Christmas Music That Doesn't Suck

Do you hear what I hear?

If you’re like me, you’re hearing the same 15-20 Christmas songs over and over again, with seemingly endless variations that all seem to blur together. You hear them on seasonal radio stations in your car, you hear them when you’re in stores, and you hear them in TV Christmas specials or movies. They’re everywhere.

Look – I love Christmas music, so I’m definitely not hating on it. I’ve loved it all my life. My favorite Christmas “classic” is “The Christmas Song” (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire), which has pretty much everything you want in a holiday song: warmth, storytelling, great imagery, genuine sincerity. But I love most of the rest of the Christmas classics, too. (Except for “Do You Hear What I Hear?” and “The Little Drummer Boy,” which are objectively horrible.)

So yeah – Christmas music is great. The problem is that the familiar rotation gets really old really fast. I don’t need to hear five versions of “All I Want for Christmas is You.” Mariah’s is fine. We already have Wham’s “Last Christmas,” and George Michael is all we really need.

In 1997, I stumbled across a compilation called A Very Special Christmas 3, a Special Olympics benefit album that included a lot of original holiday music from artists I really liked. The Smashing Pumpkins’ “Christmastime,” No Doubt’s “Oi to the World,” Blues Traveler’s “Christmas,” Dave Matthews’ “Christmas Song”…all of that was completely new to me, and it was legitimately good. Even the traditional stuff on that album is incredibly good. Tracy Chapman’s version of “O Holy Night” is gorgeous, and Hootie & the Blowfish’s version of “The Christmas Song” (remember: 1997) might be my favorite version of my favorite classic. (Yes, seriously.)

A Very Special Christmas 3 changed the way I thought about Christmas music, and I’ve been collecting unconventional, off-the-beaten-path, nontraditional stuff ever since. Every year I try find new compilations that include bands I love, and I usually end up finding stuff I love from bands I’ve never heard before. Mixing in the indie/alternative stuff has let me keep listening to the classic stuff without getting burned out from holiday music.

Most of the songs I’ve collected over the years in one form or another are now available on streaming platforms, and I’ve spent the last few Christmases putting it all together into a playlist that I love revisiting and sharing after Thanksgiving every year. I’m glad to have a place of my own to post it this year:

This really is my favorite seasonal music all gathered into one place. It’s kind of a strange mix, I guess. It runs the full spectrum between happy and sad, funny and serious, joyful and melancholic, romance and heartbreak, hopeful optimist and sad bastard, upbeat and downtempo. In other words, it kind of captures the real, true, full experience of Christmas.

If there’s one song that sums all of this up in a single composition, it’s Sufjan Stevens’ “Star of Wonder” – a song that starts softly and plaintively before gradually layering in more and more instruments and electronic effects, pulls back to let Steven’s voice set the tone and the narrative, and then builds toward a swelling crescendo that exudes all the hope and joy and wonder of this time of year. It’s a modern secular hymn that’s emotionally bare and brilliant. On most days, it’s my favorite Christmas song.

Some of the songs in this playlist are probably familiar to you. I can’t not put Bruce Springsteen, U2, Elton John, and Tom Petty in this mix. And I know you’re probably sick of Wham, but they’re here, too. But the vast majority of this music is probably new to you. That's the idea, though. It was new to me at one time, too, and it made an enormous impression on me that’s lasted for years. It’s my December comfort…my seasonal happy place. And I hope you can find some of that here, too. I hope you discover something new that really connects with you.

If you don’t want to wade through all of this to find what you might be looking for, I’ve broken the songs out into a few categories that might be helpful or make it easier. Thanks for reading, and thanks for sharing some of these sounds with me (wherever you’re listening).

Best Original Christmas Songs By Modern Artists:

• The Waitresses – “Christmas Wrapping” (Which inspired the name of this list. This song isn’t new at all. It was released in 1981. But if there’s a spiritual ancestor of modern indie holiday music, it’s this one.)

• Sufjan Stevens – “Star of Wonder” and “Sister Winter”

• The Weepies – “All That I Want”

• Sting – “Soul Cake”

• The Spook School – “Someone to Spend Christmas With”

• The Rosebuds – “Xmas in New York”

• Taylor Swift – “Christmas Tree Farm”

• Matt Pond PA – “Snow Day”

• Dolly Parton – “Hard Candy Christmas” (What I said about The Waitresses above is also true of this. It’s Dolly’s most brilliant and honest and beautiful song, Christmas or not.)

• Marika Hackman – “Driving Under the Stars”

• Let’s Go Sailing – “Icicles”

• The Goo Goo Dolls – “Better Days”

• Fountains of Wayne – “Valley Winter Song”

• The Crookes – “You Bring the Snow”

• Coldplay – “Christmas Lights”

• Brandi Carlile – “The Heartache Can Wait”

• Aimee Mann – “Calling on Mary”

• The Snow Globes – “It’s Christmas”

• Kelly Clarkson – “Just for Now”

• Brandi Carlile - “The Heartache Can Wait”

Best Christmas Albums By A Single Artist

(Okay, okay—we all know that the actual best Christmas albums are The Carpenters’ Christmas Portrait, John Denver’s A Christmas Together with the Muppets, and Vince Guaraldi’s A Charlie Brown Christmas. But if we’re talking about newer stuff that might not be as familiar, these are the best I’ve heard):

• The Rosebuds – Christmas Tree Island

• Aimee Mann – One More Drifter in the Snow

• Sufjan Stevens – Songs for Christmas

• Over the Rhine – Snow Angels and The Darkest Night of the Year

• She & Him – A Very She & Him Christmas

Songs that Aren’t Really Christmas Songs but Still Belong on This List:

• Fleet Foxes – “White Winter Hymnal”

• The Decemberists – “January Hymn”

• Counting Crows – “A Long December”

• Bon Iver – “Blood Bank” and “Holocene”

• Yo La Tengo – “Winter A-Go-Go”

• Ben Folds Five – “Twin Falls”