Since 2008 we’ve been curating alternative Christmas Songs playlists – because the old ones of grandparents and great grandparents just don’t work anymore.
Browse our Christmas songs playlist posts from 2008 to present.
This time around, though, we put together a playlist of non-traditional, offbeat indie/alt/rock Christmas songs with the theme (that they all fall into) being: “WTF Santa?!?!#@%$” – Enjoy and please share with others that may enjoy.
You may also want to see our post of awesome songs hitched with each stanza in the famous poem Twas The Night Before Christmas
These Are So Good: Other still-in-the-works Christmas related playlists and all kinds of themed, specially-curated indie/alt/rock playlists on our Spotify page.
THIS IS something completely different, and even unconventional. A playlist like no other . Many of the tracks we chose are not available on streaming networks so we linked all of the tracks below.
The concept is simple: match as close as possible great indie, alt. rock and some classic rock songs with the famous stanzas to the classic Christmas poem, ‘Twas The Night Before Christmas.’
The songs that accompany each stanza are not meant to be literal, and not necessarily related to Christmas or the holidays in many instances. Nor is this playlist meant to be religiously-slanted or centric – just all about sharing music and goodwill.
Please share on Facebook, Twitter and your other favorite socials. Love :)
And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack. “Take Back The Toys“ – Take Back The Toys – The Hives
His eyes, how they twinkled! his dimples how merry! “Santa Claus Go Straight To The Ghetto“ (James Brown) – Santa Claus Go Straight To The Ghetto – Belle and Sebastian
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry! “Color in Your Cheeks“ – Color In Your Cheeks – The Mountain Goats
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow, “Mouth Wooed Her“ – Animal Collective
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow; “Santa’s Beard“ – They Might Be Giants
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth, “The Pipe“ – Vulture Whale
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath; “Cinder and Smoke“ – Iron and Wine
To the rescue: 2019’s Best Indie & Alt. Rock Xmas Songs playlist.
By now, some of you might be trumped-out on traditional holiday songs – in the mall; at work; at parties; at home; at others’ homes; grocery store; on the car radio, etc.
Where can you get away?
It’s not that you don’t like holiday and cheery seasonal music – it’s just that you can’t take hearing the same old standards again and again. Even the traditional songs you love performed by someone else entirely could work, right? Well fire up this baby with a log in the fireplace, some Christmas tree, or whatever. Headphones recommended.
We’ve been making indie and alt. rock Christmas songs playlists for a decade now, creating the web’s largest and longest-running such collection, bringing hundreds of thousands of visits from across North America, Europe and around the world. Even if you don’t like Christmas (you don’t have to be religious or of one religion – music and goodwill is for all people – hell, we need so much of it right now).
(This playlist is intentionally not to meant to be a rehash of all of our top Indie Christmas Songs playlists.
Since 2007, IRC has put together the largest collection of the indie rock Christmas songs on the web, featuring popular, and lesser-known, indie, alt rock, pop, folk and classic rock Christmas-themed songs from indie artists of the past 15 years, alternative rockers of the 90s and classic rock legends from the 60s through the 80s.
You won’t find any Dean Martin, Bing Crosby or other traditional Xmas songs – that we’ve all heard again and again year after year – in our playlists. Altogether, IRC’s playlists collection contains hundreds of Christmas and holiday-related songs.
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This is a new Christmas and holiday playlist mix for 2014, featuring highlights from previously published playlists posts (more than 30 since 2007).
First up are a couple of tracks from Bad Religion‘s Christmas Songs covers album released last year (which we didn’t learn about until after the holidays).
Readers’ Top 30 Most Played Christmas Songs – Feautring holiday tracks from The Killers, Sufjan Stevens, The Walkmen, The Flaming Lips, The White Stripes, Bright Eyes, Death Cab for Cutie, Arcade Fire, The Polyphonic Spree, Mojave 3, Low, XTC, and many others.
Listeners’ Favorite 25 Indie and Alt. Rock Christmas Songs – There’s definitely overlap between this playlist mix, created last year, and the 2010 Readers’ Top 30, but there’s also enough of a difference including Pearl Jam, The Late Greats, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, The National, Mazzy Star, The Kinks, Guster, The Ramones, Raveonettes, Jimmy Eat World, and many others.
