Wishing you a weekend of tolerable Christmas music

Plus, a celebrity-packed holiday extravaganza, David Byrne's seasonal playlist and more

View this email online December 23, 2023 Support This Newsletter Hello! Have you ever wondered why this newsletter is free? Across the NPR Network, we value open access to reliable journalism. Free, quality news sources are becoming rare. We stand steadfast in our mission to keep EVERYONE informed, regardless of their ability to pay.  How do we fund our work? We're made up of non-profit organizations, and we rely on your support. Your donation fuels our journalists, amplifies the truth, keeps our content accessible, and more. Every dollar makes a difference. Please donate today to amplify our work in 2024 and beyond. — Stephen Thompson, NPR Music We ponder alternatives to the usual seasonal chart-toppers; plus, a celebrity-packed holiday extravaganza, David Byrne’s seasonal playlist and more. Mike Brinson/Getty Images Ever since I was a kid, I’ve soaked up the sounds of the holiday season — perhaps because, at least during childhood, each note of each familiar song signified that I would soon get to unwrap some presents. Even if “White Christmas” didn’t speak to my experience as a kid growing up in the Upper Midwest — I don’t remember too many childhood Christmases where there wasn’t snow on the ground — hearing it still meant that I was about to rip open a few of the Hot Wheels cars and Atari 2600 cartridges I’d been coveting. As I started building my own record collection, holiday titles were plentiful. My poor, patient parents endured untold hours of Christmas With The Chipmunks, a record that’s somehow never annoyed me in spite of the fact that it’s… well, pretty annoying. I remember feeling virtuous, like I was personally ending famine in Africa, as I purchased my very own 7” single of Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” as an earnest 12-year-old in 1984. All of which is to say that I’ve always possessed a high tolerance for holiday music. I heard some gorgeous new and recent stuff in the run-up to the All Songs Considered holiday special (more on that in a moment), but this year, for some reason, just about everything I’ve heard in the wild — on the radio, in stores and in TV commercials — has fallen flat.  One look at the current Top 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 — Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” Bobby Helms’ “Jingle Bell Rock,” Wham!’s “Last Christmas” and Burl Ives’ “A Holly Jolly Christmas” — offers a pretty good sense of why I’ve been feeling some holiday malaise. It’s not just that these titles lean hard on cheer that can feel forced if you’re not already in the holiday spirit. It’s also, more importantly, that each is a song I’ve heard hundreds or even thousands of times, almost never voluntarily. Every year, countless new holiday recordings make their way onto streaming services, many of them by major artists; just this year, we’ve gotten Christmas albums or EPs from Cher, Brandy and Samara Joy, among many others. But every year, for our sins, the pop charts keep bringing back Paul Anka, Andy Williams and Michael Bublé. In other words, if you want the best possible holiday-music experience, you’re probably gonna have to have to go looking for it — or curate it yourself. So my plan for this year’s holiday stretch run is to sit in my living room and play my own hand-picked favorites, from TV specials (A Charlie Brown Christmas, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, Christmas At Pee-wee’s Playhouse) to classic albums such as Songs for Christmas by Sufjan Stevens and A Christmas Gift for You From Phil Spector, a man whose personal history I’ll endeavor to ignore as it plays. And I’ll dust off, for the 25th straight year, my favorite holiday album of all time: 1999’s Christmas, by the wonderful band Low. Its eight songs, all tucked into a tidy half-hour, are wonderfully sweet, alternately sunny and sad, and infused with profound religious reverence. (Don’t miss the band’s 2016 single “Some Hearts [At Christmas Time],” either; it’s a more-than-worthy addition to Low’s small-but-mighty Christmas canon.) Listening will make you miss Mimi Parker something awful, but this is nothing if not a season for thinking of people who’ve brought joy into our lives. There’s so much more beyond the usual fare that tops the charts. If you’re looking for more last-minute holiday-music recommendations, read on… NPR Classical Hurry! Last minute holiday gift ideas ... Newsletter continues after sponsor message More to hear, read and watch (holiday edition) All Songs Considered used to indulge in a very weird, highly enjoyable tradition: a holiday special in which hosts Bob Boilen and Robin Hilton would throw a virtual party attended by special musical guests. The shows tended to be pretty high-concept — in 2014, our intrepid hosts even got shot into space — and each one typically culminated in a final bit where I’d show up and spoil their fun. We stopped doing these