a dozen Christmas mixes in my teenage years, and every year, this song was track one. When you get down to the brass tacks of punk rock Christmas songs, you go back to the Ramones "Merry Christmas (I Don't Wanna Fight Tonight)" but I think it ends with "I Won't Be Home For Christmas." Because why would any other punk band bother, you know? For all the misgivings folks have about Blink-182 (the crass behavior, the lewd lyrics, the proto-broness) it's undeniable that the band operated from a place of pure joy. I never tried to hide the fact that Blink-182 was the reason I got into punk rock. In 2002, it was impossible to pretend. They brought the genre into the mainstream for the first time since Green Day and there you go. I don't like their music as much as I used to, but holy hell, this song never gets old. 

28 Days of Christmas: The Vandals - "Oi to the World"

It's hard to think of a better song that captures the "Goodwill Toward Men" part of the Christmas Spirit. Of all the songs on this list, I feel like "Oi to the World" is the only one I hear and confuse for an actual traditional Christmas song (which, in all fairness, it should be given the same treatment as your "Silent Night"s and your "Hark the Herald Angels Sing"s).

28 Days of Christmas: My Chemical Romance - "All I Want for Christmas is You"

I'm the kind of person who would say "I don't believe in guilty pleasures" and immediately turn around and say My Chemical Romance is a guilty pleasure of mine. And I'm OK with that, because on a human level I know I contradict myself on a regular basis and I have no good words to explain the way I find My Chemical Romance both fiercely annoying and capable of writing some absolutely brilliant earworms and doing it with panache. It's complicated. One thing I won't do is call Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas is You" a guilty pleasure, because it's second only to "Last Christmas" in my hierarchy of Ian's Favorite Christmas Songs. It's kind of an embarrassing song, and I admire how MCR just totally go for it. The results are a mess, but it's got so much energy and conviction that it's easy to overlook the clutter.

28 Days of Christmas: Mark Kozelek - Sings Christmas Carols

Mark Kozelek has had a busy year. He released one of the year's most absolutely unfuckwithable albums in Benji (as Sun Kil Moon), started a feud with the War on Drugs that has devolved into something, strangely, both personal and parodic, released a few live records and capped everything off with an album of Christmas standards. Because, you know, why not? Mark Kozelek's Sings Christmas Carols features traditional fare like "O Come All Ye Faithful" and "Away in a Manger," croony gems like "The Christmas Song" and "Christmastime is Here," and a cover of the Pretenders' "2000 Miles" that makes it sound like he was always meant to sing that song. Some of the more standard tunes feel a little rushed through so as to check off a list, and they're fine and all, but when he gets to sink his teeth in and make certain songs his own (Greg Lake's "I Believe in Father Christmas" is spun directly into Kozelek's wheelhouse) it's magic. If you like your Christmas songs hushed, gorgeous, and slightly depressive, this is the album for you. Sings Christmas Carols is a palate cleanser for all the stupid "War on Drugs Can Suck My Cock" business and a reminder that few artists are as expressive with an acoustic guitar than Mr. Kozelek.

28 Days of Christmas: Hello Saferide - "iPod Xmas"

This bouncy break-up Christmas tune from Swedish twee band Hello Saferide is a seasonal favorite around these parts. Mostly for its amazing chorus. "As for presents you fuck/ I had an iPod nano with your name written on it/ It's gonna fit well into my new life listening to Gloria Gaynor singing 'I Will Survive.'" Delicious.

28 Days of Christmas: Galaxie 500 - "Listen, the Snow is Falling" + "Snowstorm"

Here are a couple of songs that are perfect for getting snowbound. Maybe I'm trying to bring on the snow, even though I hate driving in it and live in the country and perpetually run the risk of being snowbound. It sounds romantic and pastoral and all that but it stresses me way the hell out. But I want to look out the window and see some snow, damnit! Also, Galaxie 500's cover of Yoko Ono's "Listen, the Snow is Falling" is one of the most gorgeous tracks I've ever heard. Immensely relaxing.

28 Days of Christmas: The Halo Benders - "Snowfall"

One of the great winter jams! Doug Martsch and Calvin Johnson's collaborative project is one of those great indie rock treasure troves that you don't know exists until you stumble across it and discover that their polar opposite voices work surprisingly well together. It's ramshackle indie pop at its finest, and this one always puts me in the spirit of the season. Even though it's been in the 50s all week and who knows if it'll ever snow again (with global warming and all), I'm still feeling that winter vibe.

28 Days of Christmas: Harvey Danger - "Sometimes You Have to Work on Christmas"

People forget that Harvey Danger's Where Have All the Merrymakers Gone? was a great record. "Flagpole Sitta" was just too damn big. It dwarfed everything about that band and they flamed out of the public consciousness like so many Dishwalla's of the 90s. I always loved their Christmas song. Because it's a great, hooky example of that great mid-90s mainstream alternative rock, but also because I worked at a movie theater when I was in high school and while I always made sure to get Christmas off, AMC never closed. It was already an awful place to work, and I can't imagine what Christmas there would be like. I mean, I can, because it would be DEPRESSING, but fathoming how much more depressing it would be than the usual amount of depressingness, woof.

