What's New In 2024? Hip Christmas Music (www.hipchristmas.com)

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Well, Christmas is coming, and this year's list of new releases is growing. As I write this, most of the new physical releases - vinyl and CD - are nestled snug in their racks (or will be soon). But in the digital realm, we'll see many more throughout the season - right up to the big day. This page, however, is a curated list of the year's best and/or most notable Christmas music - which is to say, hardly exhaustive. It includes reissues and compilations, new albums, and singles and tracks, plus my personal Top 10 Albums and Top 10 Singles.

Be aware that I focus on "legacy artists," so I encourage you to visit my festive friends like Mistletunes, Christmas Underground, and Christmas A Go Go who have their fingers on the pulse. In the meantime, what am I missing, fellow Christmas fanatics? Drop me a line... Of course, happy holidays, stay safe, and follow me over at Facebook!

Randy Anthony

This Just In!

Record Store Day

Black Friday (November 29) is also Record Store Day, so visit your local record store to shop for dozens of limited edition releases - most on vinyl, many with extra tracks or previously unreleased material. Here's a list of the Christmas records, but note that they are all "RSD First" releases. This means that Record Store Day is your first chance to pick them up, but they will be widely available later - though possibly in other formats - meaning, not cool, colored vinyl.

Top 10 Albums

As the Carpenters used to say, we've only just begun. But, here's my first draft of the best Christmas albums of 2024 - though earth-shaking releases could drop at any moment. Still, these were tough choices. As has been the case in recent years, there's been a deluge of good-to-classic album reissues - mostly on vinyl - including fine platters by JD McPherson, Ray Charles, Keb' Mo', Andrew Bird, Mark Lanegan, Kate Bush, Nick Lowe, Joel Paterson, and Fred Schneider. But, as usual, I am less than excited about most of the new stuff, including high-profile albums by Alicia Witt, Clay Aiken, Jimmy Fallon, Jennifer Hudson, Steve Perry, Kelly Clarkson, and Little Big Town. Yawn. But, you know, eye of the beholder and all that - so here they are, in alphabetical order by artist.

James Brown / The Complete James Brown Christmas
Compiled in 2010 by Universal's generally laudable Hip-O division, The Complete James Brown Christmas was originally issued on two compact discs, and it culled every single holiday track the Godfather of Soul ever waxed for King Records. This included three albums - James Brown & His Famous Flames Sing Christmas Songs (1966), Soulful Christmas (1968), and Hey America It's Christmas (1970) - plus assorted singles, b-sides, and rarities. This year, it gets reissued on three LP's by boutique vinyl specialist Jackpot Records. Either way, The Complete James Brown Christmas is, in a word, perfection. Another fine vinyl reissue this year is Brenda Lee's A Rockin' Christmas, which compiles her complete Decca Christmas recordings - on pink vinyl! It mirrors her CD compilation, Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree: The Decca Christmas Recordings (1999).

Dean & Britta & Sonic Boom / A Peace Of Us
Guitarist, singer, and songwriter Dean Wareham is the founder of the semi-legendary jangle pop band, Galaxie 500, which recorded a trio of influential albums as the alternative rock movement was coalescing. In 1992, Wareham started a new band, Luna, that worked a more chill, sophisticated, even continental vibe - often characterized as dream pop. Singer and bass player Britta Phillips joined in 2000, and the two eventually became a duo - musically and maritally - about the time Luna broke up. Dean & Britta have recorded several Christmas songs over the years in various formats, and all of them are included on A Peace Of Us, the duo's first Christmas album. They've worked before with electronic artist Sonic Boom (aka Pete Kember of Spacemen 3), and he gets equal billing here. The album includes four previously released tracks and 10 new songs including the evocative original "Snow Is Falling In Manhattan," plus unusual covers like Randy Newman's "Snow," Eddy Arnold's "Christmas Can't Be Far Away," and Merle Haggard's "If We Make It Through December." Get vinyl at Bandcamp and digital at Amazon and around the web.

