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's New In 2024? The new Christmas albums are here - lots of vinyl reissues, plus big names like Jennifer Hudson, Kelly Clarkson, and Little Big Town and indie darlings like Phantom Planet and the Sunturns. I've completed my annual obsessive, quixotic attempt to keep up with it all. Highlights also include a full-length Tower Of Power album, a new collection from the Carpenters, and yet another Bear Family compilation. [gimme gimme]

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. This year, I revisit the legendary, exceedingly rare Flagpole Christmas albums, filling in some gaping holes and sprucing up the sound quality. [listen or download]

The Christmas Jukebox. My online Christmas music player is bulging with over 900 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. [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]

Breaking News

Merry Christmas, Mitchell. Ernie (Not Bert) and Christmas A Go-Go have written lovely tributes to Mitchell Kezin, the director of the Jingle Bell Rocks documentary, including links to download a new memorial mix made by the King of Jingaling. Mitchell died earlier this year, and his expertise and enthusiasm have been sorely missed. [download]

The 12 Plays Of Christmas Redux. In 2007, the Indie Rock Cafe published an amazing set of holiday playlists ranging from a handful of classics to an endless supply of genuinely obscure bands sure to thrill the kiddies and stump obsessive collectors. The playlists have fallen into disrepair, so I rescued them as a special gift just for you. [listen & download]

Congratulations To Me! Hip Christmas is getting some love from the media this year. We got called "stellar" in an article by Ed Mazza for HuffPost, and we got praised in an article by Guuz Hoogaerts for Dutch broadcaster VPRO. Guuz is one of the editors of the great Christmas A Go Go, and he also pings the excellent blog Christmas Underground.

Trouble On The Trail. Sofia Talvik's latest single was inspired by the true story of man who almost died on the Appalachian Trail during the holiday season. In Sofia’s version, the hiker might not be so lucky as the snow and exhaustion take hold. Download or stream "AT Christmas" at Amazon, Bandcamp, and most online services.

Red & Green Submarine. The Weeklings are four guys from New Jersey who love the Beatles and Christmas. They've released four festive singles over the past few years, and all four are included on the band's first full-length holiday album, simply titled Christmas, along with 12 more fab tracks. Available for download or streaming and on compact disc.

Peace In Our Time. Over the last 20 years, Dean & Britta & Sonic Boom - members of indie rock icons Galaxie 500, Luna, and Spacemen 3 - have released several lovely Christmas songs. All are collected on their much-anticipated album, A Peace of Us, plus a bunch of cool covers and new originals. Order at Bandcamp, Amazon, and around the web.

Well, Now I'm Excited! So far, the biggest news for me this year is Ben Folds' first-ever Christmas album, Sleigher. Most of the tracks are new, original songs with his usual mix of pathos and humor - plus keen musicianship. Oh, and he lets AI write the lyrics for one of the songs! Read more in Variety and order the CD or vinyl at Amazon.

Carols Covered (Again). Apple Music has made an annual tradition out of a batch of exclusive holiday tracks by young artists. I'll be honest, I don't even recognize most of these people. But, I sure do love the Linda Lindas, a young band of Angelinos who contribute a bangin' version of "Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree." [get it]

Spotify, Schmotify. Once again, the company busy destroying the music industry is taking a breather to add new new tracks to their ever-growing, exclusive holiday playlist. It's free to stream, but you'll have to upgrade if you want to download. This year's biggest name is Kesha who does a nifty cover of Lindsay Buckingham's "Holiday Road." [spot me]

Hip Christmas Favorites

Santa's Done Got Hip. Rhino Records' Hipsters' Holiday: Vocal Jazz And R&B Classics (1989) provides a vivid snapshot of American jive in the full flower of health, from hard bop to swing, from jump blues to doo wop. These songs are unusual, often uproarious, occasionally scabrous celebration of Christmas. [read more]

Christmas Gumbo. It's taken me a while to take a close look at Rhino Records' Alligator Stomp: Cajun Christmas. Why? I don't really like Cajun music that much. But, that's my problem. On its own terms, it's a great way to spice up your holidays. But, compared to Rhino's other compilations, it's got some problems. [read more]

A Little Bright Star. Diana Ross & The Supremes' 1965 album Merry Christmas is one of the weaker Motown Christmas albums, but that's a pretty competitive field. It certainly yields rewards, though, particularly in its 2017 ultimate edition. Simply put, most Motown fans will adore the crap out of it. [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]

Not-So-Smooth Grooves. Rhino Records' Smooth Grooves: A Sensual Christmas is a contradiction. First, lots of the songs aren't smooth at all - they're uptempo R&B jams. Second, it fails to live up to the standards set by Rhino's series of historic Christmas compilations - even though all 12 tracks are essential holiday listening. [read more]

Instant Record Collection. Christmas Classics is as close to an instant record collection as you could find when it was released in 1988. It was one of the first installments in Rhino's historic Christmas compilations, and all 18 tracks are, indeed, classic - even if the album lacks the focus that would make the series so great. [read more]

Merry Gentlemen, Start Your Engines! An adjunct to the Hot Rod Rock series, Hot Rod Holiday (1997) collected 16 festive songs by vintage rock artists popular with grease monkeys and the ladies who love them. Only one song is actually about a car, but most Christmas collectors (and gearheads) will enjoy the hell out of it. [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]

Christmas From The Not-So-Latin Lounge. Despite appearances, Rhino's Mambo Santa Mambo isn't about Latin music, per se. Rather, it's about the Latin music craze that gripped American pop like a tropical fever during the 1950's - think Ricky Ricardo or Carmen Miranda. This was Latin music smartly packaged for the white market. [read more]

Go To Rhino Records! From a small record shop in Los Angeles came - eventually - the very foundation of this website. Across 20 years, Rhino Records released nearly two dozen compilations that wrote the history of recorded Christmas music in the 20th century and transformed my curiosity into obsession. [read more]

I Dig Thee, Lord Jesus. The swing revival gave rise to a vast array of reissues, ranging across jazz, easy listening, and a whole pack of rats. Rhino Records' Swingin' Christmas (2001) was one of the best, including all-time classics by Kay Starr and Louis Armstrong, plus an unbelievable piece of latter-day kitsch called "That Swingin' Manger." [read more]

Bottoms Up! The rise of the compact disc in the 1980's and the lounge music craze of the 1990's converged in Capitol Records' voluminous Ultra-Lounge series, which deftly spotlighted the swinging side of easy listening music. The series addressed the holidays with four volumes of Christmas Cocktails and jingled all the way to the bank. [read more]

The 12 Plays Of Christmas. In 2007, the Indie Rock Cafe published an amazing set of holiday playlists ranging from a handful of classics to an endless supply of genuinely obscure bands sure to thrill the kiddies and stump obsessive collectors. [listen & download]

My Wish List. It wouldn't be a record collector's website unless I published my wish list - Christmas songs I'm still hunting down, and songs for which I'd happily barter from my relatively vast treasure chest. If you have a copy of any of these rare goodies, let's talk! [read more]

Cold Enough. Released locally in 1982, An Austin Rhythm And Blues Christmas was a harbinger that the Texas town would become a hipster mecca. Lou Ann Barton and Charlie Sexton would go on to greater things, and the album was picked up nationally after Epic Records struck gold with the Fabulous Thunderbirds. [read more]

[old news]  [top of page]