This year marks the ninth year in a row that The Killers have released an original Christmas song to raise money for AIDS (RED) relief in Africa. In the past, the band has collaborated with Dawes, Elton John, Ryan Pardey and others.
This time around they’ve teamed up with Jimmy Kimmel for a new Christmas-themed music video, “Joel, The Lump of Coal” .
Here are a few of the other Christmas song releases by The Killers from years’ gone by, including “Boots,” “Don’t Shoot Me Santa Claus” and “Christmas in L.A.,” featuring Dawes and Owen Wilson.
Speaking of the 80’s, you can’t forget Wham’s “Last Christmas” video, viewed over 67 million times! For those of you not old enough to remember, this was before George Michael figured out he was gay – even though everyone else knew it for years (before it was “OK” to come out).
Sleepy Rebels, ‘Steampunk’ Christmas, The Davenports and Weird XMas
Santa as you’ve never seen him before in “A Very Sleepy Christmas”, featuring the song “Sweet Things” by NYC indie band Sleepy Rebels.
The band released the video as part of their Bah Humbug album release, which also featured the track “California Christmas” (via Mapanure), among other Christmasy tracks.
View a rare collection of Christmas-themed songs from A Very Steampunk Christmas compilation, featuring Comfort and Oi, Stille Nacht and others.
We’re not sure what to make of Jack‘s Christmas songs spoof video other than to say it’s not what you’re expecting, and it’s totally not politically correct. And neither is The Davenports’“Whore For The Holidays,” a satirical song about a fool at an office Christmas party who goes a bit too far with the meaning of giving.
Rarely Heard Christmas Songs from Various Indie Bands
Here’s a six-pack of Christmas-themed songs – both covers and originals – that you’ve likely never heard before from The Bewitched Hands, The Sky Drops, The Border Brass, Pedro The Lion, John Ralston and The Delfields.
The National with Sufjan Stevens and Richard Parry Christmas Songs’ Collaboration
In 2009, The National’s Aaron and Bryce Dessner guest DJ’d on BBC6 and surprised and delighted listeners and fans with the debut of two Christmas-themed tracks – a special cover of “Silent Night” and an original track, “Barcarola (You Must Be A Christmas Tree) – that feature the brothers with Sufjan Stevens and Arcade Fire bassist Richard Parry.
“Silent Night” – The National, Sufjan Stevens and Richard Parry
Darker My Love delivered one of the most catchy and memorable of all new Christmas tracks in 2010 with “Snow Is Falling.” The Christmas cheer continues splendid covers, including the fabulous Catwalk’s cover of “Christmas Don’t Be Late,” followed by The Late Greats‘ impressive cover of “Sleigh Bells.” Next, a reverb-heavy cover of the classic “Winter Wonderland” comes to us by way of Santa Cruz lo-fi artist John Blaze, followed by a terrific cover from Banjo or Freakout of the kid’s classic, “Frosty The Snowman.”
Wavves/Best Coast’s X-Mas Track; Plus, Tape Deck Mountain and Maps
In 2010, two of the biggest new California indie acts of the time, the dynamic duo of Wavves, featuring Nathan Williams, and Best Coast, fronted by Bethany Cosentino, teamed up to record the Christmas-themed track, “I Got Something For You”. Williams and Cosentino are one of indie’s hottest couples; in fact, they first started dating when the two artists were still known only to San Diego area stoner hipsters and college students.
IRC’s long-running indie and alternative rock Christmas songs playlists collection, dating back to 2007, has been having a hugely successful run, topping the numbers of visits, streams, downloads, links, mentions, Likes and Tweets the collection received last year.
With each holiday season for a solid decade now, the popularity of the collection continues to grow as people look for alternative to the old-fashioned, stale (but still many beautiful) Christmas playlists of our parents and grandparents. [zbplayer]
Best Indie & Alternative Rock Christmas Songs series remains the largest, most comprehensive, yearly-updated alternative Christmas playlists collection on the web. There are also dozens of indie and alt. rock songs about Hanukkah, winter, and the holidays in general, intermixed with the Christmas songs.
