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Playlist of the month: my favourite Christmas songs

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Screenshot of the cover of my favourite Christmas songs playlist on Spotify

Now that I’m blogging regularly again, I’ve decided to start a new monthly feature where I post a playlist of 10 songs, all around a theme. Last month was guitar heavy indie rock, and this month, because it’s December, I’ve chosen Christmas music.

If you want to listen along, here’s the Spotify playlist.

  • ‘Underneath the Tree’ by Kelly Clarkson. Probably the best new-ish Christmas pop song that I’ve heard of late, although it’s still a decade old.
  • ‘Fairytale of New York’ by The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl. We’ll disregard the gay slur in the lyrics, but it’s a good song with humour. If you prefer, this cover by Grace Petrie is good too. Sadly we lost The Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan last month.
  • ‘I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day’ by Wizzard. Probably my favourite classic Christmas pop song, although Wizzard’s lead singer Roy Wood is a bit racist nowadays.
  • ‘Stay Another Day’ by East 17. Is this a Christmas song? The lyrics are not explicitly about Christmas, but it was a Christmas number one in 1994 in the UK and the addition of bells make it sufficiently Christmassy for me.
  • ‘Christmas Time (Don’t Let The Bells End)’ by The Darkness. There’s room for more than one glam rock band to have a Christmas song, and this mid-2000s song by The Darkness is a better ‘new’ song.
  • ‘Christmas Truce’ by Sabaton. Sabaton are a Scandinavian metal band who sing historically accurate songs about war. This one is about the Christmas Truce from the First World War.
  • ‘Last Christmas’ by Carly Rae Jepson. Whamhalla is over for 2023 – I got out after just 36 hours this year. But if you were playing, then covers didn’t count, and this is my favourite cover version.
  • ‘Jingle Bell Rock’ by Our Last Night. This metal cover band pops up regularly in my Release Radar playlist on Spotify, as they release new songs regularly. This is their interpretation of this Christmas classic.
  • ‘Merry Axe-Mas’ by Nine Inch Nails. More metal, but not a cover this time.
  • ‘Wonderful Christmastime’ by Pentatonix. Paul McCartney’s original has always been just a bit too eighties for me. I prefer this a cappella version.

I’ll be back with another playlist sometime in January.

Playlist of the month: guitar-heavy indie rock

by
Screenshot of the guitar heavy indie rock playlist on Spotify

Now that I’m blogging regularly again, I’ve decided to start a new monthly feature where I post a playlist of 10 songs, all around a theme. With a few hours to go until the end of the month, here’s this month’s playlist.

These songs are all indie rock songs with a big guitar riffs, and are some of my favourite songs. If you want to listen along, here’s the Spotify playlist.

  • ‘Steve McQueen’ by The Automatic. This was the first single from this band’s second album, ‘This Is A Fix’. It starts with thumping guitars, and never lets up. Whilst The Automatic are best known for their debut single, ‘Monster’, this is my favourite.
  • ‘When We Wake Up’ by Asylums. I can’t quite remember how I came across this song but it’s great, and only has around 60,000 streams on Spotify so far. There’s a catchy chorus and powerful guitar riffs all of the way through.
  • ‘Praise Be’ by The Plea. Another less well-known band who I found out about because they supported Ash on tour. I really like this song and it’s surprising that it’s not more well known.
  • ‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams’ by Green Day. I’m sure people will argue whether this fits the theme, but I would argue that it’s one of their best songs from their best album.
  • ‘Ruby’ by Kaiser Chiefs. The first single from their second album, with strong guitars from the start and a catchy chorus.
  • ‘Nothing’ by A. Calling your band ‘A’ probably made sense in the days when people bought singles from high street record stores, but the move to digital platforms makes this song a little harder to find.
  • ‘Dirty Little Secret’ by The All-American Rejects. Another first single from a second album; whilst it’s not my favourite song by this band, it fits the theme.
  • ‘I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor’ by Arctic Monkeys. Their debut single, and their best, in my view. I know it’s a controversial opinion but none of their subsequent singles have been as good as this.
  • ‘Orpheus’ by Ash. I mentioned Ash earlier, and as they’re the band I’ve seen the most (three times) I should include one of theirs.
  • ‘Just A Day’ by Feeder. Originally a B-side to ‘Seven Days In The Sun’, this ended up being a single for a later Greatest Hits album, and is arguably among their best songs.

I’ll do another playlist of 10 songs next month. With it being December, no prizes for guessing the theme.