From all of us at Allston Pudding, we hope you enjoy your holiday season. We’ve prepared this holiday playlist so that it might soundtrack your lame 3 and a half hour drive to upstate New York or Christmas morning or fish dinner or Chinese food brunch. So keep the change you filthy animal.
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Joe Sansone
“Christmas at the Zoo” – The Flaming Lips
Run The Jewels’ El-P and Killer Mike released the year’s best Christmas song, “A Christmas Fucking Miracle”. Unfortunately Spotify doesn’t have Run The Jewels, so enjoy The Flaming Lips.
Sam Terris
“Christmas in a Chinese Restaurant” – Diamond Rugs
Maybe this song doesn’t capture the festive cheer the way some of the other tunes do, but still, it’s a fun singalong especially beside a blazing fire and some eggnog.
Bianca Rullo
“Christmas Party” – Dr. Dog
In terms of spreading cheer this holiday season, no act tops Philly psych rockers Dr. Dog, who just released a radical four-song EP Oh My Christmas Tree that sends 100% of its proceeds to Feeding America. This track is filled with enough upbeat whimsy to get through holiday shopping and awkward family gatherings without the spiked eggnog.
Jeeyoon Kim
“Goodbye England (Covered In Snow)” – Laura Marling
This track off of Marling’s I Speak Because I Can (2010) is timeless. Whenever I press play, I’m rosy cheeked, laying in a blanket of fresh snow and I crack a smile. Marling weaves a story about saying goodbye to love, the still frames that will never fade from memory, and taking on the new. It’s a little bitter, definitely blue, but surprisingly sweet – just as the winter has always been for me.
Mark Zurlo
“100 Resolutions ” – The Lawrence Arms
Had your fill of the holidays? Ready to put 2013 in the rear-view mirror? Give this track a listen and you’ll have all the motivation you need to make 2014 your best year yet.
Christine Varriale
“Christmas in Harlem” – Kanye West feat. Teyana Taylor and Cyhi the Prynce
Kanye West kicks his love of consumerism (but not the ladies) aside in this jolly Christmas tune with help from Harlem-native Teyana Taylor, who you might remember of “Google Me” fame. Cyhi the Prynce thinks he’s too cool to celebrate Christmas with his family in Atlanta and decides to stay and hang out with ‘Ye. Can you blame him?
Sharon Weissburg
“Used to Be” – Beach House
This time of year is less about Christmas for me (we’re a latke family) and more about seeing old friends, watching the snow fall, and driving around my hometown at night for hours. This early Beach House track captures the particular, anxious, twinkling malaise of winter break and all its nostalgia.
Adam Parshall
“I Won’t Be Home For Christmas” – Blink 182
I defy you to find another band that should not be on this blog as much as Blink 182. That being said, this song rules. I heard it as an impressionable 6th grader in the back of our family minivan, and it’s stuck with me ever since. Probably not the best message to give to an 11-year old, of a dude going nuts and going to jail on Christmas, only to have prison fun with Bubba, but what the hell.
Lisa Battiston
“Oi to the World” – No Doubt
I’m not sufficiently holiday’d until I’ve Oi’d along with No Doubt’s cover of this unity-friendly Vandals’ song. Its lyrics appeal to my Let’s All Get Along sensibilities, too, a sentiment that especially swells within my checkerboard heart in December. And that bass line a minute and a half in? Love.
Nick Canton
“8 Days of Christmas” – Destiny’s Child
Has anyone heard from Beyoncé Knowles lately? Does anyone know if she’s doing okay? Show some support and send some Spotify money her way…
Ellie Molitor
“Yule Shoot Your Eye Out” – Fall Out Boy
I dedicate this bad btch to cruising around the suburbs with my best pals, general puberty, these hats, and heading home in a few days to remember it all a little better.
Jarrett Carr
“We’ve Only Just Begun” – Carpenters
only cry to this song.