28 Days of Christmas: Frightened Rabbit - "It's Christmas So We'll Stop" + "She Screams Christmas"

As you'd expect, Scott Hutchison's take on Christmas songs are pretty glum. But, you know, in that beautiful glum way that makes him one of this era's best songwriters. No one can pin down the sad stuff like this guy.

28 Days of Christmas: The Decemberists - "Please Daddy (Don't Get Drunk This Christmas)"

Who says Christmas songs can't be depressing! And who says depressing Christmas songs can't have a jaunty little lilt to them! Leave it to the Decemberists to pull that one off.

28 Days of Christmas: Weezer - "The Christmas Song" + "Christmas Celebration"

The two Christmas cuts from Weezer's Green Album days are probably their best songs from that era. It's the beginning of their descent into vapid, soul-crushing mainstream rawk, but the hooks and the power chords still deliver. "Christmas Celebration" is the fun one, "The Christmas Song" is the sad heartbroken one, and together they encapsulate the Christmas season. Weezer had a good 2014, releasing their most non-terrible album since Green in Everything Will Be Alright in the End. I'm doubting it's the shape of things to come, but it's at least nice to have the sour taste of "Beverly Hills" washed out of my mouth, if only just a little bit. You know, The Green Album really isn't all that bad. I liked it when it came out. I was 15, and Weezer was my favorite band, and I was extremely biased, but revisiting tracks like "Photograph" and "Crab" it reminds you how effortlessly this band could achieve pop majesty. Even when Rivers Cuomo is trying to sabotage his songwriting, I feel like he has trouble sabotaging his gift as a hooksmith.

28 Days of Christmas: Pedro the Lion - "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day"

Though David Bazan has more or less renounced Christianity, you can tell he probably still has Jesus in his heart. Absolutely lovely/Absolutely Charlie Brown Christmas-y.

28 Days of Christmas: Los Campesinos! - "When Christmas Comes" + The Rest of Their Christmas EP

Just when I thought my year end list was safe from the standard "Los Campesinos! late-year surprise release," they go ahead and drop a Christmas EP out of nowhere. Fortunately, it cannot compete for a coveted spot on my year end list because this compiles all the Xmas tracks they've dropped over the last few years in addition to offering up some new ones. "When Christmas Comes" is one of the new ones, and what more could you want? It's pure bliss! What I love about this EP is that it captures the melancholy that so many Christmas songs ignore. Melancholy is a HUGE part of Christmas, especially when you're heartbroken. It's been a while since I've had a heartbroken Christmas, but these songs take me back to those harrowing holiday seasons, dredging up ex-girlfriends of Christmas Past. It's wonderful! Though I'm happily married, I share an affinity with Gareth Campesinos for writing about broken relationships, and boy oh boy the wallowing doesn't get any more wallowinger than at the yuletide. At the yuletide? During the yuletide? How do you even...



"A Doe to a Deer" is probably my favorite cut from the new record. Probably because it's the wallowingest. This is one of their older Christmas tracks, and fortunately the older tracks have been re-recorded and given the lush arrangements of their latest albums. "A Doe to a Deer" benefits significantly, as the original recording feels more like a demoed sketch hastily recorded and cast out into the world. This is the real deal, and morose lines like "I’m Christmas morning stumbling home up the cul-de-sac/ flanked by kids upon new bikes, stabilizing my walk back" get their proper weight.


"Kindle the Flame in Her Heart" is another great one.


Oh, and we can't forget about their cover of Mud's "Lonely This Christmas" which wallows in these warm-yet-jagged synth pads and is the earwormiest of the bunch. Loving this band feels like riding the highest wave. They continue living up to and surpassing my expectations year after year and I'm wondering if and when that glorious wave is going to come crashing down. Hopefully never!

28 Days of Christmas: The Ramones - "Merry Christmas (I Don't Wanna Fight Tonight)"

...or maybe it was the Ramones who invented the Alternative Christmas Song. It doesn't get much better than a group of glue huffers turning out a holiday classic!

28 Days of Christmas: The Kinks - "Father Christmas"

I'm wondering if "Father Christmas" is the grandaddy of Alternative Christmas Songs. Here you have a legitimate band with great artistic acclaim churning out a Christmas song that is A.) True to the genre of Christmas music and B.) Hilarious and rockin'. If you don't enjoy this I don't know you.

28 Days of Christmas: Frank Turner & Jon Snodgrass - "Happy New Year" + "Last Christmas"

This cut is on Frank Turner's recently released The Third Three Years compilation (which I joyfully inhaled this past weekend). This duet about the holidays between a Brit and an American is a delight. "Thin Lizzy on the stereo/ No fights no tears." Amen to that, brothers.

And because I can't resist a great "Last Christmas" cover, here's Turner doing this tune simple, lovely acoustic justice. The most beautiful thing about this track is that you can hear people in the crowd laughing mere seconds before everyone is singing along. Because you know you love this song! QUIT LYING TO YOURSELF YOU KNOW YOU LOVE IT DAMNIT!

28 Days of Christmas: John Prine - "Christmas in Prison" + "Silent Night, All Day Long"

John Prine has a Christmas album with some funnier, more festive fair (read: slightly less downtrodden, but only slightly), but this examination of Christmas from the big house is a nice one for remembering how good you got it. Because I think John Prine is one of the greatest songwriters of all time and I think it's unfair that other folk singers get more praise while he toils in relative obscurity, here's "Silent Night, All Day Long"