Chancellor Arnold sings “The Christmas Song” about hurt and emotional distance. But it’s preppy indie with a drunkenly pronounced rhythm. You explain that.
Concave Onion’s “Funky Time Christmas” is technically about an unattended tree and unrequited wishlists, but it stands up via funk. So that’s weird.
Nyco Nemesis wants to share the warmth with you. Why? Because “Winter was Lonely“. New Age indie with atonal girlishness. I don’t know what that means.
Darling statistics like to reveal the great number of people today who suffer isolation in our overpopulated world. Brazil self reports over half the pop is lonely. Social media overusers claim to have no real friends. We’re all in this together, right?
Then there’s the most family-oriented, romantic, friend-gathered holiday of them all: Xmas. God is love and Santa is giving and stores want you to come on back now, y’hear. But for many, this ideal deepens the chill and heightens the emptiness. Those commercials, i’m telling you, really rub it in.
I’m not entirely sure if featuring a month of solstice solitude will achieve cathartic relief for us or drive us toward the beckoning arms of self harm… but, gotta stay busy.
Start with the blues, amiright? Marc Broussard claims to be coming home when it’s “Almost Christmas“. I hope it’s the solution he needs right now. Home can be standoffish.
Metal to balance: “You’re Alone on Christmas Eve” from Aristocorpse is probably BLUE ALERT (mine ears can not discern so, but i’d expect no less).
Also more mood than word, B. Wells (feat. DaVan Official) rap out “Christmas Time!” as if that were a bad thing.
Brad and Barry turn down the indie rock to 11 with the blubbering “I’ll be Alone for Christmas“. Not introspective so much as it is deflated. Catching the mood just by listening, so–affective AF.
SayWeCanFly is all business in “Merry Christmas, I Miss You“. Altrock attitude outlines a coffee shop encounter gone wrong.
“I’ll Miss You At Christmas” is what happens when a good song gets worked over by a talent three decades too late. E for effort, M. J. Moore. Pop deflated.
Then Mariah Carey showed up and showed us how to overdo it. “Miss You Most (At Christmas Time)” does what it needs to and not one pop more.
Still prefer Bowling for Soup’s quirk in “I Miss You Most On Christmas“. Not an essential novelty, but it rocks the calendar.
One of the funniest country numbers i ever ran before, “Break Up Before Christmas” from Corey Hunt and the Wise advises the men out there how to manage their holiday budget.
Dude York’s “Break Up Holiday” is rock that deserves a rewind as well. Classic.
Also inordinately fond of “Breakup For The Holidays” Migratory Animals, a brazen electronic pop in your face.
Jellyrolling the ragtime Goldentusk pulls out the piano bar stops singing “I’m Breaking Up with You for Christmas“. But he’s just telling you now, so what’d you get him? (Rotten to the encore.)
Cori Connors covers Tarja’s observance how much “You Would Have Loved This“. (This = winter.) She packs a punch in this soft indie pop with power vocals.
Also hemmed in by the winter weather, Alison Trelfa doodles around easy listening jazz with “It’s Not Christmas Without You“.
David McMullen’s “Christmas Without You” is just as bathetic, and he’s ready to yacht rock call it all off.
What the funk? Don Lee’s “Black Christmas” is especially dark without you. Turn it up.
James Coyle begins mid-breakup with the poignantly mean-spirited “A Very AIDS-y Christmas“. BLUE ALERT, but hilarious (if you ask me) pop. An encore of comic excess.
Cheesy pop peppers us in “Without You“. heymonday is determined to party on through the loneliness, but i feel like picking up the red Solo cups brimming with tears.
Pounding indie tries to emo the moment. The Power of Truth makes a musical out of a moment in “Xmas Don’t Feel the Same Without You“. Now that’s a ride.
Dave Dudley slathers on the corn for the easy listening country “I Wish You Were Here“. Making it all about him.
Doowop digression! “Without You Christmas is Blue” is like Elvis fronting The Drifters. The Emotions feat. J Favale make a musical mountain out of a missing person. (BTW brown lights?!?)
There’s some question who you is in “There’s No Christmas Without You“. Kirk Franklin and the Family might be singing about Jaysus, but what could they have done to rid themselves of His Grace?–surely not this gospel singalong.
Showing us how to mope, Flooded Cellar spiral with their folk “Without You“. Bemoaning the single set of footprints in the snow and on the floor, they don’t know what to do. Wait, is this bereavement?
John Cedrick synths the R+B with his lack of you. Apparently “Santa Didn’t Hear” that you needed to be with him. Scary, you think about it.
More rockabilly, STAT! Darrel Higham riffs out the high stepping dread of “Our Last Night” and all i can do is snap and clap along. Oh yeah.
Angry Johnny and The Killbillies get maudlin in “Winter’s Here Again“. It could be that this tinkling country ballad hides a secret: he made you go underground, with his shovel. Shivers.
Parry Music makes gospel out of “Missing You At Christmas“, elevating a cruel breakup with soaring harmonies. Hard to listen to analytically.
Theory of a Deadman instills metal in their “Missing You This Christmas“. Might make a good TV show intro, but the driving drum rhythms knock all the pathos outta this sob story.
Richard Melvin Brown may be mourning in “My First Christmas Without Her “. The Carib beat doesn’t help the reading on this pulsating pop. I’m sorry for your loss of melody.
MMMC girlies up the AI with “A Star to Wish Upon“. Whispery snow laden missing you, in the key of limp pop.
One of the great star-crossed holiday cinematic stories is “Sally’s Song” from The Nightmare Before Christmas. Doors in the Labyrinth overplay the drama in this sad tale metamorphosing showtune into rock ballad. Noice.
Most authentic is the trilling, cackling grief of Shawn ‘Da Ma$tamind’ Noel paranging “What is Christmas Without ah Rum?” Truly a heartbreak.
Woven in Hiatus says There’s an emptiness I feel when you’re not around. Well, it guess that means–you exist. “Joy” is anything but, rolling around sketchy imagery and partial feelings while turning a fair indie melody into sound.
Alan Jackson pulls out all the tissues with “Merry Christmas to Me“, a country weeper with left behind wedding rings and pretend cards.
Lorrie Morgan employs more cliched tropes to less effect in her “Merry Christmas to Me“. Country leavings.
“Sickly Sweet Holidays” is a cry for comfort from Dallon Weekes. He needs your nurturing, your nursing, your presence. Solid rock.
Creamed Corn aren’t sure who they’re missing. But “Merry Christmas, Carol” is a fine melange of if onlys and wonderments set to almost Hawaiian indie. Cool.