This Top 25 playlist reflects listeners’ 25 most streamed and downloaded alternative and indie rock Christmas songs from our collection over the past decade. Enjoy and please share on your socials!
It’s on Spotify too along with many more of our popular playlists.
We are still adding to the largest collection of the alternative and indie rock Christmas songs on the web since 2008, accounting for more than 3.2 million! visits from around the world up to 2020.
Please share on your socials and with friends so more people can enjoy this work we did for all of you! @IndieRockCafeFB
and Twitter @IndieRockCafe
Play all of the mp3s embedded in this page by clicking the play button below – sick playlist of indie and alt. rock xmas songs – no bing crosby or the chipmunks
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Some of you asked what happened to the S-25 Mix for this past Sunday. Sorry, folks, we’ve been so busy with the holidays that we had to skip the S-25 for this past week. Hopefully, this collection of new Christmas songs, most of which are original or covers of traditional Christmas songs, will make up the difference.
The songs in this mix have not appeared in any of the other Christmas playlists on IRC, which, by the way, have been receiving thousands of visits a day all month. Also during the past few weeks, we’ve received dozens and dozens of Christmas-related tracks via email, spun them into a draft playlist, fired them up, deleted those that we didn’t think were much good, and managed to whittle the list down to about 30 tracks altogether.
On Deck: Check back again later today or tomorrow to see the Top Thirty Christmas Songs on IRC special playlist. The song list will represent which tracks from the Christmas songs mix series people have been playing and downloading the most during the past four weeks, excluding xmas tracks from the special mix, Twas’ The Night Before Christmas: Set To Music (featuring more than 65 awesome indie tracks in all).
Remember, all the playlist mixes can be streamed uninterrupted just by clicking on the first song. Additionally, you can also save the songs to create your own mixes and playlists for your stereo, iPod or MP3 player, smartphone, and so on. All we ask in return is that you RT, Like, Stumble, Digg, bookmark, Tumble or whatever else you can do to share IRC playlists with more people. Finally, if you follow us, we’ll be sending out updates for which are the most popular tracks in this mix.
Sufjan Stevens with The National and Richard Parry Release Rare Songs
Rumors have made the rounds once and again alluding to a Christmas EP featuring Sufjan Stevens and The National. Well, not quite, but we think we’ve got the next best thing. Recently The National’s Aaron and Bryce Dessner guest DJ’d on BBC6 and surprised and delighted many with the debut of two Christmas-themed tracks that feature the brothers with Sufjan and Arcade Fire bassist Richard Parry for the two tracks here, an amazingly special cover of “Silent Night” and an original track, “Barcarola (You Must Be A Christmas Tree).”
“Silent Night” – The National, Sujfan Stevens and Richard Parry
From Bewitched Hands to Catwalks, Some Sweet New Xmas Tracks
Some of our favorites 2010 Christmas-related tracks include songs The Bewitched Hands, Darker My Love, Catwalk, Houses, The Late Greats, and others dispersed within this mix. Don’t miss the track “Christmas Tree” from The Bewitched Hands, a splendid song with silly lyrics and cheery choruses.
We’re still surprised that so many indie music enthusiasts haven’t heard of Darker My Love; apart from their awesome 2010 releases, Darker My Love deliver one of the most catchy and memorable of all new Christmas tracks for 2010 with “Snow Is Falling”. The Christmas cheer continues on the next song, Catwalk’s cover of the semi-classic “Christmas Don’t Be Late.” As far as new covers this year, Catwalk’s is among our favorites. But so is The Late Greats impressive cover of “Sleigh Bells”. And “Winter Wonderland” comes to us by way of Santa Cruz lo-fi musician John Blaze, plus the excellent cover of “Frosty The Snowman” from Banjo or Freakout.Plus, The Davenports‘ satirical song about a fool at an office Christmas party who goes a bit too far.
For each play of this video of The Killers’ “Boots”, Starbucks will donate five cents to the Global Fund to fight AIDS in Africa.
