Happy 09

Thanks for your visits and comments. Back next year!

Keep Hope Alive

Dutch duo Nougat made a very exclusive Christmastrack for this blog, but ofcourse it is perfect for Christmasagogo as well. Hope y'all have a fantastic X-mas.

Nougat - Un moment d'espoir

X-mas RemiX

The legendary jazzlabel Verve had its discography remixed a few times now, and this season ofcourse added a Christmas edition. Here's two examples.

Louis Armstrong - Zat you Santa Claus?
Louis Armstrong - Zat you Santa Claus? (The Heavy remix)
Nina Simone - Chilly Winds
Nina Simone - Chilly Winds (Fink remix)

on surfboard ..?

Winter Song

Santa on Surfboard

Silent Night

The Blues Are Still Blue Christmas Compilation 2008

The Blues Are Still Blue Presents (like every year):

Christmas Compilation 2008

Belle & Sebastian – Are You Coming Over For Christmas?
Fleet Foxes – White Winter Hymnal
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Fifteen Feet Of Pure White Snow
Oh Sweet Music! – Oh Sweet Christmas!
Chuck Berry – Merry Christmas Baby
Pearl Jam – Someday At Christmas
The Welcome Wagon – But For You Who Fear My Name
The Raveonettes – Come On Santa
Okkervil River – Listening To Otis Redding At Home During Christmas
Slow Club – Christmas TV
Lucky Fonz III – Christmas Lights In A Cave
Zee Avi – No Christmas For Me
Calexico – Gift X-Change
Albert King – Santa Claus Wants Some Loving
Audiotransparent – December Radio
Barbary Coasters – I Want A Monkey For Christmas
Dressy Bessy – All The Right Reasons
Fiona Apple – Frosty The Snowman
First Aid Kit – Blue Christmas
Sufjan Stevens – That Was The Worst Christmas Ever!

A Dutch Christmas

A free compilation of Christmas Covers by Dutch bands thanks to Coverclub:

Moss - I saw mommy kissing Santa Claus

Silence is sexy - Jesus' blood never failed me yet

Audiotransparent - December radio

The Gasoline Brothers - I saw mommy kissing Santa Claus

Front Cover (PDF)

Back Cover (PDF)

Zooey

This year's Christmas present by Zooey is a cover of Father To A Sister Of Thought, but a few years ago they had a present even more appropriate for the season called the Grey Christmas EP:

Zooey - Grey Chrsitmas EP (Zip)

Letter to Santa (in French)

Manu Markou & Odile Closset - Lettre au Pere Noel

Christmas A Go Go

Wicked Cool Records brings us a nice compilation of Christmas Songs this year, with a highly appreciated name: Christmas A Go Go. Nice name, nice songs, but what horrendous coverart. Here's a song by the Cocktail Slippers:

Cocktail Slippers - Santa Is Coming Home (Christmas A Go Go)

Perfect X-mas mixes

The guys over @ Het Zesde Vlak made two Perfect Mixes for Christmas, not necissarily with songs about Christmas, but they all have the x-mas spirit. Download from here, and here. See tracklist and coverart here.

X-mas in Q-bec

Guestpost! Natashka on French Canadian Christmas:

Joyeux Noël! Here’s three totally weird yet funny Christmas songs from Québec, which I am prepared to bet real money has produced the most French-language Christmas songs in the world. First up, “Y neige” (“It’s snowing”) from a 1970s comedy group called Les Frères Brosse. A guy “pops some little smarties” and sees the snow in all kinds of colours and wants to play spin the bottle with his female cousin Claire. Not long after that weird tune came out, comedy group Paul et Paul (both members of the first group added a third guy) had a country music Christmas song called “C’est Noël car il neige dans ma tête” (“It’s Christmas because it’s snowing in my head”) that strings along words that should not be used together (amusingly called a “bad marriage” in French linguistics), with lines like “Christ is purring in his manger” and “everywhere, everywhere the snowflakes have come together”. The last song by Otarie is from a year or two ago, a cover of “Baby it’s cold outside” (“Bébé, y fait frette dehors”), a song where some guy tries to convinced a girl to stay over because there’s no more metro, it’s cold and he wants to get her to crash at his place preferably not on the couch. Perfect to hone your Québécois dirty slang skills.

Les Freres Brosse - Y Neige
Paul & Paul - C'est noel car il neige dans ma tete
Otarie - Bebe, y fait frette dehors

A Sufjan Christmas

I believe a song by Sufjan Stevens has appeared on all my Christmas compilations and there's a reason why: Simply because he truly knows how to capture the feeling of the season without gettinng cheesy. Too bad there aren't any knew songs this year, bur ther are plenty of old ones we can enjoy:

Sufjan Stevens - That Was The Worst Christmas Ever

Sujan Steven - Sister Winter

Lonely this Christmas

There are bad songs about being lonely at christmas, and great songs. Here are a few of the great tearjerkers. Suggestions on this theme are welcomed (comments!).

