It's December and we held out as long as we could. It's time for us to get a Christmas music playlist out there. Just a brief explanation of the list and "rankings" here; these aren't truly ranked but know that I like song #10 a lot better than song #60 and I'm much more likely to listen to song #22 at Christmas time than song #44.
Hierarchy
In general, I'm trying to keep one version of each Christmas classic in the top reaches. I'm singling a certain version out as our definitive take on the song. For example, is "Frosty The Snowman" by Fiona Apple is in my Top 10, then I'm dropping down the Jackson 5 version a little lower (although I love theirs too).
We're trying for uniqueness. Ideally, this is a list you can just turn on when it's time to be Christmas-ish.
Types Of Songs Here
Old Takes Of Standards - I'm including some but trying to limit my Bing Crosby, Sinatra, Dean Martin, etc. to 1 or 2 each. My list is supposed to be pop-rock, but it's pretty impossible to drink eggnog and bourbon without a shot of Ray Charles & Betty Carter.
Rock Xmas Originals - Sure, any modern pop act can do a fun take on "Jingle Bells" but The Kinks coming up with something like "Father Christmas" or The Pogues "Fairytale Of New York" is way more exciting.
Rock Almost Christmas Songs - Pretenders "2000 Miles" and Billy Joel's "She's Right On Time" are set at Christmas time and that's good enough for me.
Jazz - Yup, there could have easily been an all jazz holiday playlist, but I'm sure those exist out there if you need them. Just had a couple of particular jazz favorites I wanted to lob into the mix.
Holidays Around This Time - Hannukah and New Year's Eve get their moments here as well.
Omissions From Spotify
There's a couple of great Sammy Davis, Jr. staples that I couldn't find on Spotify. Worse yet, the absolute killer originals from Stephen Colbert and his "A Colbert Christmas" special from the late 2000's are sorely missed here. "Nutmeg" with John Legend, "Little Dealer Boy" with Willie Nelson, "Can I Interest You In Hannukah" with John Stewart, "Another Christmas Song" from Colbert and "There Are Much Worse Things To Believe In" with Elvis Costello (surprisingly beautiful) all would have been in the first 30 on Spotify. Apologies, but there was nothing we could do about that. I added the blanked-out versions of that special to this Spotify playlist; if they return to active Spotify they'll reappear in the list for you to play.
I'm embedding a YouTube playlist of the Colbert Christmas songs here:
Spotify List
Ok, here's the meat of this Christmas meal. If you're in a browser or device where you're logged in to Spotify you should be able to listen to all of these right here.
We just didn’t finish mixing and mastering our 5 Christmas songs (2 of them originals) in time for a release this year. So you’ve got that going for you in late 2024. Which is nice.
