Mariah Carey may be at the top of the Billboard charts once again, but the Wall Street Journal is reporting that fatigue for her Christmas hit has kicked in as shop staff are, allegedly, hiding in stock rooms to avoid the hoary Christmas song and other over familiar jingles blasting out on the shop floor.
Look on Change.org and you will find at least three petitions to silence All I Want for Christmas is You, Carey’s 1994 classic. One refers to it as “the bane of shoppers, retail workers and pedestrians”. If all you want for Christmas is some indie minimalism we have a present for you courtesy of our resident DJ Dave and not a Mariah in site!
Run DMC in 1985
Low
Just Like Christmas
The indie minimalists from Minnesota give us an appropriately icy and melancholic picture of a Christmas when “the snow was gone/ And we got lost/ The beds were small/ But we felt so young.”
Listen to Just Like Christmas on Bandcamp.
Donny Hathaway
This Christmas
Festival schmaltz done with mellifluous class by the American soul legend.
Listen to This Christmas on Spotify.
Run DMC
Christmas in Hollis
Yuletide hip-hop is a risky proposition but the New York trio hit it out of the park, rapping about getting a million-dollar windfall from Santa in their native Queens, where “Mom’s cooking chicken and collard greens”.
Watch the Christmas In Hollis music video on YouTube.
Marvin Gaye
Purple Snowflakes
Re-recorded in 1965 as the non-festive Pretty Little Baby, the sleigh bell-sprinkled original only emerged in 1992. It’s a wistful gem, though, with a featherlight vocal from a soul titan.
Listen to Purple Snowflakes on Spotify (and for a bonus, check out the Leon Bridges cover!)
Badly Drawn Boy
Donna and Blitzen
“Baby, it’s not your sleigh ride. But this year is ours,” coos the beanie-hatted Boltonian on this string-swathed swooner.
Listen on Last.fm now.
Hurts
All I Want for Christmas is New Year’s Day
The Manchester synth-pop duo’s ballad is full of icy majesty and yuletide heartbreak.
Check out the music video over on YouTube.
Bruce Springsteen
Ain’t Good Enough for You
Taken from the Boss’s 2010 album The Promise, this isn’t strictly a Christmas song but it has a rousing, drunken, slightly bruised quality that works perfectly at this time of year.
Tune in to listen on Spotify.
Fleet Foxes
White Winter Hymnal
The indie folkies roll out the exquisite plangent harmonies for a plaid-clad holiday season.
Watch the (incredibly cool) video for White Winter Hymnal on YouTube.
Tracey Thorn
Tinsel and Lights
“He took her photo and said he adored her/A New York martini, it literally floored her.” The title track from Thorne’s 2012 Christmas album is gorgeous, lilting and full of zingers.
You can hear Tinsel and Lights over on Apple Music.
The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl
Fairytale of New York
With its dovetailing lead vocals and fabulous lack of sentiment, this is surely the one perennial that can never outstay its welcome.
Listen on Spotify, and for some bonus reading check out this article about how they created this classic!