Here's a compilation of 14 terrific indie Christmas songs for your listening pleasure. It includes songs/videos by The Linda Lindas, Stars, Arkells, The Lathams, Kyts, Pale Waves, Sufjan Stevens, Phoebe Bridgers, Calexico, Holy Moly & The Crackers, Sparks, Marika Hackman, KT Tunstall, and Lucius. I think my favorite on the list is Phoebe Bridgers' cover of The Handsome Family's So Much Wine. Indie is Not a Genre explains:
Phoebe Bridgers releases a charity track every year around Christmas. This year, the songstress has recorded her version of The Handsome Family's So Much Wine. This year's proceeds will go to the Los Angeles LGBTQ Center which specialises in helping those living with HIV. So Much Wine is the sixth of her Christmas cover, following on from last year's rendition of Tom Waits' Day After Tomorrow. In 2020 she covered Merle Haggard's If We Make It Thru December (2020), Simon & Garfunkel's 7 O'Clock News/Silent Night (2019), McCarthy Trenching's Christmas Song (2018), and Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (2017).
My absolute favorite indie Christmas song doesn't show up on either list, though, so I'll add it as number 15/101: Jenny Owen Youngs' "Things We Don't Need Anymore." I fell in love with the sad song about a Christmas breakup in 2007, and now, in 2022, in the midst of the ongoing pandemic during which public health systems have failed so many and so many people have lost loved ones, the song takes on an even more heartbreaking meaning. As Jenny Owen Youngs sings, "Here's to wishes that'll never come true."
I clearly have a thing for depressing Christmas songs.
Indie is Not a Genre also includes a link to a 100-song Indie Christmas Spotify playlist, which includes the 14 they feature. They're not all sad though, I promise.