shows a few years ago, and then Bob retired earlier this year, so consider it a Christmas Miracle that the holiday special has returned in 2023! In our newest holiday extravaganza, Robin Hilton and I welcome a small army of fresh musical guests, listen to great music and tell holiday stories. If you don’t feel like curating your own holiday playlist this year, our pals at Fresh Air have done you a solid: They got David Byrne to do it for you. Byrne assembled a glorious 19-song selection that opens with his own Christmas song (“Fat Man’s Comin’”) and wends its way through classics from Run-D.M.C., James Brown, Prince, The Pogues and many more, with some left turns and surprises along the way. My initial review was that the mix could stand to be more dour — no Low, no Sufjan, no Aimee Mann, etc. — but then I got to Phoebe Bridgers’ cover of Merle Haggard’s “If We Make It Through December” and all was right with the world, if by “right” you mean “so, so bleak.” If 19 songs isn’t enough for your holiday needs, I highly recommend Jazz Night In America’s fantastic, impeccably curated 80-track playlist. As you might expect, it leans heavily on jazz, but it also expands into pop standards with a jazzy feel. If you like your holiday music weird and discordant, our man Lars Gotrich has you covered in his latest Viking’s Choice playlist. Lars has gotten me into an insane amount of new music over the years, and he doesn’t miss this time around, either. (Lars also loves Low’s Christmas, so you know he can be trusted.) My great pal Chris Klimek is a dedicated expert on holiday music, to the point where All Things Considered brought him in to chat about the subject in 2020. That segment has some excellent recommendations, but what you really want to do is visit Chris’ website. The guy puts a tremendous amount of time into unearthing holiday obscurities — I still revel in the time I got to tell him of all people about Conway Twitty’s bizarre 1983 album A Twismas Story — so I personally guarantee that you’ll encounter something wonderful and weird when you hit play. More to hear, read and watch (non-holiday edition) All Songs Considered listeners voted on their favorite albums of 2023, and the winner — by a mile — was boygenius’ the record. Check out the Top 50 here. Alt.Latino’s Anamaria Sayre, Isabella Gomez Sarmiento and Felix Contreras picked their favorite music of 2023. The great and good Nate Chinen named the 10 best jazz albums of 2023. Bradley Cooper recently directed, co-wrote and starred in a new biopic about composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein. It’s called Maestro, it’s out on Netflix now and Pop Culture Happy Hour has a review. Okay, so this technically dropped last week, but we really, really think you should poke around our Best Songs of 2023 package — an innovative interactive tool that leads you through a 123-song journey of musical discovery. Looking for a last minute gift for the podcast lover in your life? Give them access to NPR+ benefits for 6 or 12 months with a simple one-time payment that supports public media. NPR+ podcasts are the same NPR shows you know and love (and those shows will always be free to enjoy), but with added perks like bonus episodes, sponsor-free listening, archive access, and even early releases. You can even customize your gift with a personal message and schedule delivery for a specific day. So how about it? Will you give a gift that makes an impact? Give Someone NPR+ Tiny Desk NPR Louis Cato is best known as the bandleader on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, but he’s also a musician’s musician — a charismatic singer and multi-instrumentalist with a deeply held belief in music’s power to bring people together. His four-song Tiny Desk set may be just the thing you need to send you into 2024 with a faint note of optimism. Also this week: Hip-hop hall-of-famer Scarface surveyed his 30-year career with an assist from the legendary producer and engineer Mike Dean. One More Thing At NPR Music, we’ll confess to a bit of bias when it comes to the D.C. power-pop band Bad Moves: After all, our own beloved teammate Daoud Tyler-Ameen plays drums and sometimes sings in the band. But even if he didn’t, I’d be swooning all over the band’s infectious-but-pessimistic new anthem, “New Year’s Reprieve,” which searches — mostly in vain — for a glimmer of hope. Listen to your local NPR station. Visit NPR.org to hear live radio from WUFT 89.1 (edit station). Need a new playlist? Follow NPR Music on Spotify and Apple Music What do you think of today's email? We'd love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: nprmusic@npr.org Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here. Looking for more great content? Check out all of our newsletter offerings — including Books, Pop Culture, Health and more! You received this message because you're subscribed to NPR Music emails. This email was sent by National Public Radio, Inc., 1111 North Capitol Street NE, Washington, DC 20002 Unsubscribe  |  Privacy Policy