Prince - Another lonely Christmas
Brenda Lee - Christmas will be just another lonely day
George Jones - Lonely Christmas call
Adam Faith - Lonely pup in a christmasshop
KT Tunstall - Lonely this Christmas
Emotions - What do the lonely do at Christmas
Red Sovine - Christmas alone
Mr Magoo's Christmas Carol - Alone in the world

Snow falling yet?

Salvatore Adamo & Laurent Voulzy - Tombe la neige

Jimmy vs Oscar

On the organ, or on the piano - which do you prefer?

Jimmy Smith - Jingle Bells
Oscar Peterson - Jingle Bells

Miracles

The Miracles - Christmas Everyday
Stevie Wonder - The Miracles of Christmas

Wishing You A Rave Christmas

Danish duo The Raveonettes released a four song EP with Christmas songs. Come On Santa is my favourite track:

The Raveonettes - Come On Santa (Wishing You A Rave Christmas)

It's a punkrock christmas

MXPX - Christmas Night of Zombies
Mighty Mighty Bosstones - This time of year

GEM says Ho Ho Ho

Dutch rockers GEM had a single out called She Said Oh Oh Oh I Said Yeah Yeah Yeah. December came, singer Maurits sang in the dressing room: She Said Ho Ho HO. They all looked at each other and said, whaddabout recording an x-mas version?! And so they did. To rock the balls out of your tree. (See original version HERE)

Gem - She Said Ho Ho Ho I Said Yeah Yeah Yeah

Merry Effing X-mas

Denis Leary - Merry F'ing Christmas
South Park - Merry F'ing Christmas

Belle Christmas

We've been waiting and waiting for new material of Belle & Sebastian (or at least I have). This year santa only brought us The BBC Sessions, a nice intermezzo, which unfortunately lacked the Christmas Peel Session. The last new song by the Scottish band is a year old and I can't remember why I didn't post it then, since I really love it. Thank God it's never too late for good music:

Belle & Sebastian - Are You Coming Over For Xmas

Who needs music, when you've got pictures

Thanks Betty

When Johnny met Margaret

Guestpost! Jan Willem selected a great song:

Gents, if you're trying to keep that very special someone indoors during the holiday season, you can do worse than take a cue from wordsmith Johnny Mercer. In this 1949 recording, the guy who invented the blues in the night makes hilarious seductive moves while Margaret Whiting struggles to keep up appearances as her resistance crumbles. Truly classic stuff.

Johnny Mercer & Margaret Whiting - Baby it's cold outside

More x-mas mambo

Remember this song from last year? It ended up on the pictured compilation, released by the über-cool Trikont label. This is their second Christmas comp, with soul (Carla Thomas), punk (Ramones), gospel (Staple Singers) and new wave (Waitresses). Plus, like on the first edition, some mambo. Here are both songs.

Mambo Santa Mambo - The Enchanters
We wanna see Santa do the Mambo - Big John Greer

Mambo x-mas

Christmas is a festival of light, but most christmassongs are very pastoral. When it comes to celebrate, a mambo gets the party started. I will post several examples of latinized x-mas songs in the upcoming days. Here's one of the best, taken from this (pictured) compilation.

Billy May - Rudolph the rednosed reindeer mambo (YSI)

Layaways

The Christmas EP of Gentleman Action House was a new one, but there are nice examples from earlier years as well. What do you think about these three nice songs by the Chicago based Layaways. They not only give away their Christmas EP from 2006, but throw in their latest full length record as well:


The Layaways - O Christmas Tree (The Christmas EP)

The Layaways - Joy To The World (The Christmas EP)

The Layaways - Silent Night (The Christmas EP)

Christmas filles

Just like last year, I asked several French artists to record a X-mas song for my French singing filles blog. Mallory Hays, Miam Monster Miam, Odile & Manu, Valery Saint Germain, Fredda Dastrevigne and Maud Lübeck send me a song. Go here to listen and/or download.

Gentleman Action House

I actually never heard of these guys (and girl) before their record label dropped the Christmas In Love EP in my mailbox, but they sound really nice and happy. Gentleman Action House reminds me a bit of the even happier I'm From Barcelona, which makes me smile and happy as well. And it must be contagious, since even the reindeer are rocking on the rooftop:

Gentleman Action House - On the Rooftop (Christmas In Love EP)

Gentleman Action House - Home For The Holidays (Christmas in Love EP)

Like what you hear? Download the enitire EP here.

Santa to the rescue

I saw a sign in the sky, urging us to come back to christmasblogland. So here we are again, fighting against the constant airplay of Mariah Carey and Wham. Trying to show there actually are good christmas songs to find out there. We'll get started this year with two songs by Bullette:

Bullette - Christmas Blank

Bullette - The Finest Gifts