santa-baby

19 New Holiday Songs Released This Week

The holidays are upon us and, whether you’re feeling festive or not, musicians are climbing aboard the holiday bandwagon with new songs for the season. We offer to you a week’s worth of them, nestled in one place, like gifts under a tree.

ME FIRST AND THE GIMME GIMMES – “SANTA BABY”

Punk rock supergroup cover band Me First and the Gimme Gimmes may not surprise you with their new Christmas cover — they punk up Eartha Kitt’s saucy standard — but they deliver the goods with zeal.

WILLIAM SHATNER – “RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER” (FT. BILLY GIBBONS)

Earlier this year William Shatner released his first holiday album, titled Shatner Claus of course, which featured covers of holiday classics that can only be described as Shatneresque. The record features a wide variety of guests, from Iggy Pop and Henry Rollins to Todd Rundgren and Judy Collins. Here’s a new music video for “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” featuring ZZ-Top’s Billy Gibbons and looks like they had fun making.

LOLA KIRKE – “CROSS YOU OFF MY LIST” & “LITTLE DRUMMER GIRL”

Lola Kirke, who is from the very talented Kirke family (see also sisters Jemima and Lola, whose father, Simon, was drummer for Bad Company and Free), released her debut album, Heart Head West, earlier this year and recently gifted us with these two slightly smoky/twangy holiday songs — one an original and one an update of a Christmas standard.

THE BETHS – “HAVE YOURSELF A MERRY LITTLE CHRISTMAS”

New Zealand band The Beths just released a holiday 7″ featuring their take on this wistful standard — first heard in from Judy Garland Christmas classic Meet Me in St. Louis — which begins in very standard fashion but then stomps on the fuzzbox.

PHOEBE BRIDGERS – “CHRISTMAS SONG”

Phoebe Bridgers is making it an annual thing to release a Christmas song, and this year’s is a cover of McCarthy Trenching‘s 2008 song “Christmas Song.” It’s fantastic.

WAVVES – “EMO CHRISTMAS” / “SO GLAD IT’S CHRISTMAS”

Wavves snuck this pair of short, Christmas-themed originals under the tree, which both fuse the band’s fuzzy, guitar-driven sound with melancholic themes of heartbreak around the holidays.

VARIOUS ARTISTS – STARS

UK indiepop labe WIAIWYA just released this nine-track holiday compilation featuring onetime Hefner frontman Darren Hayman, White Town (yes, of ’90s hit “Your Woman”), former Allo Darlin’ bassist Bill Botting, The Catenary Wires (ft. Amelia Fletcher of Heavenly/Talulah Gosh) and more delivering jangly originals.

LE COULEUR – “LE DERNIER NOEL”

Montreal synthpop act try their hand at writing a Christmas song and offer up the slinky, sophisticated “Le Dernier Noel” (The Last Christmas).

MARK KOZELEK – “DO YOU HEAR WHAT I HEAR?” (LIVE IN NORWAY)

Sun Kil Moon’s Mark Kozelek released a Christmas album back in 2014 and clearly enjoys the holidays in his own way. He just wrapped up a European tour where he peppered sets with Christmas songs, including doing “Do You Hear What I Hear?” in Bergen, Norway on Wednesday (11/27) which, he notes, he did as practice for this weekend’s Christmas show in NYC with actor Kevin Corrigan.

Looking for even more new songs? Browse the ‘New Songs’ archive and our “Holiday Music” category.