the soul santas

21 New Holiday Songs Out This Week

The holidays are upon us, and whether you’re feeling festive or not, musicians are climbing aboard the tinsel 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.We already posted dozens of new holiday songs this year so far. Here are more that came out this week.

THE SOUL SANTAS (BEAK>) – CHRISTMAS CRACKERS, VOL 1

The Soul Santas are Beak>’s Geoff Barrow and Billy Fuller, plus Geoff’s scoring partner Ben Salisbury, and Sean Snook who played a one-off Christmas show back in 2014. They recently found a recording of that show, which inspired them to record this record live at Barrow’s Invada Studios back in October. Christmas Crackers, Vol 1 features soul/surf instrumental covers of standards such as “White Christmas,” “We Three Kings” and “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.” All proceeds go to Feed the Homeless Bristol.

YACHT – “CHRISTMAS ALONE (2020)”

“A few years ago we made a goofy Christmas song about how much we love spending the holidays at home in Los Angeles,” write YACHT about this new song. “Empty freeways, takeout Sichuan, matinees at the Arclight. In 2020, California is the global epicenter of the pandemic and we’re spending Christmas at home again—only this year we’re alone, and so is everyone we love. We revised our song, “Christmas Alone,” to reflect our mood this year: scared, angry, and exhausted, and above all grateful that we made it through 2020 safely. We’ve been lucky, but so many people in our community have not. The number of people experiencing food insecurity has nearly tripled in Los Angeles since the pandemic began. All proceeds from the sale of “Christmas Alone” will be donated directly to the Los Angeles Food Bank. If you want to make a donation but you don’t care about our music, you can donate to our virtual food drive directly below. We’ve set a goal for $1,000—which may not seem like a whole lot, but it will provide about 4,000 meals to hungry families in Los Angeles this season. Have a safe and happy holiday, wherever you are.”

SINKANE & FRIENDS – “CHRISTMAS WRAPPING” (WAITRESSES COVER)

This cover of The Waitress’ new wave holiday classic — featuring Nancy Whang, Money Mark and more — is pretty faithful to the original, with Nancy bringing that slightly ironic vocal attitude the song needs. Proceeds go to Food Bank of New York City.

JESSE BLOCKTON – “COVID CHRISTMAS”

“The airports are empty and the stores are all closed / and Santa’s in lockdown cuz an elf was exposed / turn on the computer and grandma just froze” — former Vitamen frontman Jesse Blockton has written a very fun, very catchy, very 2020 holiday jam. “Zoom, zoom, zoom, it’s a COVID Christmas!”

AMBER COFFMAN – “HARD CANDY CHRISTMAS” (DOLLY PARTON COVER)

“Surprise! I made a spontaneous cover of one of my favorite Christmastime songs, Hard Candy Christmas,” exclaims Amber Coffman of her very good cover of Dolly’s holiday classic.

THE FLAMING LIPS – “A CHANGE AT CHRISTMAS (SAY IT ISN’T SO)”

The Flaming Lips have made a new video for their 2011 holiday song “A Change at Christmas,” featuring Wayne Coyne’s very cute kid.

MAC DEMARCO – “HAVE YOURSELF A MERRY LITTLE CHRISTMAS”

One of the all-time great holiday songs, and written for Judy Garland’s Meet Me in St Louis, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” has just a splash of melancholy that Mac DeMarco makes the best of in his version that’s very much in his dreamy style.

LYDIA LOVELESS – “MERRY CHRISTMAS”

All proceeds from Lydia Loveless’ melancholy new Christmas song go to Mid-Ohio Foodbank.

BLACK MARBLE – ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS YOU” (MARIAH CAREY COVER)

“Given all that’s happened in the last year It struck me as likely that many of us are in the same boat right now,” says Black Marble’s Chris Stewart of this cover of Mariah Carey’s holiday classic. “Thinking about this idea of missing our friends and loved ones and wondering when we will be able to gather together again, I usually take it for granted that I’ll be able to see my family for instance at this time, but for me and a lot of us this year, those plans were put on hold. The original intent of the song seems more playful, but because of these ideas, it took on, for me, more of a tone of longing and wishing to be with the people you care about and not having much appetite for the usual more commercial trappings of the season in light of this thing we’re all going through. Also, I mean who doesn’t love some Mariah Carey around this time – and I thought it would be fun to do a more synthy take on such a well-known classic pop song as well as update it tonally to reflect this current reality.” Stewart makes the song very Black Marble-y and you might not even realize it was the same song unless you were paying attention to the words.

FOLK UKE WITH RANDY WEEKS – “ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS (IS YOU TO LEAVE)”

“The song reflects a lot of my true life experiences with relationships, except for the mistletoe,” says Folk Uke’s Amy Nelson of their original holiday song. “It’s an ‘I need my space’ song. Something that I think a lot of people can relate to.”

BLACK DRESSES – “WORLD PEACE” FT. ESPER99

Black Dresses, the experimental duo of Devi McCallion and Ada Rook, broke up earlier this year, but they’re shared this 2019 track which they collaborated with Los Angeles artist ESPer99 on. “This song was composed and recorded in November 2019,” they write, “a time of great turmoil for everyone involved. ESPer99, having been coerced out of their LA sublet by repeat SWATings, joined us for a month in our new Hamilton apartment. While ESPer99 & Rook finished the album rook&nomie – me&you, this triune collaboration took shape as well.”

ALLEGAEON – “LAST CHRISTMAS” (ft. TRAVIS RYAN & TREVOR STRNAD)

Last week, we posted a screamo cover of “Last Christmas” by floral patterns., and now here’s a brutal death/grind cover by Allegaeon with help from Cattle Decapitation’s Travis Ryan and The Black Dahlia Murder’s Trevor Strnad.

BNLX – “WHAT DO YOU HAVE UNDER THE TREE FOR ME?”

Minneapolis’ BLNX, the band led by the late Ed Ackerson, has brought his 2010 holiday rarity out of cold storage. “What Do You Have Under the Tree for Me?” is a delightfully playful song, a post-punk Xmas song that’s as cold as December. “The composition incorporates thematically appropriate acoustical elements (Lapland sleigh bells, chimes from Hallgrimskirkja in Reykjavik) along with a list of requests for material objects directed at a theoretical provider of gifts,” says the BLNX report that accompanies the song. “The content of the composition is based upon analysis of popular thematic elements in seasonal music as expressed in Western popular culture of the 19th-21st centuries, and as such should prove to be enjoyable to a wide range of individuals.”

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