What's New In 2022? Hip Christmas Music (www.hipchristmas.com)

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Criminy! It's December, and Christmas is around the corner. The new releases have been pouring in - new singles, especially. Otherwise, 2022 has been dominated by colorful vinyl reissues and dubious deluxe editions - par for the course, really, in recent years. But, there's some cool stuff, too - and more is yet to come. Anyway, this page lists reissues, new albums, a relative handful of singles, and my own picks for Top 10 Albums and Top 10 Singles.

Be aware, this is a curated list of the year's best and/or most notable Christmas music - which is to say, hardly exhaustive - and lots more has yet to be announced. Most especially, I have all but resigned from following new music except for "legacy artists" that I have a personal interest in - this year, for example, Andy Partridge. So, be sure to visit my festive friends like Mistletunes, Christmas Underground, and Christmas A Go Go! to keep up with the youngsters. And, the big news is that Stubby's back (sort of) with his big ol' honkin' list of everything.

What am I missing, fellow Christmas fanatics? Drop me a line... Of course, happy holidays, stay safe, and follow me over at The Facebook!

Randy Anthony

Top 10 Albums

This year, as always, I feel compelled to point out that some really big stars are releasing Christmas albums, including new records by, Debbie Gibson, Backstreet Boys, Joss Stone, Gloria Estefan, and (yet again) Pentatonix, plus high-profile reissues by Neil Diamond, Kylie Minogue, and Leslie Odom, Jr. The problem is, I don't care. Instead, here are my favorite 10 releases, in alphabetical order. But remember, we're just getting started. In this fast-moving digital age, there's always more to come....

Louis Armstrong / Louis Wishes You A Cool Yule (2022)
Verve's new compilation of Satchmo's Christmas music is a mixed blessing. True, it may be the best-ever collection devoted solely to that classic, classic stuff - most notably, six sides he cut for Decca in the 1950's including "'Zat You Santa Claus," "Cool Yule," and "Christmas Night in Harlem." Plus, the cover art (based on a late 50's European vinyl EP) is too cute for words, and it includes a previously unheard alternate take of "A Visit from St. Nicholas." But, at 11 tracks, it's painfully brief (at least on CD) and sadly incomplete. By my count, Armstrong contributed to at least four more Christmas songs, including several positively seminal sides in the 1920's. Still, Louis Wishes You A Cool Yule will be hard to pass up - even if Verve's parent company, deep-pocketed behemoth Universal Music, could've done better. (read more)

Ray Charles / The Spirit of Christmas (1985)
I'm on record that Ray Charles' 1985 release The Spirit of Christmas is one of the all-time great holiday albums. It's an album that does justice both to Ray's legacy as the "Genius of Soul" - he practically invented the stuff in the 1950's with his wild fusion of rhythm 'n' blues and gospel music - and his then-status as an elder statesman of the genre. The Spirit of Christmas is, indeed, stately, as well as simultaneously funky, sentimental, and joyful - while it swings assuredly. So, the big news is simply that it's back in print, this time courtesy of Ray's own label, Tangerine. This new edition does not include the frequent bonus track, Ray's 1962 duet with Betty Carter, "Baby, It's Cold Outside," but if you don't own a copy, grab it while you can. (read more)

Holly Cole / Baby It's Cold Outside and I Have The Christmas Blues (1989-2001)
As a jazz singer possessed with preternatural charm, style, finesse, and skill, Holly Cole never broke through like she deserved - like, say, Diane Krall or Norah Jones. But, she's done alright during a career now verging on 40 years, particularly in her homeland, Canada. Her recording debut was, in fact, a holiday EP called Christmas Blues (1989), and she followed that up in 2001 with a full album, Baby It's Cold Outside. This year, she mixes the two releases in a single fruitcake called (wait for it) Baby It's Cold Outside and I Have The Christmas Blues. It includes most, but not all, of the tracks from both albums plus a previously unreleased version of "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town."

Kat Edmonson / Holiday Swingin' Vol. 1 (2021)
Despite the fact that Kat Edmonson is a native Texan and launched her career in my hometown of Austin, the first time I heard of her was when she served as Lyle Lovett's foil on his 2011 holiday EP, Songs For The Season. Ten years later, Kat cut her own Christmas album, Holiday Swingin', a collection of modern and traditional songs in her typical understated-but-groovy style. But, it was a digital-only release - something that's been rectified this year with its release on CD and vinyl. Edmonson is a facile and charming, sometimes coy singer who incorporates tones of jazz, blues, and classic pop - and yet sounds very much of the modern age. This style, unsurprisingly, suits the material well, and I look forward to the implied second volume!

Duke Ellington, The Nutcracker Suite (1960)
I'm 99% sure this is new this year - all the online evidence dates it as 1960 when, I'm pretty sure, the internet did not exist. If I'm right, it's kind of a big deal. Sony has never properly reissued Duke Ellington's 1960 Columbia LP "Nutcracker Suite" in America, and only briefly in Europe. The "Nutcracker" is, of course, a longstanding holiday tradition, but Ellington's version is more a jazz record than a Christmas album. Still, it's the work of three geniuses - Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, and Peter Tchaikovsky - so I'll allow it. The album is best known for "Sugar Rum Cherry," an interpretation of Tchaikovsky's "Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairy," which has shown up on a few fine jazz compilations, including Sony's Jingle Bell Swing (1999). The rest of the album is pretty rare - though it was included in its entirety on Three Suites (1990), part of the early, extensive Columbia Jazz Masterpieces CD series. This new version is a digital-only "expanded edition" with 10 bonus tracks recorded in 1961 and previously compiled by Columbia as The Girl's Suite (1982). It's about time, and this is certainly better than nothing, but maybe they'll do CD or LP next year.

