alternative christmas albums 2020
Natalizia's radical reworkings of the most tired standards are mind-altering: Swimming electronics, pulsing noise, shoegaze guitars, and chillwave warp turn noxious jingles such as "Frosty the Snowman" and "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" into wild sonic storms of a shape-shifting nature. It teeters on the brink of being a novelty album of novelty songs, but, really, that just makes it even more of a Christmas record. Advertisement. Add them all to your Christmas music playlist. Zac Pennington—leader of Christmas-obsessed Portland orchestral-pop types Parenthetical Girls—so loved Christmas that, here, his pal Sam Mickens makes him a Christmas record. Released in 2000 and recorded while the Kentuckian combo was at work on their classic "At Dawn" LP, this "Fiasco" finds one of the band's best-ever jams, "Xmas Time Is Here Again": six minutes of glinting guitar harmonies, sleigh bells, and yearning vocal harmonies. Some 2020 albums were already well underway before the pandemic; others were made under quarantine, with long-distance collaborations or none. The chart list of the top 100 alternative songs is updated several times daily. Maddie & Tae’s first festive release comes in the form of the six-track EP. On release, they were heard privately. The songs are a mixture of oldies and oddballs of the lesser-known variety, and the performances seem genuinely filled with the holiday spirit. The all-star collection features classic yuletide fare from its biggest stars, including Walker, 6LACK, Shelley (formerly known as D.R.A.M. Stream ad-free or purchase CD's and MP3s now on Amazon.co.uk. sounds like a tender refugee from "Seven Swans," and the gentle, playful reading of French fable "The Friendly Beasts" is ridiculously charming. Bah humbug! Hear the hot songs of the year and all important new cd releases of 2021 in one place. But what truly earns "A Christmas Gift for You" its perennial cred is just how good it is. Gathered together as a single "Christmas" volume, these bizarre labors of love—defined by the couplet "thank god it's not Christmas/when there's just you to do"—stand as nothing less than a towering achievement, Pennington making rich, artistic cake from just so much seasonal treacle. The best Christmas albums of 2020 offer a mix of updated classics and old-school singalongs for your holiday season. The Best Christmas Albums of All Time. … Your email address will not be published. The 42 tunes mix originals with traditionals and are reverent, ridiculous, whimsical, and achingly beautiful in varied measures. For listeners who love Christmas music but need more than an album's worth of songs to make it through the month or for listeners who want something a little more creative, there's something for everyone to enjoy here. Check out our list of the best new Christmas songs in 2020 for seasonal hits for kids and adults alike! This collection of 22 songs have been selected from Murray’s personal favorites from the six chart-topping Christmas albums she has released since 1981. 4.9 out of 5 stars 220. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. Whether you're buying records as a gift or for your own collection, these are the 20 of the best-sounding albums, according to CNET. Throughout the... Annie Lennox – A Christmas Cornucopia. A new Deep Purple album, definitely. Lady A’s On This Winter Night debuted at No.1 on Billboard’s Top Holiday Albums chart on first release in 2012, featuring their original title track and the group’s versions of such staples as “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas,” “A Holly Jolly Christmas,” “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” “The First Noel,” and “Silver Bells.” This deluxe edition includes Lady A’s covers of Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime” and the Beach Boys’ “Little Saint Nick” as well as their own composition “Christmas Through Your Eyes,” and “That Spirit Of Christmas.”. Alan Jackson’s unmistakable voice rounds out nostalgic renditions of “White Christmas,” “Silent Night,” “The Christmas Song” and more with this timeless collection of holiday classics. “The carols on this album represent continuum, harking back to a time before modern technology, climate emergency, global pandemics, pollution, forest destruction, species extinction and all the challenges our world must urgently deal with in terms of crisis in sustainability,” said Lennox. More than two hours long, "Songs for Christmas" has surely soundtracked countless Christmas dinners already. Not Another Christmas Album: Alternative Christmas - Not Another Christmas Album: An Alternative Christmas - Amazon.com Music Yet "A Very She and Him Christmas" is often stripped-down, with Deschanel and Ward setting their voices to spare arrangements. Country star Carrie Underwood’s first-ever holiday record is called My Gift. The sprawling LP, which features duets with Ed Sheeran, Dua Lipa, and his son Matteo, … If you ever found yourself wishing you could find that perfect Xmas record that was a little less Céline Dion, a little more Animal Collective, here your dreams come true. Vinyl $17.82 $ 17. Even if his band's obscure, self-released records—all oddball originals, not tired traditionals—were anything but cash-ins, Parenthetical Girls' unlikely annual EPs find them getting genuinely swept up in the season. Tori Kelly’s first-ever holiday album comes as a sort of package deal with Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds, who not only served as co-executive producer on the album, but also lent his vocals for a duet of the classic holiday tune “Let it Snow.” Composed of 12 songs, it includes two Tori Kelly originals in addition to plenty of Yuletide faves. If communal caroling is synonymous with Christmas for you, The Sweptaways shall surely put a giddy seasonal smile on your dial. The grandaddy of all hipster Xmas discs, Sufjan Stevens' "Songs for Christmas" is a lavish five-CD box set collecting annual EPs Stevens made for friends and family from 2001–2006. Ultimate Christmas is drawn from her Capitol and Decca catalogs and from the 1955 soundtrack of Walt Disney’s Lady and the Tramp. Lucky future us. "Rough Trade Christmas Bonus" was, as its title suggests, a five-track bonus disc affixed to his solo LP in Rough Trade shops, but it stands as one of the most moving Christmas albums committed (live) to tape. The 50 best albums of 2020: the full list Fiona Apple Composite: Gary Miller Our countdown is complete, topped by a mercurial work of sprawling invention by a woman who has dug deep to survive. For many people, the yearly rotation of Christmas songs played everywhere in the month of December can get pretty repetitive. Listen to the best indie, rock & alt music in our new January compilation! The title track of "Lady December" finds the Swedish big-band at their most swelling, most thrilling, most utterly romantic, with huge sweeps of strings, weeps of violin, hugs of organ, yelps of flute, and a vocal from Victoria "Taken by Trees" Bergsman (hear her make the phrase "forgive and forget" just ache with feeling) that highlights how much The Concretes have missed her since she was booted from the band. View reviews, ratings, news & more regarding your favorite band. Sweet Dreams Forever: The Day We Lost Patsy Cline, ‘You Don’t Have To Go’: R&B Ace Jimmy Reed Makes The Scene, ‘Here Comes The Night’: Here Come Van Morrison And Them, ‘A Love Supreme’: John Coltrane’s Masterpiece Explained, The Rolling Stones, With A 1971 Tour, Say Goodbye To Britain, The Drums Announce Collection Of Early Rarities And Remixes, Drake Releases ‘Scary Hours 2’ EP With Guests Lil Baby And Rick Ross, Exclusive: Travis Shares Behind-The-Scenes Clip Of ‘All I Wanna Do Is Rock’ Video, Selena Gomez and DJ Snake Team Up For New Single ‘Selfish Love’. And when the set closes with the sweet "See You Next Year," "This Is Christmas" feels like a Christmas special: You've had a few laughs along the way yet been touched, too. It's a stark musical tonic for those who hate the "light entertainment" of the season. What would Christmas be without Christmas music? Fortunately, there is an array of renegades who have been attempting to reinvent the Christmas record as a vehicle for artistic expression. Here, that most standard of Christmas standards is turned into a seven-minute epic, beginning as a heartbroken, hesitant piano ballad before spilling out into a choral conclusion sung by the 30-member congregation. "It was 1987/and you'd just been diagnosed with manic depression," Rhys laments over the mournful piano in "Slashed Wrists This Christmas," which counters its comedy with tender, tearful delivery. ), Westside Boogie, and producer/DJ Kitty Ca$h, who stars in three skits. All customers get FREE Shipping on orders over $25 shipped by Amazon ... by Elvis Presley | Oct 2, 2020. Highest Rated. “Even though it has been a tough year for all of us,” Underwood said, “sometimes I feel like the greatest realizations can be inspired by the most difficult times, and make us more grateful for the things we do have and for what truly matters.”, Annie Lennox is celebrating this holiday season with a digitally remastered version of her sixth solo album, A Christmas Cornucopia: a collection of inspired interpretations of traditional festive songs, rounded out by a Lennox composition, “Universal Child.” It features a brand new, previously unreleased track, “Dido’s Lament,” a new tracklisting, and new artwork. OK, OK, OK: This isn't very alt. Country star Carrie Underwood’s first-ever holiday record is called My Gift. 6–10', The Sweptaways: 'A Christmas Party' and 'Cry Cry Christmas', Various: 'A Christmas Gift for You from Philles Records', Recommended R&B and Soul Christmas Albums. Love Canadian music legend Anne Murray’s Christmas work, but don’t where to start? As a result, although not every track is a winner, there are moments of genuine frosty frisson. The LP finds Saint Etienne flipping from groovy '60s pop to sad ballads, slyly avant-garde pieces, and pounding acid-house anthems. Seemingly so synonymous with The Chipmunks that it's beyond rescue, Thomas treats it as a mighty, swelling, rousing piano basher, its six sing-along minutes cresting at "Transatlanticism"-esque levels of anthemicism. The other three albums in the box set, all instrumental, are receiving their first vinyl release since the 1960s. Try The Ultimate Christmas Collection. Welsh rocker Gruff Rhys of Super Furry Animals fame knows that Christmas and depression go together hand in hand for so many. See the rest of our exclusive gift guides here. By. As if one five-disc Christmas box set wasn't enough to prove his obsession with seasonal records, here Saint Sufjan is shown to be a hopeless slave to that "creepy Christmas feeling" once more. Preview Editors’ Notes Discover the new sounds of the season from top Christian artists and groups of 2020. With more and more music released each year, it's a near-impossible task to keep track of everything that's coming. "O Little Town of Bethlehem" and "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" are made resplendent with stark harp patterns and gentle daubs of piano and tuned percussion, but it's nothing compared to the title track.