Ella Fitzgerald / Wishes You A Swinging Christmas: Deluxe Edition
"The First Lady of Song" was decades into her career when she cut her first full-length holiday album, and Ella Wishes You A Swinging Christmas was very good - though more traditional than the title might lead you to believe. Recorded for Verve Records in 1960, it's been reissued numerous times, most successfully on compact disc in 2002, with several bonus tracks. This year's new Deluxe Edition goes several tracks further, purporting to compile her complete holiday recordings for Verve and Decca. Personally, my only complaint is that there's no compact disc edition for old fogeys like me. But, you can get it on standard black vinyl, gold vinyl, green vinyl, and digital - so there's no shortage of options. Other vintage reissues this year include new collections by the Carpenters, Bing Crosby, Dean Martin, and Frank Sinatra.

Ben Folds / Sleigher
Back in the 90's, I viewed Ben Folds and his group, the Ben Folds Five (consisting of just three guys), as a bunch of smartass whippersnappers. Over the ensuing three decades, I've come to see that not only was I wrong, but Ben Folds is a singer, songwriter, and pianist of immense talent across a daunting range of musical styles. He is a smartass, though, and humor is often part of his music - frequently alongside deep pathos. That could be said of his previous holiday singles, "Lonely Christmas Eve" (2000) and "Bizarre Christmas Incident" (2002), and it's all over his first-ever holiday album, Sleigher. It includes a few nifty covers, a couple of dreamy instrumentals, and a goof about artificial intelligence that you only need to hear once. But, it's the four remaining original songs that form the heart of the album. Christmas time finds us "dazed from the last weird trip 'round the sun," and that's when Ben Folds really digs deep. Sleigher is available on CD, vinyl, and digital at Amazon and Bandcamp, while Barnes & Noble has an exclusive red vinyl edition.

Jethro Tull / The Christmas Album: Fresh Snow At Christmas
I'm not the biggest Jethro Tull fan, and I'm definitely not the biggest fan of their 2003 Christmas album. It's got an interesting new song or two, plus new versions of multiple songs from earlier in their career, most notably "A Christmas Song" (1968) and "Ring Out Solstice Bells" (1976). But, their new deluxe treatment of that album is impressive. Fresh Snow At Christmas is a massive four-disc (plus DVD) reissue including the entire album in both its original mix and a new remix, and then live performances from 2006 and 2008. And, the DVD is pretty much the whole thing all over again, but in high-resolution audio. They've also released a double-LP vinyl edition with just the 2024 remix. In the same vein, Kate Bush has released an illustrated "Polar Edition" of her 2011 album, 50 Words For Snow, a sort of Christmas-adjacent meditation on winter.

Phantom Planet / Maybe You Still Call It Christmas (EP)
At one point, I thought Phantom Planet was going to save the world. Seriously. I was young and stupid, but their mix of classic power pop sensibilities with alternative rock ennui seemed like it could unite us in a meaningful way. I was wrong, and Weezer was better, but I still love Phantom Planet - even if they went largely moribund for the last two decades. Around 2020, however, they came back to life, and in 2023, they gave us "Maybe You Still Call It Christmas," a new digital single that was easily the best holiday song of their career. This year, we get a 12-inch vinyl EP with last year's poignant title track and three new songs, available in two cool colors exclusively direct from the band (no digital option). It's a ridiculously limited edition of just 500, so act now!

Sunturns / Christmas III
The Sunturns are a self-proclaimed Norwegian super-group featuring members of five bands you haven't heard of - unless you're from Norway, and maybe even if you are. They are, indeed, devoted to making Christmas music, and Christmas III is their (surprise, surprise) third such effort, following the sunny Christmas (2011) and somewhat darker Christmas II (2015). (Both albums were reissued in tandem by their new record company, London-based Fika Recordings.) Broadly speaking, I find their music to be a bit twee and precious, but when they catch a good beat and a fetching melody, the Sunturns can capture my heart. Or, as they say, "That's what you get when you teach a Norwegian how to play guitar." On Christmas III, I'm particularly fond of relative rockers "Crash Course Christmas" and "Back In Town," the mid-tempo "First Winter," the cute but adventurous "Turtle Neck," and the tender ballad "The Day Before The Day." Get vinyl on Bandcamp and digital on Amazon and around the web.