Chris Isaak / Everybody Knows It's Christmas (2022)
I'm old enough to have witnessed Chris Isaak's emergence as the "It Boy" of roots rock back in the late 80's, culminating with "Wicked Game" (1989), which became a huge hit after it appeared in the 1990 David Lynch film Wild at Heart. More than a decade later, Isaak gave us his first holiday album, simply titled Christmas (2004) - also reissued this year, by the way. It was a mix of original songs and covers steeped in his usual cooly laconic musical style and self-deprecatingly ironic sense of humor - as well as his lingering fascination with another former "It Boy" from Tupelo, Mississippi. Its sequel, Everybody Knows It's Christmas, promises more of the same - Isaak knows what he likes and likes what he knows. (read more)

Norah Jones / I Dream Of Christmas: Deluxe Edition (2021)
The last few years have been plagued by bogus "deluxe editions" that add some glitter and a track or two to the digital downloads of boring records. Norah Jones' new deluxe edition of her fine 2021 album I Dream Of Christmas is the real deal. The original album offered an even mix of charming Jones originals and slightly-off-the beaten-path covers, and the new version adds a whole 'nother album of studio outtakes and live tracks - one of them, surprisingly, the previously unreleased title track! By the time she released I Dream Of Christmas, Jones already had an album's worth of holiday-themed singles and one-offs in the bag. So, now she's got roughly three - and she's making a good case for herself as the hipster Queen of Christmas. Take that, Mariah!

Jane Monheit / The Merriest (2022)
This is turning out to be a banner year for fans of comely, talented female jazz singers. In addition to the aforementioned efforts by Norah Jones, Kat Edmonson, and relative elder stateswoman Holly Cole, Jane Monheit is treating us to her second full-length holiday album, The Merriest. Her first, The Season, was released back in 2005 and is considered a minor classic among the café crowd. The Merriest offers much the same program - mostly modern classics interpreted through Monheit's jazz-tinged lens. Highlights include the title track (first recorded by June Christy in 1961), (Christmas) Stay With Me (first recorded by Nancy Lamott in 1994), and a duet with John Pizzarelli on the timeless romantic query, "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?"

Buck Owens / Christmas (1965) and Christmas Shopping (1968)
For fans of Buck Owens, the dearly departed patron saint of Bakersfield country music, the last few years have brought an embarrassment of riches, with a slew of LP reissues and CD compilations from high-octane labels like Omnivore, Real Gone Music, and Sundazed. It's the latter that brings Buck's pair of 60's holiday classics back to vinyl. Both are perfect, though Christmas is a little more perfect than Christmas Shopping, and Sundazed's editions come in red and green wax, respectively. That said, if you, like me, are still into compact discs, I cannot recommend Omnivore's 2020 reissue A Merry "Hee Haw" Christmas too highly. It includes the complete contents of both albums, plus more.

Andy Partridge / My Failed Christmas Career: Vol. 1 (EP)
XTC eccentric Andy Partridge's My Failed Christmas Career is the biggest news of the holiday season so far - at least for fellow eccentrics like me. It's just an EP, though - four songs written for other artists but (mostly) never recorded. Andy's typically droll, lamentably discreet liner notes don't disclose the artists for whom he wrote the tracks - all of whom rejected the songs (hence, the "failed" part of the album title). The fourth song, "Unwrap You At Christmas," was originally written for a woman, but it was later covered by the Monkees on their 2018 Christmas Party, which Andy admits "delighted me to no end." My Failed Christmas Career is part of Andy's ongoing "Failed Songwriting Career" series, so we can probably count on a second volume - maybe next year?

Top 25 Singles

Well, Christmas is almost here, and the singles are falling like snowflakes in Buffalo. Here's my list of the best - with special mention of "Pakylėtas Gruodis" by Evgenya Redko, which sounds like the great Chic Christmas song that Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards never wrote. It may be better than all 25 listed below, but it's in Lithuanian, and I can't understand a word of it. Anyway, here they are - in alphabetical order by artist.

Album Reissues

New Albums

Singles & Tracks

Previous Years. We've been compiling this "what's new?" list for awhile, going back to 2003 (Gary Hoey, Jackson 5), 2004 (Chris Isaak, Dwight Twilley), 2005 (Diana Krall, Brian Setzer), 2006 (Aimee Mann, Bootsy Collins), 2007 (Smithereens, Darlene Love), 2008 (Weezer, Pretenders), 2009 (Bob Dylan, Los Straitjackets), 2010 (James Brown, Shelby Lynne), 2011 (Killers, Carole King), 2012 (Rod Stewart, Polyphonic Spree), 2013 (Salsoul Orchestra, Nick Lowe), 2014 (Blue Rodeo, Earth Wind & Fire), 2015 (Sharon Jones, Brian Setzer), 2016 (Loretta Lynn, Frankie Valli), 2017 (Gwen Stefani, Beatles), 2018 (Eric Clapton, Old 97's), 2019 (Los Lobos, Ramsey Lewis), and 2020 (Goo Goo Dolls, Buck Owens), and 2021 (Amanda Shires, Lucinda Williams).

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