December Music

I'm working on a list of best singles from 2009 (once I'm finished adding years to songs), but it might take me another week or so to get my act together on that. Having 3/4ths of your Christmas vacation unexpectedly canceled does stuff like that to even the most anal rententive of music listeners. You can bet my best of list won't have The Mountain Goats, Animal Collective, Neko Case, or The Flaming Lips on it, unlike Pitchfork's. blech.

Anyway, besides listening to my favorite Christmas songs, I added a whole bunch of new MP3s to my collection last month.

30 Seconds To Mars - This Is War
A Match For The Curious - Solid Ground
Able Baker Fox - Brand New Moses
Absent Kid - Shoot On Sight
AFI - Prelude 12 21
As Tall As Lions - You Can't Take It With You
Astro Firs - Battery Power
Bear In Heaven - You Do You
Blood On The Tracks - Without You
Blue Knives - Million Stars
Bombay Bicycle Club - What If
Boy & Bear - Mexican Mavis
Brand New - Sowing Season (Yeah)
Dan Bryk - Love Me For Christmas
Deacon Blue - Your Town
Deadboy & the Elephantmen - Waking Up Insane
Dirty South - Sleazy
Dredg - I Don't Know
Elevator - Memories Of You
Elf Power - The Spider And The Fly
Elysian Fields - Bend Your Mind
Evermore - It's Too Late
Field Music - She Can Do What She Wants
Flyleaf - Again
Ginny Clee - I Wrote Your Name
Grand Prize - Break Me
Gyroscope - Beware Wolf
Hymns of Eden - All I Need
Juliette Lewis - Ghosts
Kori Linae Carothers - Crystal Fields
Looking For Heather - Night Song
Noon Blue - We Always Said
Pearl Jam - Immortality (I know, I'm surprised too given I generally dislike them)
Plants and Animals - Feedback In The Field
Rachael Yamagata - Faster
Red - Death of Me
Shooting John - War (I Hardly Know You)
Simon Field - Need Out
Starlight Mints - Paralyzed
Taking Back Sunday - Sink Into Me
The Bicycles - Australia
The Cure - Lullaby
The Kooks - Do You Wanna
The Phoebus Mass - Attention Seeking Behaviour
The Pigeon Detectives - This Is An Emergency
Today the Moon, Tomorrow the Sun - Bones
William Fitzsimmons - Heartless (Kanye West cover?!)
Winter Gloves - Invisible

As usual:
Bold = I have other songs by them in my mp3/cd collection
Italic = I'd heard but didn't like other songs by them
neither = never heard of them before

So...if I really like a song, I'm prone to putting it on repeat...for as long as an hour or two. So it shouldn't surprise you, then, that not only do I collect multiple versions of my favorite Christmas songs (all neatly filed into folders by song title), I also on occasion will listen to several versions of the same song all in a row too. This apparently makes other people around me a little stabby, but what can you do?

I'll limit myself just to a favorite version of each of my favorite holiday songs, though.

Robert Downey Jr - Wish I Had A River (from Ally McBeal)
Barenaked Ladies - Footprints
Elvis - Blue Christmas
August Burns Red - Carol of the Bells
Death Cab for Cutie - Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)
Christine McVie- Coventry Carol
Vertical Horizon - I Believe in Father Christmas
The Kinks - Father Christmas
Barenaked Ladies & Sarah McLachlan - God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen/We Three Kings
Wham - Last Christmas of the twenty-two versions I have, I still like this one best
Doll Squad - Merry Christmas (I Don't Want to Fight Tonight)
As Fast As - Wonderful Christmastime I like this despite their association with Rusted Root

"Satan, settle down. Keep your trousers on. You can warm the globe, but leave my wretched soul alone. I don't know you, and I don't owe you a thing." - Margot and the Nuclear So and Sos, A Children's Crusade on Acid