Among anyone who knows me, it's no secret that Christmas isn't exactly my favorite time of year. As I've worked my way into adulthood I've become somewhat grinchly and in the last few years I've found that anxiety has worked its way into my enjoyment of any passing holiday. HOWEVER, Christmas music (and of course the J1 Top 20 Countdown!) bring joy into the final month of the year for me, and so I'm sharing another fun batch of Christmas music for 2017!
Up first we have the impeccable Trans-Siberian Orchestra with First Snow, a wonderful instrumental track that they always play in their live set. It's a fun, upbeat and catchy tune which is followed by Flurries from August Burns Red. ABR released their phenomenal Christmas album Sleddin' Hill a few years back and it's packed with excellent metal renditions of old timey Christmas classics as well as a few of their own.
MxPx's Punk Rock Christmas doesn't feature any classic tunes (outside of Auld Lang Syne, which isn't really even a Christmas song), but it does have a lot of fast punk tunes, including The Late Great Snowball Fight of 2006, a tune about throwin' balls. Following the punk rock theme, it's The Kinks with Father Christmas, an old tale about a man's misadventure with a group of punks while playing Santa Claus. New Found Glory's Ex-Miss touches on one of my old favorite subjects - leaving your old significant other (who you hate now) in the past, but commiserating the times around Christmas.
My all-time favorite Christmas album is a compilation titled Christmas in Heaven, from Flying Tart records. Flying Tart was a subdivision of R.E.X. Records, a Christian label focusing on heavy metal, industrial and darker music. Backwoods was a group invented specifically to record for this compilation, and I believe it was just Buka and Level from Argyle Park. Christmas Wishes talks about hating the commercial side of the season and hating Christmas altogether. Supersuckers follow that up with another anti-commercialism hit, Call it Christmas.
To cheer things back up we have Hawk Nelson singing the popular yet rarely covered carol The Wassail Song. We then have local wonders Javelina with their aptly-titled gem Hard To Be Good and Withers bizarre parody of David Bowie with Christmas Oddity, with Santa playing the pseudo-role of Major Tom.
I don't even remember how I found it, but Savior Machine's Jesus Christ was one of my favorite songs to play this December, even if it doesn't have much of a mention towards Christmas. It seems to be a song dealing with the misrepresentation of Jesus, but it appears with other wintery tales on the compilation album The XMas Massacre, so we'll let it pass. Demon Hunter then deals with Seasonal Affective Disorder in The Wind, while Erasure gives us a tale of a botched holiday homecoming in She Won't Be Home.
I never even knew Pet Shop Boys had Christmas music until It Doesn't Often Snow On Christmas popped up in our modern Christmas muzak channel at work, but it's another upbeat catchy tune about how Christmas will still be good even though things aren't what you'd hoped it would be. Weird Al graces my playlist this year with his tale about The Night Santa Went Crazy, which needs no explanation. "And he smiled as he said, with a twinkle in his eye, "Merry Christmas to all, now you're all gonna die!".
Lastly, we have a few traditional numbers as Bing Crosby gives us the medley of What Child Is This/The Holly and the Ivy. I was disappointed to not find many other covers of The Holly and the Ivy because I do very much love Bing's version of it. In fact, most of the versions I found were lovely instrumentals, and I (again) love to dance to the song, but I'd love to hear other people singing it. Lastly, we have another punk number from I'm Ok You're Ok with one of my all-time favorite carols Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.
All in all, it's just over an hours worth of Christmas tunes that embody my spirit this season. Although Christmas Wishes is grayed out, it's a worthwhile industrial banger that you can find here on YouTube. The rest is yours for the enjoying! Merry Christmas!
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