The very best alternative Christmas 2024 songs: from Kate Bush to Phoebe Bridgers, Low to Mazzy Star
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If the current official chart is to be believed, what is played at Christmas can get a wee bit... repetitive. No disrespect to Mariah Carey, Chris Rea, and co but, when people are holding Whamageddon-style competitions to try to avoid some of these songs, it’s maybe a sign that something new is needed.
With Wham! once more in the frame for a Christmas number one, 2024 could be a year like any other – especially with there being another Band Aid song that is a rehash rather than a remake for its 40th anniversary. Everyone's favourite indie band from Duluth, Minnesota, were never meant to make a Christmas record, but then they did, a slowcore classic that is so swamped in jingle bells it sounds as though it was produced by Phil Spector. The song is a road trip of sorts, heart-breaking and soulful in one fell swoop, a record to play as the snow begins to fall as you're driving into the mountains, and the past reappears like an injured moose. Dylan Jones.
Festive cheer? Making merriment? Soppy and slightly uncomfortable displays of PDA under the mistletoe? Pah, forget about it, and wallow in some icy yearning instead. The title track of the US dream pop band Mazzy Star’s third album Among My Swan, this is just about as miserable as it gets, charting the slow, trudging failure of a relationship and the last ditch efforts to remember the love that first stoked it.
