Once a year TGEFM lets contributor Julie River break out her “Queen of Mean” hat in order to spend the holiday season critiquing this year’s crop of holiday-themed tunes. Some she loves, some she definitely doesn’t. But what are you gonna do? If you’re gonna wade into the Thunderdome that is HOLIDAY SONGS, you’d damn well better bring your A game. (Oh, and all opinions here are Julie’s. TGEFM still loves you all!)
I love the holidays! I love punk! And I especially love when the two come together! Welcome to my own little holiday workshop where, each week for yet another festive season, I’ll be compiling mini reviews of recent seasonal-themed tracks, whether they be covers of old classics or original songs; and I’ll sort out the naughty from the nice!
Welcome back to another punk rock Christmas season! Time to round up the best Christmas songs from the worlds of punk, the punk adjacent, and everything else.
Bite Me Bambi – “Mall Santa”
Bite Me Bambi has been a band on the rise for a while, becoming known as one of the most fun out of the modern crop of ska bands. “Mall Santa” is less ska than it is Moog-based new wave revival a la The Hippos. Lyrically it’s a really funny song about a creepy stalker woman becoming obsessed with a mall Santa. It has a few jokes about malls which, in the modern e-shopping climate, are on the verge of becoming irrelevant, meaning the song’s joke just barely avoids being overly dated. But overall, it’s just a seriously fun tune.
Christian Lee Hutson – “Silent Night”
Hutson tries to rewrite the traditional Christmas “Silent Night” into a modern, secular track about experiences tied to the Christmas season. Rather than coming off as a joke, it becomes a delicately beautiful little tune about nostalgia that features a clip in the background that I assume is a recording of Hutson as a child celebrating Christmas. I walked into this one expecting to hate the concept and walked out pleasantly surprised.
Cold Years – “Merry Christmas Everyone”
From the cover of the single (which I realize is almost literally judging a book by its cover), I expected an overly serious Christmas song. Instead I got an overly generic one that mostly rattles off a list of things about Christmas and that’s about it. Musically it’s got a touch of rockabilly flavor that saves it from being as uninspired as the lyrics, but the inability to come up with anything original or interesting to say about the holiday is ultimately this song’s downfall.
The Deathtones – “Thankskilling (Gobble Gobble Hey)”
Despite the Ramones reference in the song’s title, it’s a darker metal-inspired track that’s more indebted to later-era Misfits tunes than The Ramones. The song is a horror tale about an evil turkey that turns on humans (specifically the white man because somehow Native Americans raised the turkey demon, and I’m way too white to be the one to decide if that’s okay or not). It’s a bit of a one-note joke that the band plays out a little longer than they should. But that’s not the last we’ll hear of The Deathtones today.
The Deathtones – Horrordays EP
The Deathtones EP Horrordays alternates between straight covers of Christmas classics and horror parodies of classic Christmas songs. Aside from the bizarrely dark take on the tracks that surprisingly works for “Silent Night” and “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” there’s not much to be said for the covers. “Black Christmas” is a dark take on Christmas that goes so dark it becomes a parody of itself, which I’m pretty sure is the whole point. “Silent Night 2: Black Death Boogaloo” goes a little too dark to carry off the joke it’s attempting. “Hark! The Herald Demons Sing” has a really cool organ part to it, but it’s trying too hard to go dark, such that the joke they’re trying to make doesn’t really land. I get what Deathtones are trying to do with this EP, but it’s a swing and a miss.
Future Radio – “Another Christmas Song”
This song is a bit of a lyrical mess as it’s basically a song complaining about the oversaturation of Christmas songs, then admits it’s adding to that oversaturation by being a Christmas song. It’s a bit of a self-defeating thematically. Musically it’s very generic alt-rock that doesn’t do much to elevate the lyrics.
Ghost Town Remedy – Terminally Chill EP
Ghost Town Remedy’s holiday EP Terminally Chill starts out with a track called “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Shredmas,” which features a guest appearance by The Dreaded Laramie. I was expecting this song to be an original song about snowboarding, so imagine my surprise when the song turned out to be an exact cover of the 1951 Christmas hit “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” with the title inexplicably changed. The other two tracks on the EP are a bit more fun as “Winnebago” is a fun ditty about the headache that is traveling during the holidays, and “This December” which is basically a Christmas-themed emo song. All the songs are a lot of fun musically, which just about makes up for the opening track’s bait-and-switch.
Goodnight Sunrise – “Single All the Way”
Imagine my disappointment in finding this song wasn’t about the Netflix gay, Christmas rom-com of the same name. Actually, the song is a fun little pop-punk track about the frustrations of being single around the holidays. It’s a clever little tune with some cute jokes, but doesn’t amount to much more than a lighthearted joke of a song.
Titus Andronicus – “Drummer Boy”
Titus Andronicus’ “Drummer Boy” is not a cover of the traditional Christmas song “Little Drummer Boy,” but rather a rewrite of Billy Joel’s classic “Piano Man” reimagined to be about the story of Jesus’ birth. It manages to avoid getting too religious by virtue of the fact that the song is a parody. It really lands for what it is: a novelty tune.
Vista Blue – We Practiced All Year Long EP
The two-track EP begins with the surf-inspired “Santa, Teach Me to Dance” which is a lot of fun with its ‘50s elements that give it a nice throwback feel. “Why Is the Carpet All Wet, Todd” makes one brief mention of Christmas so I guess it also counts as a Christmas song, even though most of the lyrics are just a repetition of the song’s title. Basically the appeal of this EP is the first track, with its B-side a definite throwaway.
We Are the Union – “Yr Always Alone (on Christmas)”
We top off today’s Yelling at the Xmas Tree the band I awarded album of the year to last year. We Are the Union give us a little Weezer with a touch of ska in a rather cynical holiday track about loneliness for the holiday. Reade Wolcott’s lyrics are packed with visceral imagery like “Barbed wire love/A minefield in the living room.” The song seems to be about being rejected by loved ones for the holidays which might be linked to the experience of being trans and/or queer. This makes it the perfect anthem for queer people struggling around the holidays.
Julie is punk rock, lesbian time lady from the future. The greatest things in the world are punk rock and science fiction. Check out her website JulieRiver.com!