Tower Of Power / It's Christmas
One of those sprawling soul/funk outfits that proliferated in the 1970's, Oakland-based Tower Of Power was responsible for hits like "You're Still A Young Man," "So Very Hard To Go," and their statement of purpose, "What Is Hip." Their horn section was so renowned that they became a cottage industry as session men. Amazingly, the band has persisted all the way to the present day, led by founding member Emilio Castillo. This year's new release, It's Christmas, started off in 2023 as a CD EP (now deleted) sold exclusively through the band's website. This year, it's been expanded into a full album, with four new songs and beefed-up packaging, including compact disc, colored vinyl, and digital options. It's Christmas consists mostly of traditional holiday standards, and it has a fairly mainstream, if soulful, sound - sometimes veering too far into "smooth jazz" territory for my tastes. There's only one full-blown original song, "It's Christmas (A Long Way From Home)" - a ballad - plus a nod to Hanukkah with a funky take on "Maoz Tzur" (aka "Rock Of Ages"). So, on the whole, I'd give it a solid B-minus - a minor work from a major group, but a must-own for fans of the genre.

various artists / Get Ready For A Groovy And Bluesy Christmas
Germany's Bear Family began releasing annual Christmas compilations in 2016 and, at first, they were a godsend, cherry-picking rare tracks from the label's massive catalog of American roots music. Over time, they started dipping into the public domain, as well, and later volumes became simply well-curated collections of suspiciously-sourced masters. Get Ready For A Groovy And Bluesy Christmas continues in the same vein, and the sound quality is about what you'd expect from a public domain collection. It's fairly obvious that most of these tracks are not taken from original masters, and artifacts of noise reduction software are evident on many. That said, this is a stellar set of songs laser-focused on post-war rhythm 'n blues, wrapping up about the time the Beatles blew up the known universe. For neophytes, Get Ready For A Groovy And Bluesy Christmas will, indeed, be a godsend, introducing you to holiday classics by Charles Brown, B.B. King, the Drifters, and many more. But, even hardcore collectors will be surprised by a few of these tracks. I know I was.

various artists / 1960's Christmas Classics
Last year, Sony released three whole volumes of 1950's Christmas Classics, clearing well more than a hundred dusty tracks out of their vaults - many of which had never been reissued in the digital age. Sony owns the masters of Columbia, RCA, and their legions of associated labels, so those are some big, deep vaults. This year, we get 1960's Christmas Classics, which I hope is the first of a series. Sony did that last year - released the first volume without calling it the start of a series, then dropped two more volumes later in the season. Be aware, most of the music in the series to date leans heavily towards what we now call "easy listening," which is hardly my speed. But, there have been some truly "hip" gems amidst the dross, including rare tracks by Barry Richards, the Chambers Brothers, and Bud Logan on 1960's Christmas Classics. Nearly all of the songs will be new to most listeners. Most of them were, in fact, new to me - and you may have noticed that I'm fairly obsessive about this stuff. Anyway, like last year, 1960's Christmas Classics is available only for download and streaming, and Sony continues to reissue all sorts of deep catalog titles. There are way too many to mention, but they've restored complete albums by Sammy Kaye, the Three Suns, Slim Whitman, and Andy Williams, among others (see list below).

Top 10 Singles & Tracks

Here's a very early, very tentative list of my favorite Christmas singles and tracks for 2024. Many, many more will arrive before the big day, so this list will almost certainly change and expand (in alphabetical order by artist).

Reissues & Compilations

New Albums

Singles & Tracks

Previous Years. We've been compiling this "what's new?" list for a while, going back to 2003 (Gary Hoey, Jackson 5), 2004 (Chris Isaak, Dwight Twilley), 2005 (Diana Krall, Brian Setzer), 2006 (Aimee Mann, Bootsy Collins), 2007 (Smithereens, Darlene Love), 2008 (Weezer, Pretenders), 2009 (Bob Dylan, Los Straitjackets), 2010 (James Brown, Shelby Lynne), 2011 (Killers, Carole King), 2012 (Rod Stewart, Polyphonic Spree), 2013 (Salsoul Orchestra, Nick Lowe), 2014 (Blue Rodeo, Earth Wind & Fire), 2015 (Sharon Jones, Brian Setzer), 2016 (Loretta Lynn, Frankie Valli), 2017 (Gwen Stefani, Beatles), 2018 (Eric Clapton, Old 97's), 2019 (Los Lobos, Ramsey Lewis), and 2020 (Goo Goo Dolls, Buck Owens), 2021 (Amanda Shires, Lucinda Williams), 2022 (Kat Edmonson, Andy Partridge), and 2023 (Cher, Joel Paterson).

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