2017’s alternative playlist is the longest ever, weighing in at 100 songs.
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
There were 16 new songs this year, including tunes from Neil Young, Mumford & Sons, and Sesame Street (yes, the actual Sesame Street; the kids’ show with the Muppets). Because of last year’s experiment – which was making the list entirely made up of new songs or Canadian songs – many of the songs weren’t on the list last year, but weren’t new songs.
Having 100 songs was only practical because of the new format, where I broke the list up into parts – including the video and audio for each song directly in each part – and released it over the course of a week. That seemed to work out well, so I’ll probably be doing the same thing next year.
So here’s the list of songs in 2017’s playlist:
- 100. “Let Me Sleep (Christmas Time)” – Pearl Jam
- 99. “Stripper Christmas Summer Weekend” – GWAR
- 98. “Under the Tree” – The Water Babies
- 97. “No Presents for Christmas” – King Diamond
- 96. “Fallen Snow” – Au Revoir Simone
- 95. “Father Christmas” – The Kinks
- 94. “Christmas is Coming Soon” – Blitzen Trapper
- 93. “Christmas Rules Everything Around Me” – Murs
- 92. “Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want to Fight Tonight)” – Ramones
- 91. “I Won’t Be Home for Christmas” – Blink-182
- 90. “Santa Stole My Lady” – Fitz & The Tantrums
- 89. “All I Want for Christmas is Halloween” – Happy Fangs
- 88. “Winter Paradise (I Miss You This Christmas)” – Liam and Me
- 87. “Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24” – Savatage/Trans-Siberian Orchestra
- 86. “Mistress for Christmas” – AC/DC
- 85. “It’s Christmas So We’ll Stop” – Frightened Rabbit
- 84. “Red Water (Christmas Mourning)” – Type O Negative
- 83. ★ “Alone This Holiday” – The Used
- 82. “Christmas At The Zoo” – The Flaming Lips
- 81. 🍁 “Tinseltown” – Jimmy Rankin
- 80. ★ “You Are My Joy” – The Reindeer Section
- 79. 🍁 “Mistletoe” – Justin Bieber
- 78. “A Spaceman Came Travelling” – Chris de Burgh
- 77. 🍁 “Wintersong” – Sarah McLachlan
- 76. “Is This Christmas?” – The Wombats
- 75. “Mookie’s Last Christmas” – Saosin
- 74. “Shake Up Christmas” – Train
- 73. “Christmas Tree” – Lady Gaga ft. Space Cowboy
- 72. “Carol of the Bells” – George Winston
- 71. “Christmas Night of the Living Dead” – MxPx
- 70. “X-mas Time (It Sure Doesn’t Feel Like It)” – The Mighty Mighty Bosstones
- 69. “Christmas is Cancelled” – The Long Blondes
- 68. “Space Christmas” – Shonen Knife
- 67. “Christmas Day” – The Elders
- 66. “It Doesn’t Often Snow at Christmas” – Pet Shop Boys
- 65. “December Will Be Magic Again” – Kate Bush
- 64. “Sleigh Ride” – TLC
- 63. “My First Xmas (As a Woman)” – The Vandals
- 62. “Footprints in the Snow” – Bill Monroe
- 61. 🍁 “Not So Perfect Christmas” – Brett Kissel
- 60. ★ “Snowblind” – A Band Called Quinn
- 59. “What You Want for Christmas” – Quad City DJ’s, The 69 Boyz, and K-Nock
- 58. “(It’s Gonna Be a) Punk Rock Christmas” – The Ravers
- 57. “Footprints in the Snow” – Emerson, Lake & Palmer
- 56. “Christmas in Prison” – John Prine
- 55. “Christmas with the Devil” – Spın̈al Tap
- 54. ★ “Come On Santa” – The Raveonettes
- 53. ★ “A Hundred More Miles” – Derik Nelson
- 52. ★ “Merry Something to You” – Devo
- 51. “Christmas in Hollis” – Run–D.M.C.
- 50. ★ “Christmas Reindeer” – The Knife
- 49. 🍁 “Christmas Alone” – Current Swell
- 48. ★ “Winter Song” – Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson
- 47. “All That I Want” – The Weepies
- 46. “I Want an Alien for Christmas” – Fountains of Wayne
- 45. “Listen, the Snow is Falling” – Galaxie 500
- 44. “It’s the Holidaze” – Westside Connection
- 43. ★ “Never Ending Winter” – The Daou
- 42. ★ “Soul Christmas” – Graham Parker
- 41. “Christmas Time (Don’t Let the Bells End)” – The Darkness
- 40. “Xmas Cake” – Rilo Kiley
- 39. “Christmas Rappin’” – Kurtis Blow
- 38. “Kidnap the Sandy Claws” – KoЯn
- 37. “Everything’s Gonna Be Cool this Christmas” – eels
- 36. ★ “The Blizzard” – Camera Obscura
- 35. ★ “It’s Christmas and I Miss You” – 38 Special
- 34. “Viking Christmas” – Amon Amarth
- 33. “Stop the Cavalry” – Jona Lewie
- 32. 🍁 “Hang a String of Lights” – Great Lake Swimmers
- 31. “All I Ever Get for Christmas is Blue” – Over The Rhine
- 30. 🍁 “23 décembre” – Beau dommage
- 29. “Christmas in the Trenches” – John McCutcheon
- 28. “Player’s Ball” – OutKast
- 27. “Proper Crimbo” – Bo’ Selecta!
