Jamie

Knox Road's Christmas Mix

So last year, I did a series called “12 Days of Christmas Music” and it was great! Very much a lot of fun! But this December was kind of hectic, very much a lot of busy. So I’m going to have to make you wait until next year for a comprehensive, 12-day [...]

Abby

[Abby's Road] Music and mindfulness

Don’t you hate it when you excitedly tell a coworker about the early 2009 Christmas present of a Joy Division “Transmission” 12” [FAC 13.12 (12") 1980] you received from your boyfriend and they look at you with confusion and scorn? No? Well, it stinks. Let me tell you why. Perhaps a lesson [...]

Jamie

12 Days of Christmas Music: Bing Crosby’s “Merry Christmas”

Merry Christmas (to all who celebrate that sort of thing)! To conclude this series is the greatest Christmas album of all time, Bing Crosby’s Merry Christmas. Sure, I’m old fashioned, and maybe this is a lame pick because, OH Bing Crosby is SOOO predictable and great blah blah blah. Well he is [...]

Jamie

12 Days of Christmas Music: Odds and Ends

It’s Christmas Eve, making this day 11 of the series. Before tomorrow’s big reveal of the greatest Christmas album of all time, here are some of the random bits of Christmas I came across this month.

The Best Christmas Music Video Ever

Ali Lohan, Lindsay’s 15-year-old younger sister, decided [...]

Jamie

12 Days of Christmas Music: The Hotel Cafe’s “Winter Songs” Compilation

LA music venue The Hotel Cafe put out a holiday compilation this year called “Winter Songs.” Since The Hotel Cafe focuses on female singer/songwriters, the album is solely that. All your favorite women of music like KT Tunstall, Ingrid Michaelson, Fiona Apple and Katy Perry (singer/songwriter? Really?) are there giving you soft [...]

Jamie

12 Days of Christmas Music: Sufjan Stevens

The story goes that every year between 2001 and 2006 (sans 2004) Sufjan Stevens would record an EP of Christmas songs to give out to his family and friends. In 2006 he decided to gather all the EPs together and release them in one giant collection called Songs For Christmas. The set [...]

Jamie

12 Days of Christmas Music: “The Nutcracker”

Over 100 years ago, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky wrote a two-act ballet about a young girl, a living nutcracker and mice that captured people’s imaginations and became an instant holiday staple. Some of you might not be that into what you may call “classical” music, but Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker” is a real masterpiece. Just think of [...]

Jamie

12 Days of Christmas Music: Belle & Sebastian’s Live “Peel Christmas Party”

Back in 2002, our favorite Scottish band Belle & Sebastian recorded a Christmas set for some kind of party thrown by John Peel. What exists of it is a bootleg recording that puts other bootlegs to shame. The quality is awesome and the band is too. They play a bunch of holiday [...]

Jamie

12 Days of Christmas Music: “A Very Special Christmas” (1987)

I know that this album is nothing new, and that by now a lot of the songs on it are considered cheesy or stale. But I think it’s an important landmark in the history of Christmas music, and besides, it has a legitimate Christmas rap song! The 1987 album was the [...]

Jamie

12 Days of Christmas Music: Weird Collaborations

Day 5 of our Christmas music series goes to those bizarre collaborations that have happened this year. Seriously, I want to see the meeting where these people get together and say “You know what would be swell? Us making a Christmas song together!”

“A Christmas Duel”

The first track [...]