Christmas Carol Covers

December 10, 2008 1:20 PM

Christmas Song Filter: I'm looking for the best, current, classic Christmas song covers by today's popular artists.

I want to make an awesome Christmas song album for this year but I need music.
I love covers... and covers of covers and Christmas is the best time to find them.
My list is a little specific:
-The songs should be relatively new. Anything after 2005 would be great.
-The artists should be well known, preferably pop or 'alternative' performers.
-They must be covers of classic Christmas songs arranged in the style of the artist singing.
-They have to be awesome.

Some info on my musical tastes: I love Christina Aguilera but her Christmas Album didn't appeal to me at all. I think she took her runs too far.
Same with Michael Buble, his voice makes me melt, but his Christmas covers were boring and unoriginal.
I recently heard The Fray's cover of Happy Christmas (the one done by John Lennon) and it was awesome at first... but they decided to keep the choir aspect and that made it suck.
I remember back in the day, when Rosie had her show, she released a Christmas album (or 2) featuring popular singers at the time singing with her (yikes, I know). Aside from Rosie's not-so-pleasant voice there were some really nice and fun covers. I love unlikely pairings!
I also love likely pairings... back when Jessica and Nick were together they did a cover of Baby It's Cold Outside which I thought was adorable. It showcased Jessica's strange as hell, overacted, airy voice as a compliment of sorts to Nick's smooth, boy band voice. It was a bit comedic but enjoyable.
This isn't Christmas-Christmas but I love Fiona Apple's take on Sally's Song from Nightmare Before Christmas. The feel of the song became more dark and soulful with the new arrangement (What's This? covered by Fall Out Boy was also great). That's the kind of awesome cover I'm looking for.

Any suggestions?

posted by simplethings to media & arts (24 answers total)

Death Cab For Cutie does a fantastic version of Christmas (Baby Please Come Home).
iTunes link!
posted by 2oh1 at 1:29 PM on December 10, 2008

@2oh1: Thanks! That's exactly what I'm looking for. =)
posted by simplethings at 1:43 PM on December 10, 2008

Look for things like Maybe This Christmas (and Maybe This Christmas Too and Maybe This Christmas Tree), You Sleigh Me, Santa Cause, The OC Christmas Mix, and Sufjan Stevens Christmas cds.
posted by amarynth at 1:48 PM on December 10, 2008

Ack! I forgot the links!

I meant to say:

Look for things like Maybe This Christmas (and Maybe This Christmas Too and Maybe This Christmas Tree), You Sleigh Me, Santa Cause, The OC Christmas Mix, and Sufjan Stevens Christmas cds.
posted by amarynth at 1:51 PM on December 10, 2008

Nettwork Records has two awesome albums of Christmas covers by indie artists(1, 2). They both get a ton of holiday play around our place. They've also got one with more mainstream artists.
posted by jbickers at 1:53 PM on December 10, 2008

(Wow, amarynth, great minds truly do think alike!)
posted by jbickers at 1:53 PM on December 10, 2008

Oh, Amazon's track listing for You Sleigh Me is incorrect. Here's a better listing.
posted by amarynth at 1:59 PM on December 10, 2008

Art Alexakis of Everclear does a great version of Santa Baby that is apparently available on a CD called Kevin and Bean Christmastime in the LBC. I downloaded it on Napster in the late 90's.

(strangely enough, when I Googled this to look up where you can get the track, my comment in an AskMe post came up!)
posted by radioamy at 2:04 PM on December 10, 2008

I cannot listen to anything Celine Dion sings anymore, but her version of O Holy Night is pretty amazing.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 2:05 PM on December 10, 2008 [1 favorite]

Pas/Cal's cover of Last Christmas is brilliant.
posted by ktrey at 2:30 PM on December 10, 2008

Aimee Mann, One More Drifter in the Snow.
posted by lemuria at 2:30 PM on December 10, 2008

laugh if you must, but Hanson's "snowed in" remains one of my favourite Christmas albums. some songs are silly, but their "Silent Night Medley" is one of my favourite songs!
posted by gursky at 2:36 PM on December 10, 2008

Oh god, oh god, oh god. An opportunity has come along where I can finally push Richard Cheese!

Silent Nightclub
posted by puddpunk at 2:41 PM on December 10, 2008

I hate Christmas, but I think this album by Reliant K is very well done.
posted by blaneyphoto at 2:56 PM on December 10, 2008

371 covers of Wham!'s "Last Christmas"

Not recent, but No Doubt covered The Vandals - Oi To The World a few years back.

for that matter, there are tons of punk covers of christmas songs. I'll restrain myself to one, and suggest The A.K.A.s cover of Run DMC's "Christmas in Hollis"
posted by namewithoutwords at 2:57 PM on December 10, 2008

Dunno much about it, but here's Merry X-Mas Dammit from last year, which includes a Richard Cheese song.
posted by ibmcginty at 4:04 PM on December 10, 2008

I second the Maybe This Christmas series. Two and three seem a little more spotty to me, but the first one is terrific. I especially like Jack Johnson's version of Rudolph. Ron Sexsmith's "Maybe This Christmas" (while an original song) has been one of my favorite Christmas songs the last few years.
posted by speeb at 4:12 PM on December 10, 2008

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JNNN0xljqk
also anything by reliant k
posted by Redhush at 5:04 PM on December 10, 2008

Bright Eyes released a Christmas Album in 2002 that features all classic Christmas songs. I'd say that the versions on this album are pretty traditional, but you can definitely tell that it's Conor Oberst.
posted by rebel_rebel at 5:13 PM on December 10, 2008

I gotta admit I wasn't too impressed with Relient K... but this is kinda neat
posted by purpletangerine at 6:44 PM on December 10, 2008

Thanks for all the suggestions! I'm trying to listen to as many as them as I can.
posted by simplethings at 7:55 PM on December 10, 2008

Last year this blog posted twelve indie christmas playlists. A lot of the songs are covers.
posted by tomcochrane at 7:49 AM on December 11, 2008

Oh god, oh god, oh god. An opportunity has come along where I can finally push Richard Cheese!

I hadn't heard of him until a couple of others mentioned him in the recent thread on Star Wars songs. Good recommendation, though.

You also can't go wrong with Brian Setzer's recent Christmas stuff.

There's also James Taylor's '06 album, which includes an amusing version of "Baby It's Cold Outside" with Natalie Cole.

There's the new Metal Xmas album, which includes "Run Rudolph Run" as sung by Lemmy.

And Twisted Sister's '06 album.

And it probably won't work for an audio compilation, but Stevie Riks' excellent impersonations of both Lennon and McCartney briefly doing "Christmas Time Is Here Again" is worth checking out.

(And he's not one of today's popular artists, but... you gotta have Lou Rawls. Although I wish his version of "Little Drummer Boy" were posted somewhere.)
posted by TheSecretDecoderRing at 11:03 PM on December 11, 2008

3rd vote for Sufjan Stevens.
posted by arcticseal at 6:52 PM on December 12, 2008