Hip Christmas

Welcome To Hip Christmas! I think you'll enjoy my dysfunctionally vast web archive dedicated to holiday music that rocks, rolls, swings, and twangs. If you do, please support me by shopping at Amazon, Apple Music, and Sheet Music Plus! Regardless, the best of the season to you - no matter what month it is! [about me]

What Was New In 2024? Last year's new Christmas albums included lots of vinyl reissues, big names like Jennifer Hudson and Little Big Town, indie darlings like Dean & Britta and Phantom Planet, a full-length Tower Of Power album, a new collection from the Carpenters, and yet another Bear Family compilation. I've completed my annual obsessive, quixotic attempt to keep up with it all, including my Top 10 Albums and Top 25 Singles. [gimme gimme]

The Christmas Jukebox. My online Christmas music player is bulging with over 1000 hip tunes - and counting! You can listen to the music I write about - the coolest, weirdest, and loudest holiday songs ever, all while enjoying my inimitable prose - or not! [press play]

My Face, Your Book. There's a lot of holiday hilarity going on over at Facebook, in case you can't get enough on my website - or vice versa. Check out the Hip Christmas page, and follow me for maximum holiday fun all year long. No Russian trolls, please. I also post cool cover art on Instagram and Pinterest. [follow me]

Wicked Reindeer Games. I'm old enough to have witnessed Chris Isaak's emergence as the "It Boy" of roots rock in the late '80s. Overall, his Christmas music lacks the fire of rockers like "Baby Did A Bad Bad Thing" and the smoldering passion of his greatest hit, "Wicked Game." But, there's still a lot to like. [read more]

Christmas Is Coming. Is there any holiday album as universally beloved as Vince Guaraldi's 1965 soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas? None springs to mind. To me, what makes it so special isn't that it's a jazz classic, nor that it's a timeless holiday treasure. It's special because it's both. [read more]

Check This Shit Out! In the early 90's, über indie Sympathy For The Record Industry released a fascinating series called Happy Birthday, Baby Jesus, much of it out-of-tune caterwauling dripping in sarcasm. Strangely enough, the highlights tend to be songs played well, or enthusiastically, or both - not shrugged off with post-modern ennui. [read more]

The Best Christmas Album In The World... Maybe? Wherein I dissect an old series of fairly exhaustive, very English compilations. Now (pun intended), unless you're English (and bloody well right if you are), their greatest significance lies in kickstarting the British mania for annual Christmas compilations that continues unabated to this day. [read more]

When You Say Lou... I loves me some Lou Rawls. Boy, can he sing, and he enjoyed Christmas music enough to cut three albums of the stuff. His 20-track Merry Christmas Baby surveys all three and is a better value than any particular one - though his first album, Merry Christmas Ho! Ho! Ho! (1967), is easily the best of the lot. [read more]

Christmas Spirit?? Released on tiny Etiquette Records in 1965, Merry Christmas From The Sonics, The Wailers, The Galaxies is a compendium of three garage bands from the Pacific Northwest that's not quite the Christmas-themed Nuggets one might expect. But, with no less than two songs from my Top 100, it's very, very good. [read more]

Santa Goes To Memphis. Six soul music stalwarts from the 60's sing 12 holiday favorites arranged in the classic style of Stax Records. That was the concept behind Christmas Soul Special, a 1982 album produced by a long-forgotten New York label. It turned out to be a better concept on paper than in reality, but it's still a lotta fun! [read more]

Big Guitar From Texas. A legendary wild man and notorious drunk, Evan Johns played guitar with an unhinged fervor. His 1990 Christmas album, Please Mr. Santa Claus, never earned the kudos it deserves, perhaps because it's a brief, mostly instrumental, mostly original album. But, it's bursting with personality - a lot like Evan himself. [read  more]

I Can't Help Myself. The Four Tops were the biggest Motown act to never record a Christmas album - until 1995 when they briefly returned to the label to cut Christmas Here With You. It's a solid album, but it doesn't have that magic Motown sound that made songs leap out of tiny transistor radios and into our hearts. [read more]

Christmas Time's A-Coming. Long ago, country music was called "hillbilly" music, and nobody took offense. Rhino Records' Hillbilly Holiday tells the story of Christmas music during the golden age of Nashville, and by embracing the old appellation, it makes a statement: The best country music never denies its roots. [read more]

Christmas Is Going To The Dogs. The beloved 1966 TV special How The Grinch Stole Christmas included barely three songs, but one of them is an all-time classic. In the years since, it's been covered dozens of times, and the TV show spawned two movies, a Broadway musical, a raft of merchandise, and a lot more music. [read more]

A Not So Merry Christmas. Teen idol Bobby Vee isn't cool, but he's sort of "cool adjacent." His career included brushes with Buddy Holly, the Crickets, the Ventures, and, believe it or not, Bob Dylan. Similarly, his 1962 album Merry Christmas From Bobby Vee isn't that great, but it includes five pretty decent original songs. [read more]

Praise Jah, It's Christmas. Studio One was producer Coxsone Dodd's legendary Kingston hit factory, and he ruled the Jamaican charts like no one before or since. Reggae Christmas From Studio One and its sequel, Christmas Greetings From Studio One, are typical of the thrilling roots reggae that routinely sprang from within those blessed walls. [read more]

Top Of The World. I would never defend the Carpenters as cool, but I love 'em all the same - especially Karen's luminous voice - and "Merry Christmas, Darling" is arguably the last great holiday standard. Their Christmas music includes their sappiest arrangements, but it's worth it for the moments when Karen takes the spotlight. [read more]

Follow Me To Christmasland. In the 1990's, elderly crooner Tony Bennett made a big comeback and, happily, that included the rediscovery of his fine 1968 Christmas album Snowfall. In the coming years, he'd make more - but he never topped his first foray onto holiday music. [read more]

A Christmas Gift For You. Every year, I offer free MP3's from my voluminous collection - all unavailable easily or legitimately in the music marketplace. In 2024, I revisited the legendary, exceedingly rare Flagpole Christmas albums, filling in some gaping holes and sprucing up the sound quality. [listen or download]