- 26. “Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto” – Belle & Sebastian
- 25. 🍁 “Snow” – Loreena McKennitt
- 24. ★ 🍁 “Winterlong” – Neil Young
- 23. “Christmas Wrapping” – The Waitresses
- 22. 🍁 “Throw Another Log (On The Fire)” – Chic Gamine
- 21. ★ 🍁 “La soirée du hockey” – La Vent du Nord
- 20. 🍁 “First Christmas” – Stan Rogers
- 19. ★ “Winter Winds” – Mumford & Sons
- 18. “Don’t Shoot Me Santa” – The Killers
- 17. “Christmas Lights” – Coldplay
- 16. “The Night Santa Went Crazy” – “Weird Al” Yankovic
- 15. 🍁 “The Mods of Christmas Town” – Zumpano
- 14. “2000 Miles” – The Pretenders
- 13. “All Join Hands” – Slade
- 12. 🍁 “Red White and You” – These Kids Wear Crowns
- 11. 🍁 “Santa Why’d You Do It!?” – Alyssa Reid ft. The Heist
- 10. 🍁 “Christmas Song ⅠⅠ (grinch)” – Grimes
- 9. “Chiron Beta Prime” – Jonathan Coulton
- 8. ★ “Keep Christmas With You (All Through the Year)” – Susan, Gordon, Big Bird, Luis, David, Bob, Prairie Dawn, and Ernie
- 7. 🍁 “Elf’s Lament” – Barenaked Ladies ft. Michael Bublé
- 6. “The Christians and the Pagans” – Dar Williams
- 5. “Fairytale of New York” – The Pogues ft. Kirsty MacColl
- 4. “White Wine in the Sun” – Kate Miller-Heidke
- 3. 🍁 “Song for a Winter’s Night” – Gordon Lightfoot
- 2. 🍁 “River” – Joni Mitchell
- 1. 🍁 “Merry Xmas (Says Your Text Message)” – Dragonette
Another part of the new format this year is the addition of downloadable playlist files. Depending on your setup, you might just be able to click one of the following links and this year’s playlist will start playing in your favourite media player. If that doesn’t work, try right-clicking on the links and choosing “save as” to download the list, then double-clicking the downloaded file or opening it in your media player. Both files are the same list, just in different formats, so try one, and if that doesn’t work, try the other.
Download playlist file:
NOTE: Those playlist files do not include the songs themselves. The playlist files are just lists of links to the songs on the Internet (for example, YouTube). That’s why the playlist files are so small – just a dozen or two kilobytes when a single song runs into the megabytes. But it means that the playlist files won’t work unless you are connected to the Internet. It also means that if the site the song is on is down, or if the song has been removed or the site simply won’t let it play, the song won’t play.
If you have any problems getting the playlist files to work, just leave a comment, and I’ll try to help you out.
Well, that’s it for Indi’s alternative holiday playlist until next year. But, as always, if you have any suggestions that you’d like to see featured on a future list, leave a note in the comments.
See you next year!
So does this have pretty much all the music from the 2016 list? Will you expand the list next year, or just have a runner up list for anything that didn’t make it in the top 100?
The rules vary from year to year based on practicality and my own personal whims. ^_^;
Last year, for example, I decided – on a whim – to make the list 100% either new songs (songs that hadn’t been on the list before) or Canadian songs. So last year, 4⁄5 of the songs were new (and all the rest were Canadian).
This year, I decided to make the list bigger – from 50 songs to 100 – so this year less than 1⁄6 were new songs.
What’s going to happen next year? Depends how I feel at the time! ^_^; I might just do another 100 songs featuring mostly the same, with a few new ones and maybe a few that were on previous lists but not this one, dropping a few from this list. Or I might do something else. It will depend on my mood and what songs are available to me at the time.
I doubt I’ll make the list longer than 100 songs. I have just under 140 songs total from current and past lists, and just over 50 new candidates to consider next year – practically, I doubt more than 20 will be actually useful – so in all likelihood, next year’s list will be ~80 songs from this year’s list with the rest either from past lists or new songs.