Indi’s alternative holiday playlist – 2017 – Preamble

Each year I put together a list of holiday-themed songs that nonbelievers can enjoy, to escape the mind-numbing repetition and over-the-top religiosity of standard holiday music. This year I’m doing things a little differently.

Indi’s alternative holiday playlist 2017:

• Preamble
• #100 to #81
• #80 to #61
• #60 to #41
• #40 to #21
• #20 to #1
• Summary (and downloadable playlists)

Legend:

🍁 = Canadian
★ = New this year

For details on the criteria used to create this list, see the post requesting suggestions a few weeks back. But basically, because the repetitive, low-quality crap that passes for holiday music is actually a health hazard, I am trying to make a list of songs that sound different. That means no parodies, because a parody of “Jingle Bells” is still basically “Jingle Bells”. But it also means no songs that have the “sound” associated with “normal” holiday music. I try to select songs from a diversity of genres, so the list has everything from bluegrass to black metal, children’s tunes to gangsta rap.

And while I’m at it, I also try for songs that have humanist messages – or at least, songs that aren’t overtly religious – and that are preferably Canadian. This is Canadian Atheist, after all.

This year, I’m changing the format a bit. In the past, I simply listed all the songs in a single post with links to places where you could listen to them. This had two drawbacks. First, it made the list really hard to digest in a single reading. Second, it was annoying to have to click on each link to hear the songs.

So this year, instead of putting the whole list in a single post, I’ve broken it up over five posts, which will be published over the coming week. Each post will have only a few songs, so it will be a lot easier to swallow. But additionally, the video or audio for each song will be inline in the page, so you can listen as you read rather than having to repeatedly click away.

As a side benefit of the new format, I’m able to add a lot more songs. Previous lists were ~50 songs; this list is 100 songs.

So! Starting tomorrow and every day this week, watch out for the five posts that will make up Indi’s alternative holiday playlist 2017. And on Sunday, I’ll post a summary post with the full list in one (just the song titles and links, no inline audio/video, and no blurbs) with links to playlist files you can download that should allow you to listen to the whole list with your favourite media player.