The Killers’ New Christmas Song for Charity
For the fourth year in a row, The Killers have released a new Christmas song to help raise money for the Global Fund to fight AIDS in Africa.
One of The Killers’ best Christmas tracks is:
The 2010 dynamic duo, Best Coast, with Wavves' Nathan Williams
Wavves Merge with Best Coast for ‘Holiday’ Song
Not long ago, Wavves and Best Coast – two hot indie bands of 2010 – got together to record a Christmas song called “I Got Something For You”. By the way, both bands’ 2010 releases are on, or will be on, many top albums of 2010 lists (including our own; which will be published over the next few weeks).
The Mynabirds Release Limited Vinyls of Christmas-Political Single
With charming chords descending the wurltizer keys like falling snow, the Mynabirds’ “All I Want” starts out like a typical Christmas song. But by the second line, it’s clear that this is singer-songwriter Laura Burhenn‘s cry for anything but another ordinary holiday.
“All I Want” navigates global warming, messy politics, endless wars, and American consumerism, and brushes it all away to remind us of the snow-white core of the holidays: love. The single is available in limited white and black vinyl copies at record store. The B-side of the single features a cover of the Zombies‘ “This Will Be Our Year”.
Jenny O is a LA musician classically trained and studied jazz theory before settling back into her rock and pop roots. Her latest EP is full of light-hearted, sunny L.A. vibe. Closing out this section of the mix is a band almost no one has heard of called Dent May with their appropriately named “Holiday Face”, an electro-dream pop song about Christmas; plus, Slow Club offer up a splendid cover of “Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home)”.
This special Christmas mix also features so many other great tracks that there just isn’t time to write about them all. Check out these Christmas songs from indie big-hitters like Tape Deck Mountain, Crystal Stilts, Kid Logic, Julian Casablancas, and Deer Tick, plus, some goodies from lesser known artists like Coconut Records, John Ralston, The Sky Drops, Scott Miller, Eric Lipton and His Orchestra, Strawberry Whiplash, T Model Ford, Boca Chica, Sleepy Rebels, and Slow Club.
“Blue Christmas” – Tape Deck Mountain
“Christmas Time Is Here Again” – Tape Deck Mountain
The White Stripes‘ “Candy Cane Children” leads of this third volume of ‘More Indie & Alternative Rock Christmas Songs,’ a supplement to our web famous ‘Best Indie and Alternative Rock Christmas Songs’ playlist mix series.
People have commented and asked why we are not running a series of playlists of alternative and indie rock Christmas music this year. Answer is two-part: not enough time, but more importantly, what for? IRC ran a long and popular collection of alternative Xmas songs playlist last year that are still up and available for your listening pleasure.
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There are a total of more than 100 Christmas-theme songs. Check them out and enjoy at the We Wish You a Very Indie Christmas series. As always, if you like an artist or label in particular, go check out their official websites, happily purchase their music for your permanent music collection and see them at shows near you.
Here are a few of the spotlight songs from the series:
The Best Indie Rock Christmas Songs playlist mix series was originally compiled back in 2007 to provide music lovers with a diverse collection of more than 200 indie and alternative Christmas songs that also include many cover versions of traditional Christmas and holiday songs by some of the best musicians and bands ever. Recently we checked to make sure all of the MP3 links in the dozen mixes are working.
There is now one page for all of the Christmas and holiday music mixes to make it easier to listen and download tracks to make your own playlist mixes. Enjoy.
Stream a collection of the best indie rock Christmas songs from Freddy Johnston, Coldplay, Galaxie 500, From Mars, Big Star, Sufjan Stevens, Liz Phair, The Long Blondes and Saosin. This playlist series was initially called The 12 Plays of Alternative Indie Christmas Songs, but we upgraded it to Best Indie & Alternative Rock Christmas Songs.
This mix, the tenth installment of the Christmas playlists series, offers Xmas songs from punk legends Sex Pistols and The Ramones and modern-day popular artists like Arcade Fire, Yo La Tengo, The Killers, Something Corporate and Stars.
Personal favorite track on this playlist is Guster‘s “Donde Esta Santa Claus.” It’s different, upbeat and infectious.
