H-HO WHO: With their ebullient, over-the-top compositions, The Polyphonic Spree has had the market cornered on 20-plus-member symphonic indie pop since 2000. The ensembles live shows already feel like a nondenominational church service of sorts, with a robe-clad choir singing ever-swelling praise of "the sun" rather than "the Son." If anyone can put the más [...]
HO-HO-WHO?: Toronto's Fucked Up, the often unprintable critical darlings who have dominated year-end best-of-lists with the audacious punk epic David Comes to Life.
YEAR OF THE REINDEER: Fucked Up is no stranger to the Christmas single, proving that the ferocious band has a heart—this year's split 7-inch with Sloan will benefit COUNTERfit Harm Reduction Program and the [...]
HO-HO-WHO: A sparkly holiday assortment of post-punk/rock lifers. On assignment from The Onion's A.V. Club, Office of Future Plans wisely drafted Damon Locks (Trenchmouth, The Eternals) to front a, uh, Christmasy cover of Dead Kennedys' "Holiday in Cambodia." The performance is part of the site's Holiday Undercover series, which tapes indie-rock bands playing Christmas covers at A.V. [...]
HO HO WHO: A helium-voiced synth-pop outsider with a remarkably well-footnoted Wikipedia page.
THE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING: Y'know how the American spirit encourages creativity, spontaneity and individualism? Well, sometimes those conditions foster genius. And sometimes we get a UFO Phil.
HO-HO-WHO: Scott Weiland has been a staple of modern rock radio for the better part of two decades, first with Stone Temple Pilots and then in the Slash-aided supergroup Velvet Revolver. In a move both baffling and easily rationalized (“Bowie did it, man”), Weiland has become the latest grunge-era crooner to try his hand at [...]
HO HO WHO: "The Little Drummer Boy," in its purest iteration, is a song about a young man who, at the urging of the Magi, offers his dope beats to the baby Jesus. Replace the Magi with Usher and the baby Jesus with the Internet and you have a pretty accurate representation of why culture [...]
HO HO WHO: Some of the most highly regarded smart guys in D.C.'s indie-pop underground, The Caribbean. "What Child Is This" is their contribution to the never ending beginning, the free 2011 Christmas compilation by their label, Hometapes.
WHAT THE HELL IS THAT? Why, it's a complete reworking of the beloved 19th century English hymn by [...]
Ho Ho Who: It's Otis Redding. If you don't know who he is, you're probably just reading a blog post about pop music because you're getting paid to leave a spammy link in the comments. Released in 1968, the year after Redding died in a plane crash, this Christmas covers single never charted. But it [...]
HO HO WHO: She: doe-eyed manic pixie dream girl whose new Fox sitcom re-ushered "adorkable" into the cultural lexicon. Him: earnest singer-songwriter on Merge Records whose lo-fi ditties double as car-advertisement jingles. Together, they are She & Him, whose new album, A Very She & Him Christmas, is guaranteed to soundtrack every ugly Christmas sweater [...]
HO HO WHO: Two kids from Florida who might be the manifest destiny of the Disney-fication of America. D.J. Monopoli is the guy. Sabrina Abu-Obeid is the girl. Together they are TeraBrite. They desperately want to entertain you. If emo isn't already dead, they're going to smother it in hugs. That's right, emo's last breath [...]
