Monday, 22 December 2014

TOP TEN ROCK/INDIE CHRISTMAS SONGS


The Maccabees – Walking in the Air
This song brings back many memories of powering my way through the tears involved in an annual watching of The Snowman, and I always found the unbroken choral voice on the original slightly irritating, so the Maccabees cover is my preferred option. 



Peace – Last Christmas
I first heard this cover at Peace’s gig at Shepherd’s Bush last December; the combination of one of my favourite bands and one of my favourite Christmas songs is perfect, Harrison Koisser puts his unique flavour on any song he covers.








The Kinks – Father Christmas
An alternative contrast to the typical Christmas song, this doesn’t romanticise the holiday or even Father Christmas himself. I only found this song recently, but I like it. 











Guns N’ Roses – White Christmas
You can’t get any further from the original recording of this song before going into another language, so naturally Guns N’ Roses’ take on the classic White Christmas isn’t going to be for everyone…it’s heavy and not exactly very festive. Saying that, I think completely swaying from an old song’s original direction isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and this cover definitely proves that.





Coldplay – Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Everyone knows Christmas Lights so I didn’t think I really would have much to say about it. However, when I looked it up I found this - it’s simple and I always like Chris Martin’s vocals, even if I don’t really listen to that much Coldplay.








Noel Gallagher – Merry Christmas Everybody
A toned down version of the 1973 hit by Slade, this is another example of a great song being re-directed completely differently to its original mood and still being equally good, even if it is significantly less well-known.







The Killers - Don't Shoot Me Santa
This is probably one of the less well known songs by The Killers, it doesn't feature on any of their albums. I hadn't heard it until this year but it was a 2007 release and it is available on Spotify; it's really not a bad song so I'm surprised not a lot has been said about it. 







The XX – Last Christmas
Usually I’m not the biggest fan of The XX, but this song works so perfectly for the band that I had to include it on my list. I don’t like it as much as I like Peace’s version, but they're so different that it wouldn't really be fair to compare them.








Peace – All I want for Christmas is you
Peace have a couple of great Christmas covers, this one is laidback and takes the pop out of the Mariah Carey original. I’m not really sure what it has to do with Radiohead’s Creep.











The Wombats – Is this Christmas?
This is easily my favourite song on my list; listening to it makes it quite difficult to come to terms with the fact that I have to wait a whole four months to see the Wombats (although I highly doubt they will play a Christmas song in April). This is the only Christmas song that I can actually listen to throughout the year, I'm expecting the Wombats to have a very happy 2015.

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